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It didn't matter if it was a tribute or to honor something from the past, you just didn't to it. That was the lazy way to make music, and you were often ignored or passed up as a waste.
Can one get the same feeling from hearing Tom Scott's "Today"? No. Before 1992, Tom Scott was just that smooth jazz guy who got lucky by being the bandleader of a late night talk show. For most people in hip-hop, he was as washed up as most people thought James Brown was. Hip-hop saved his name from being the guy whose records you always saw in the dollar bin. Yes, Tom Scott had a few other records that had a few beats here and there, but "Today" is nothing more than a sunshine jazz/pop cover of a psychedelic rock song. It was "cheese". What Pete Rock (or Large Professor, depending on whose side of the story you believe) did with that sample was make something very insignificant into something that honored family and friends. There was a lot of pride in that, without getting into production or sample politics.
Before people knew that sample was Tom Scott, that was just the cool song when, as soon as you heard The Beginning Of The End sample, you stopped. No one had to say anything, that too was almost unspoken. Forget hardcore, forget gangsta, forget East Coast, West Coast, ATL, mid-west, Philly: everyone stopped when that song came. That was honor, that was integrity.
Now, is all of that really important and/or necessary? We, as hip-hop fans, want to say yes. There was a community from a certain time period who became very protective of that song because of what the content within that song meant. It was very much a eulogy not only about friends, but about the passing of time, the marking of time, from youth to being grown. Many people felt that song not just because it honored a friend, because it seemed as a collective, everyone felt that transition. Looking back, it was as if we all felt as if we were all growing older "as one". Forget the fact that most of "us" didn't connection, we felt the music was global because that's what magazines and TV told us. The internet proved it. Which leads me to the question once more...
Now, is all of that really important and/or necessary? In a way, no. In other forms of music, to cover someone means you're honoring the song. Sometimes, the songwriter. Sometimes, the original singer, or the singer that made it famous. When people sing "Killing Me Softly", very few think of Lori Lieberman. It's all about Roberta Flack because she made it hers. Lieberman herself didn't write the song. Joan Jett's "I Love Rock'N'Roll"? Jett didn't write that either, but it is "hers". Do we, as fans, become selfish in the process of being over-protective by something as silly as a song? Then again, hip-hop was very much about originality. When you paid homage, it was in passing, like a casual dap. In music, that might be equal to Posdnuos saying a line such as "like my man, Chuck D., said, "what a brother know". Prince Paul didn't use "Get Off Your Ass And Jam" to create that De La Soul song, nor did Pos interpolate Chuck D.'s verse in "Bring The Noise". It was homage, equal to what jazz, rock, soul, and funk musicians have done for years.
"T.R.O.Y." is hip-hop's "Killing Me Softly". Before The Fugees, no one ever thought of touching it. Jazz musicians, easy listening, of course, but that's part of the music industry norm: to keep the royalty funds active. When people heard Lupe touch on the vibe that made "T.R.O.Y." what it is, it was looked upon *by some* as "the music industry norm, nothing more than something to catch the ear/attention of people who know, and thus it renews and recycles the same old thing for the sake of making money. Yes, one can also ask "but isn't that exactly what Pete Rock did too?" Again, Tom Scott was a saxophonist whose music was deemed shit. That record (Scott's HONEYSUCKLE BREEZE) was a dollar bin album. Now? Try to find it under $20. Try to find it.
Bottom line is: it shows the differences between one generation and another. One generation lives by the creed of not covering a song. It also knew the difference between covering, sampling, and interpolating. Producers knew, fans learned but understood, there was a healthy exchange. If you wished to know, you seeked that information. Those who didn't care... didn't care. A generation of hip-hop was built on the premise of creating from scratch. The Lupe song came off to some as nothing more than "ooh, I'm going to rhyme off of T.R.O.Y., let's do this."
Any different from any rapper doing it on a mixtape, rhyming over it at a live show, or using the record during a freestyle on the radio? Absolutely not. Even if you take Pete Rock out of the equation, it's almost as if people are wanting to place value into what Lupe Fiasco is doing. You're going to have Lupe fans going "that beat is dope, that's the hot shit right there" and on the flipside, others saying "Lupe was done five years ago, fuck his shit, that only helps to burn the integrity he never really had in the first place." In the process, we're all talking about this song. Even though people are blasting Lupe for it, he's winning by everyone promoting it without having to pay for the services.
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