“Reasonable Doubt,” Deconstructed by Dan Love (Part III)
April 29th, 2009
All Reasonable Doubt samples in one zip: here. All posts rolled into one: here. Dan Love runs this fiefdom: here.
‘Ain’t No Nigga’
The Whole Darn Family – ‘Seven Minutes Of Funk’
From Has Arrived (Soul International, 1976)
Unavailable.
Four Tops – ‘Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I Got)’
From Keeper Of The Castle (ABC, 1972)
The relationship between Jay-Z and Big Jaz extends well beyond this contribution on Reasonable Doubt. The mentor to a young Sean Carter in the late ‘80s, Jaz released the classic, “The Originators” in 1989, providing Jay with his first taste of the spotlight seven years prior to seeing a full-length release.
Featuring Foxy Brown and earning prominent product placement on the surprisingly solid, Nutty Professor SDTK, “Ain’t No Nigga’ was the most commercially successful single from RD, charting at 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales. Thanks to a shared sample source from The Whole Darn Family’s “Seven Minutes of Funk,” comparisons with EPMD’s ‘It’s My Thing’ are obvious. Incorporating two distinct two-bar sequences from the source material, Big Jaz’s manipulations are limited, but given the song’s stripped down aesthetic, too much fiddling would have destroyed the addictively funky groove. With an interpolation of the Four Tops’ “Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I Got)” inspiring the hook, “Ain’t No Nigga,” attests to the clean and simple aesthetic that threads much of Reasonable Doubt.
