Last week Jay-Z and Kanye West’s collaborative album, Watch The Throne, saw its official digital release. Ratings and criticism aside, it is as much boastful as it is homage. A collection of today’s most innovative producers, all under the watchful eye of West, generously co-opt classic funk and soul — the back backbone of hip hop. The first single, “Otis”, heavily samples “Try a Little Tenderness” by the song’s namesake. “New Day”, produced by the RZA, twists Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” into a psychedelic piano-laced dreamscape. If for nothing else, Watch The Throne is a display of sampling panache.
On the sixth track, “That’s My Bitch”, Tribe Called Quest visionary Q Tip and the rest of West’s production group use the break from “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band, a familiar, if not cliché sample. Perhaps second to the “Amen” break, the “Apache” break is hip hop, rap, and dance music’s endless recyclable. From the Sugarhall Gang’s “Apache” to Nas’ “Made You Look”, artists have taken the rolling, punchy drum segment and used it as a back beat. Some, like Faboy Slim, keep to original title. Others, including Madonna, Vanilla Ice, and the Roots, go for reinvention, changing the name of the song and the sample’s utility. Regardless, it is a standard; the closest hip hop, rap, and dance come to the blues scale or three chord progression.
In light of such ubiquity, Q Tip and West’s producing team do their best to inventively appropriate the “Apache” break. Dark synths color the melody while an electronic drum kit holds the beat. Only at the chorus does the classic break pair with the new drum sound, and by that point the song posses its own character. The contrast of the playful sample with the foreboding instrumentation makes something upbeat but sinister, like a fast paced montage in a gangster film.
So while “That’s My Bitch” may not be an entirely original track, it is a clever attempt to connect the past to the present. It shows West’s attempt to be the definitive successor to hip hop’s forebears while also reminding us of the enduring elasticity of the “Apache” break.
