HAS A SONG EVER MADE YOU FEEL GANGSTA?
Think about that for a second. Cuz, in most cases the rapper you’re listening too is trying REALLY HARD.
WELL, this track could be the MOST gangsta song EVER written.
WHO? WHAT? HOW?
Listen to this:
Spinning records can leave you memorized….
About two years ago, I bailed out of Edmonton just before the summer and escaped into my Grandmas back bedroom at her residence in Vancouver. She made me get a job, so I did part time shifts at Rogers Video (lol) up the street. I spent every other spare second sitting in my room on my KORG Triton writing, making beats and practicing keys. I was in preparation to take on the world!
Naturally, I would take breaks in the backyard while laying under the hot Vancouver sun listening to 70′s funk (my fave) on my ipod. It was the ultimate inspiration at the time for the beats I was creating.
William Devaughn was it for me – I had this on repeat. It was the dopest vibe I could find at that moment, and the lyrics echoed.
Story goes….Mr. Devaughn recorded tha track for like $900 in the summer of 1973. It blew up and hit the number 1 spot on the charts selling over 2 million singles (not that I knew this at the time.)
I just dug how GANGSTA it made me feel.
Even the lyrics had the words:
“sunroof down, diggin the scene with the gangsta lean….gangsta white walls”
Turns out the dude was a devout Jevoha’s Whitness, and after the song exploded released a full record with strong religious undertones. The people couldn’t get into it, and he kinda faded away.
But this track still lives on:
Dig this reggae remake by Winston Curtis.
Mr. Devaughn even tried to re-capture the magic with his own 1980 remake (minus the dancing girl in the vid).
ICE CUBE sampled it most recently
But I like the way LUDACRIS did it better
We even pumped this track a bit when SEX-ED was chillin’ in L.A. a couple months back.
He maybe stumbled upon it, but the guy wrote a timeless GANGSTA classic, that inspired a generation of pimps and playas.
Well done.
-ZF
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Tags: Be thankful for what you got, dig this to smoke to, Ice Cube aint that great no more, pump this track on a hot summer day, William Devaugn was truly a GANGSTA