The Vulture

Today I'd like to talk about the British (Nigerian/Belgian roots, though) singer-songwriter, musician, activist and poet Labi Siffre: a very strange name you probably haven't heard before. Yet, I'm quite certain y'all have been vibin' to his music at least a dozen of times. First and foremost because Siffre's 'I Got The' was sampled by Dr. Dre for one of the anthems of the late 90s: 'My Name Is' by Eminem. You'll have to wait till the break (2'10") to recognise the sampled bits, but the song itself is worth your while. Em and Dre had to change some of the lyrics to get the sample cleared after Siffre stated that "attacking two of the usual scapegoats, women and gays, is lazy writing. If you want to do battle, attack the aggressors, not the victims", which may have made the lyrics even better.
Dre wasn't the only one to see the potential of 'I Got The': Foxy Brown ('Hot Spot'), the Beatnuts ('Beatnuts Forever'), Jay-Z ('Streets Is Watching'), Noreaga ('N.O.R.E.')and Erick Sermon (for Def Squad's song 'Countdown') sampled it; even RZA used the bassline for
the Wu's 'Can It Be All So Simple'.
Labi's talent obviously wasn't as limited as the 'talent' of some of those sampling producers. Madness scored one of their biggest hits by covering Siffre's 'It Must Be Love' (you can find the Madness-cover here); his anti-Apartheid anthem '(Something Inside) So Strong' was covered by a.o. Kenny Rogers, The Flying Pickets and Michael Ball; Kanye West used a sample of 'My Song' for his 'I Wonder' and RJD2's 'Making Days Longer' is actually a cover of Siffre's 'Bless the Telephone'.
My favourite Siffre-song is 'The Vulture', a song in which Labi (despite being openly gay) admits to being a real playa playa seducing girls who just got their hearts broken. Play on playa!