Written by: Ronnie Prado
On September 16, 1979, a group of small-time New Jersey musicians released a song that would usher a whole new era of music into mainstream American culture. The group was called The Sugar Hill Gang, and the song “Rappers Delight” was the first of its kind to make it into the Top 40 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The song’s success would establish Rap as a genre, while establishing an industry standard of sampling previously released songs in order to form the beats for rap tracks.
Every artist in the Rap industry uses sampling in their songs, however, the complexity of the sampling on a given track can vary from song to song. For example, Eminem’s 1999 hit “My Name Is” employs a more minimalist version sampling from only one track, Labi Siffre’s 1975 song “I Got The…”. Meanwhile Tupac’s iconic “California Love” contains samples from three different tracks: Joe Cocker’s “Woman to Woman,” Zapp’s “Dance Floor,” and Ronnie Hundson & The Street People’s “West Coast Poplock.”
Growing up on the East Coast, as a Rap fan who identifies as Puerto Rican, it was somewhat inevitable that I would become a fan of the late great Big Pun. So, in this blog post we will be diving into the layers that came together one of his most famous tracks “Still Not a Player.”
As previously mentioned every rap song varies in the number of songs sampled within it, in the case of “Still Not a Player” we find three different songs: Brenda Russell’s “A Little Bit of Love,” Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “Brazilian Rhyme,” and Joe’s “Don’t Wanna Be a Player.” But how do each of these songs fit into Big Puns 1998 smash hit?
Well let’s begin by looking at the oldest track of the group Brenda Russell’s 1975 song “A Little Bit of Love.” Anyone who is familiar with “Still Not a Player,” will recognize traces of its iconic melody, within the first few seconds of listening to Russell’s track. As the song plays one can hear where Pun’s producers clipped different pieces of Russell’s melody and played with tempo to transform it into that catchy piano riff which has become recognizable to any old school hip-hop fan.
Moving on, to Earth, Wind, & Fire’s “Brazilian Rhyme” deciphering this tracks place in the overall picture becomes a lot more difficult. If the listener pays close attention to the beat of the song, around 35 seconds in they will find the percussion that resembles the beat of found in Puns track. This cut is even deeper than the previous one and requires great attention, but if you listen hard enough things begin to fall into place.
The most Iconic part of the song finds its roots in RnB artist Joe’s 1997 track “Don’t Wanna Be a Player” which lends it that Earworm of a hook, which makes the song instantly recognizeable to so many. Of course Joe changed the lyrics from the original “Don’t wanna be a player no more/I think I found someone I could live my life for/Don’t wanna be a player no more/I think I found someone I could live my life for (listen, girl)/I’m yours, you’re mine, for sure,” to fit the asthetic Pun was going for, “I don’t wanna be a player no more/But Big Punisher still got what you’re lookin’ for/ (Don’t wanna be, don’t wanna be)/I don’t wanna be a player no more/But you know Big Pun and Joe still down by law/Who’s down to fuck tonight?”
I hope you enjoyed this dive into the world of Big Pun’s “Still Not a Player” I have linked the URL to a playlist that includes all the songs mentioned here, so that you can have a cohesive listen on your own time. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ujYnN0HJli5238MavEZr1?si=57b59d4699a441e2
Featured Image Caption: Cover of Big Pun’s “Capital Punishment” album