Can’t Take No More: Babylon sampling mania!

Holy soundsystem culture convergence, Batman!

Lots of sampling and rejigging of the classic film Babylon going on at the moment. Aswad’s “Warrior Charge” tune is of course the sonic conrnerstone of the film.

It features on Dizzee’s Rascal’s latest album (which I have previously yacked about here) alongside Brinsley Forde’s “Can’t Take No More of That” chant from the climactic final scene of the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF3CDRw-sJI

The tune is produced by Shy FX, so it’s a nice meeting of Grime and Jungle dons.

Kevin Martin has been playing the original “Warrior Charge” out in his sets as The Bug with Flowdan over the top.

And now Brinsley has teamed up with top producer Curtis Lynch on a Babylon inspired riddim also:

 

Check it out at Necessary Mayhem or Dub Vendor.

Of course, people who have checked my Babylon subsite will know that the first use of this sample was by ‘ardkore merchants Satin Storm way back in 1991:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRTFSUAwUJ8

So that’s a little UK soundsystem meme for you right there!

18 Comments

  3. Even a Rebel MC Sample when Blue getting Cased by the Police and there catch up with him. Taking From The Film early 90’s too

  6. Hello – regarding other samples from Babylon, I am about 75% sure that Asian Dub Foundation had one also on their LP ‘Facts and Fictions’, of the robber shouting ‘it’s survival!’. I can’t remember which track that was right now.

  8. These tunes are ok — but do they really add anything new to the genre? It’s difficult to see the point of them — they sound identical to tunes I heard many years ago.

    These genres seem to be reverting, going backwards to a deep conservatism rather than fulfilling their original ‘mission’, which was surely the opposite intention.

    To me, the whole genre and related genres are becoming like the absolute conservative bastion of heavy metal — Attitude wise, it’s all very Iron Maiden instead of Jimi Hendrix, or it’s The Exploited instead of the early punk bands’ attitudes.

  9. PS My above post is also an answer to earlier posts on ‘what was good and bad about reggae in 2009.’

    My words are not a flame, or weasel words — just an honest response.

  10. Nag, you sound just like an old nag mate — Let me tell from a yout perspektive, that Dubstep, Grime etc, have taken that big people’s dub to another plane.

    What do you want then Nag, old skool orthodoxy? No offence, but you show your age — For a start, Dizzee Raskal man dem keeping it real with his reality lyrics and all. That’s, like, reality radio for the youth dem, man, all ova Pekham and Hackney Post Code way, and when man dem buss shot like rice, man dem don’t step in anotha man post code, ya hear me, and man like Dizee speak trut in da lyrics.

    So, is taking the forms to another place. That’s probably a place that you don’t understand, so you diss what you don’t know, which is always the way; part of evolution innit?

    Now rewind the Dizee tune man cos bwoy, that’s rough. Nuff man out there got Dizee’s name in their lyrical swing an ting when they chat to respec tha ghetto.

    RockasHiya

  11. Dear Rockas,

    well, I am not going to argue with you since at my age that would be pointless, but I should just say that I’d take the 1960’s output of the Silver Apples any day of the week rather than the questionable records of dear Dizee, since arguing over post codes — whether said post codes be in Peckham or in the Valley of the Kings — has never really been a top priority for me.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDk-PGRMMw4

  12. It’s sampled on Waddada’s ‘Empiyah’ 12 inch. ‘Norman, where you think you are? Trenchtown? This is Brixton!’.

  13. I checked those Wadada tunes, and admittedly, they aren’t bad , but I just want to wilfully play both sides of the argument here ( well isn’t that better than just mindlessly writing “chunnne’ or “heavy bassssss” here? ).

    The problem is, that these dub step tunes and related genres ( and to a lesser degree, so many ‘new UK digi dubs’ of the previous ten years ) just inevitably end up using samples of ‘real Rasta’ voices in a talismanic sense, to add ‘authenticity’ and ‘genuine depth’ to their tunes — But in so many ( esp dubstep and new euro dub ) cases,if you remove and take away the samples from the records — then I wonder what you have left? Some cold synth sweeps that bring to mind London ( or any other European inner city ) in the winter? Some sirens which are again, talismanic, in that they are taken wholesale from another cultures’ inventiveness? A heavy bass ( which anyone with a computer can create) ? A drum machine heavily echoed?

    Again, anyone messing around on a computer can do most of that.

    It all becomes like picking over the bones and left overs of another cultures’ inventiveness — but wanting to take all the kudos and accolades that the original artists truly deserve.

    Yeah, a lot of the newer artists’ records do sound alright, and yes, the bass lines are evocative,and I can’t help but like a lot of it — but I don’t know — there’s just too much which sounds like stealing other people’s fire and creativity to me.

    Even the name, Wadada, is borrowed from Rasta, and even the reified central motif — B-R-I-X-T-O-N — is largely another culture’s creative domain, again, fetishised by the artist, the so called Wadada.

    Dub step and related genres are by no means as Promethean as they pretend to be.

    As I said, I just want to wilfully play both sides of the argument here — but none of these records sound anywhere near as inventive as the original Jamaican artists and European electronic ‘out there’ artists sounded between say, 1965 — 1985.

    None of ’em.

  16. thanks for all the comments on this and the lively discussion – sorry I’ve not really chipped in so far but I’ve been up to my eyes in stuff this last few weeks.

  18. not sure if you know about this one but “The Sagas Of Klashnekoff”
    BY RICOCHET KLASHNEKOFF samples a scene from Babylon.

    – djcarlito

Comments are closed.