I came back to this one in a funny way. I was looking for a good cover of Mystic Brew by Ronnie Foster for a class playlist, and came across this cover by The Visioneers that I really really like. I'll write a post about that later. As I was scrolling through the discography of The Visioneers, I realized they did other covers of songs covered by hip hop artists (like Smilin' Billy Suite which was used by Nas on the Illmatic track, One Love). I also saw they did a cover of Runnin', which makes sense given the samba-like instrumentation (I can't say that with authority--I really don't know samba music) but I didn't like it as much. I'm surprised they didn't cover the source of the sample, as in their other songs, which in this case would be Saudade Vem Correndo by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa. Maybe the sample was too small a portion, or the song just not of interest.
Anyway, feeling like I remembered the original "Runnin'" having something that this cover didn't I pulled it up and gave it a listen. Man. The drums are so strong. And there's just so many layers, between the scratching, the throwing of voices, the actual hook ("Can't keep runnin' awayyyyyyy"), and the rapping--the song is amazing. I love trying to listen to only the kick drums--it feels rhythmic and unpredictable at once. And the way it blends with the base when it drops, melts into the rest of the track, but is still operating its polyrhythmic heartbeat.
Listening to it again this morning I was overwhelmed by the composition. Everything I named above, and the guitar, the shaker that sounds like a pant-during-running together are just so powerful. It is truly incredible that human beings were able to make this.
Amid so much uncertainty in the world, and as I grow older and just appreciate how much I don't know, the music comes to me with complete reality and immediacy. It just is. It's a fact. And the way it animates me--it makes me feel in touch with some kind of concreteness about myself. Not unchanging, or rigid, but some actuality. Something that's not an abstraction, not an opinion, something about me that is, and is alive. Listening to it, I thought of the Kurt Vonnegut quote “Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God." Amen. And to extend it, let's be grateful to the prophets past and present who let us hear that existence (if that's how we understand it), particularly in this case, J Dilla, producer and composer, a 20 year old black man from a musical family in Detroit.
Here's Runnin' by The Pharcyde
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