I’m in the process of coming up with a list of remixes that totally crushed the album version. I can think of a few off the top of my head, one of which will only be on the list because a good friend of mine believes it to be so, but Give The People by EPMD is number one on the list. The album version, which basically jacks the track of “Give The People What They Want” by the O’Jays, is alright…it’s serviceable, but nothin spectacular. Especially being on the album, Business As Usual. But the Erick and Parrish mix, which is the version you hear on the video? Vintage Erick Sermon. Which means you hear UFO by LSG. Way, way, in the cut, under it all is the guitar lick from AWB’s School Boy Crush. And this time, they only used the best part of “Give The People.” This is what a remix is supposed to do — even without doing anything to the lyrics.
Speaking of which, Parrish’s first verse here strikes me as being particularly appropriate now.
As airwaves collapse rap shows at a standstill
Some racial circuits the frequencies can’t handle
The funk tracks produced by me and the E-D
But it’s a fat jam, that will never win a grammy
Unless we sellout and kill the black movement dead
Which means swallow our pride and become flunkies instead
And stop the rap about freedom, thoughts of a black president
And rap about a black crack, the mayor in our residence
Give me a break brothers, it’s time to take a stand
And kill that no sir, yes sir, and thank you ma’am
Cuz the word ‘if’ is a luxury a black man can’t afford
That’s why poverty’s on the rise and we still ignored
And it’s a setback and yet the clock still ticks
And if we let it, rap would be run by politics
I read it somewhere that every man’s created equal
But not in this day and age, maybe in the sequel
Which means next time, so observe these rhymes
And take a stand and go for yours cause I’m going for mine
That’s why I
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