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Hip-Hop Songs That Sample Classical Music (ft. Nas, Meek Mill, A+, Tory Lanez)
A+ - Enjoy Yourself (1998) A song from 1998 -- I remember seeing this video on MTV in Israel (I was 11 or 12 at the time). It is one of the earliest hip-hop songs I ever liked -- along with Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill and Hard Knock Life by Jay-Z (I still remember sitting on the couch in our apartment in Ramat-Gan and seeing the street move in Lauryn's video). The very first "real hip-hop" song I heard was Changes by 2Pac, introduced to me by arch-nemesis in class -- the leader of the popular kids (kind of reminds me...
Ryan Leslie Explains How He Makes More Now without a Major Label (Pt. 2)
The night I wrote my first Ryan Leslie post, I texted it to my buddy Brandon. He was the one who originally showed me Ryan's beatmaking videos more than a decade ago. He replies, "did you see my IG story today?" I go on his profile -- and see the last thing he posted -- a snippet of a Ryan Leslie interview. What more -- Ryan had reposted Brandon's post to HIS story. That's crazy. Brandon (also known as BC when he raps) teaches middle school math in Compton. He's probably the best math teacher in his district, partially because he knows how to...
Ryan Leslie Explains How He Makes More Now without a Major Label (Pt. 1)
The first time I learned the name Ryan Leslie was when my buddy Brandon showed me a sweet beatmaking video back in my dorm at UCLA where he was seen recording a cup full of coins for a hi-hat in a song (I'll embed it below). "This guys is sick. Watch this," he said -- I'm paraphrasing. And it was sick. We loved watching producers doing their thing. We were making our own music at the time and looked up to great beatmakers. Then I found out the dude was the producer of Cassie's "Me & U", a banger from the early 2000's...