Jonah Bromwich doesn’t
The Internet’s going nuts over the new Miguel album and though I don’t have a verdict on it yet, I do want to remind everyone who posted the video for Miguel’s “Do You,” about two other, arguably better, historical songs named “Do You.”
I was reminded of the first by Jason Edwards, so props to him. Slum Village’s version of “Do You” features a classic Dilla beat, an interesting hybrid between the pointed SV beats of old and a little bit of the shuddering sample and flattened drums that Dilla would eventually favor. And though this song comes courtesy of Slum Village Redux (meaning that Elzhi is present instead of the late Baatin), there’s no use complaining when a rapper as proficient as El is present on a beat like this.
But the SV comes in a distant second when compared to the Do or Die version. This song was crafted from a kind of raw smoothness that we just don’t have available to us anymore, a quality that was only available back in the nineties — a byproduct of some Chicago online start-up that Do or Die were prescient enough to harvest and cut with their absurdly catchy voices.
Though there’s plenty of Drake-style sing-rapping to be found here, there’s no bitchassness. Instead, you get Twista at his hyperkinetic best, spitting with the kind of speed that landed him that world record. But the best part of the song, and the reason it came to mind so fast when the Miguel single dropped is the way that the chorus goes: “Do YouuuuuuuoOOOOOUuuuuuOOOUUuuuuuwhoawhoawhoa,” would probably have been a more appropriate title, but hell, the written word doesn’t capture it anyway. Just take a listen; I promise you won’t regret it.
