What You Do With What You Have: The Ubiquity of Moodymann

What You Do With What You Have: The Ubiquity of Moodymann

28 September, 2011 | 5.00AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: blawan, homework, moodymann, oliver $, youandme

Blawan’s new single for R&S, ”What You Do With What You Have,” has been turning heads far and wide. It’s a slightly new look for the producer, moving away from the clattery syncopations of his earlier singles for Hessle and R&S and towards more straight-ahead techno territory—a point that stirred up a spot of controversy on Resident Advisor.

Switching up the groove isn’t the only risk that Blawan has taken: the gravelly, spoken-word fragments happen to be snipped from Moodymann’s Red Bull Music Academy lecture from last year. (What you do with what you have, indeed.) If the tactic sounds familiar, it’s with good reason: Moodymann’s drawling monologues have been turning up all over the place lately, with the most notable example being Oliver $’s “Doin’ Ya Thing,” which rose to the top of the Beatport charts with zero promotion behind it—and ended up getting a vinyl reissue by Moodymann himself.

Read on to check out a selection of cuts where Moodymann turns up—in sampled form, anyway—to do his thang. Tell us what you think in the comments—plagiarism or homage?

Blawan, “What You Do With What You Have” [R&S Records]

“It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it. It ain’t what you got, but what you do with what you have.” Words to live by from Kenny Dixon, Jr.’s Red Bull Music Academy lecture—and virtually irresistible to a producer looking to add a little gravitas to his production. To Blawan’s credit, he pitch-shifts the voice to such an extreme that you might never even recognize the speaker.

Oliver $, “Doin’ Ya Thang” [Play It Down]

Originally produced as a DJ tool for Oliver $’s own sets, “Doin’ Ya Thang” includes an extended sample of Moodymann chatting over one of his own DJ sets; as Oliver explained to Little White Earbuds, Jesse Rose snapped it up for Play It Down, and the rest is history.

youANDme, “I Like” [Cutz.me]

“When it comes to music, most women prefer 12-inches.” Yuk, yuk, we get it. Phallic! There’s something ironic about a militantly pro-vinyl cut (as well as Dixon’s acappella) being released digitally, but who are we to say anything?

Homework, “I’m Into This” [Exploited]

The Dutch duo Homework captures KDJ once again in philosophical mode: “I’m not into this to impress anybody, I’m into this for my own heart and soul.”

Animal Collective, “Brother Sport” [Domino]

The lone exception to the set of tracks gathered here, Animal Collective’s “Brother Sport” doesn’t avail itself of Moodymann’s distinctive voice—in fact, the final version of the song contains no traces of the Detroit producer whatsoever. But, as Noah Lennox told Pitchfork, a Moodymann sample served as the rhythmic foundation of an early version of the song; the loop was eventually swapped out for “a weird Brazilian drum school sample.”

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