Culture

Singer Joe Cocker's unlikely influence on hip-hop

A 1972 track would become the basis of some of hip-hop’s most notable tracks from EPMD and Ultramagnetic MCs to one of Tupac’s greatest hits
Joe Cocker’s funk classic Woman To Woman became a go-to sample for hip-hop producers throughout the 80s and 90s.
Joe Cocker’s funk classic Woman To Woman became a go-to sample for hip-hop producers throughout the 80s and 90s. Photograph: WALTER BIERI/Associated Press

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One track from Joe Cocker’s eponymous 1972 album would go on to have an unlikely second life. His funk classic Woman To Woman became a go-to sample for hip-hop producers throughout the 80s and 90s, who used the piano hook and horn stab to provide the backbone for some of hip-hop’s most influential tracks.

Ultramagnetic MCs – Funky

Kool Keith and the rest of the Ultramagnetic MCs used Woman To Woman not once but twice. They first sampled the track in 1987 on Funky taking the piano sample of Woman to Woman and dropping it in between verses and a skit about being late to meet a girlfriend. It helped the group get signed for their first album Critical Beatdown, which would set the standard for sampling in late 80s hip-hop. The group also used it in their quick fire cut’n’paste track Blast From The Past, which sewed together some of their biggest hits.

EPMD – Knick Knack Patty Wack

Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, used Cocker’s track on their playground-inspired track, Knick Knack Patty Wack. It appeared on their seminal 1989 album Unfinished Business. EPMD used the same piano and horn sample as Ultramagnetic MCs, but unlike them they let the sample play out almost uninterrupted, only chopping it up slightly in the intro.

Tupac feat Dr Dre – California Love

Joe Cocker inadvertantly helped to create one of the most iconic west coast hip-hop tracks of all time, when Dr Dre sampled Woman To Woman on the Tupac track California Love. The 1996 track helped introduce Tupac into the mainstream. It also signaled that Dre was still a force in hip-hop after his 1992 album the Chronic. Complimented by the Talk Box vocal of the chorus, the sample turned the track into a club banger in the same way that Bill Withers’ Grandma’s Hands was tweaked by Teddy Riley on Blackstreet’s No Diggity. The piano isn’t too far away from Dre’s comeback anthem Still D.R.E. either.

Quasimoto – Astro Black

Stones Throw record’s resident shapeshifter used Woman To Woman in a more avant garde way on his 2000 album The Unseen. Reimagining the sample until it was barely recognisable, at first in the intro to the track where he covers it in distortion and then again in the outro where he chops’n’screws it until it crawls along at a snail’s pace, sounding dirgey and unlike anything that had come before. Not surprising for an artist who is widely believed to be an alias for Madlib.

Maino – We Keep It Rockin’

The Brooklyn MC, who is currently in hot water over a video which allegedly glorifies cop killing, sampled not only Cocker but Tupac as well, taking the west coast anthem and reclaiming it for the east coast. Swizz Beatz, Jim Jones and Jadakiss are also featured on the track that came out in March 2011.
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