Labi Siffre quietly detonated a funk time bomb that wouldn’t go off for another quarter of a century back in 1975.
I Got The… opens Remember My Song with that sly, strolling electric-piano lick, the kind of groove that makes you wonder why every other musician on earth didn’t think of it first. It’s deceptively simple, monstrously effective, and, as history proved, absolutely irresistible to anyone with an MPC within arm’s reach.
Fast-forward to the late ’90s and hip-hop’s golden-age producers start circling Siffre’s catalogue like archaeologists chasing a rumour. Dr. Dre lifts that iconic bass-and-keys riff for Eminem’s My Name Is, and suddenly a dusty British soul record becomes one of the most recognisable loops of the era. Jay-Z got there earlier on Streets Is Watching, mining a different seam of the same track — proof that I Got The… isn’t just sample-friendly, it’s sample-fertile.
And then there’s Siffre himself — refusing clearance until the uglier, lazier lyrical jabs were scrubbed out, as if to remind the entire music industry that ethics aren’t optional when you’re borrowing someone else’s soul. That’s the real twist: the man behind one of hip-hop’s most ubiquitous loops insisting that art, even when chopped and screwed, still answers to conscience.
Nearly fifty years on, I Got The… stands exactly where Wilson would’ve wanted it: right at the crossroads of past and future, the old tune that became new again, the quiet masterpiece that shaped half a generation without ever raising its voice.
And now, 50 years on Sweden’s disco messiahs from Drop Out Orchestra throw down a rework that not only honors everything magnificent in the original, they lift it to soaring heights with a 12″ worthy offering that carves in stone exactly why nobody stands beside DOO when it comes to the art of reworking funk classics.
Inko’s bass and guitar is sublime, and Daniel’s knack for structuring these extra large undertakings is nothing less than spectacular.
