Blue Eyed Soul

We all love Warren G's Regulate. Of course we do. But have we ever stopped to consider just how genius Warren was in his choice of sample for this song? Taking the melancholy blue-eyed soul of Michael McDonald and his sister, Maureen, as they sing (in a slightly spooky incestuous fashion it has to be said) "I keep forgettin', we're not in love in anymore", would not have been everybody's first choice of sampled breaks. And it is still amazing to me that this has become such a seminal moment in the development of the G-Funk sound. In the original, the twang of the bass guitar preludes the repeated chorus mantra, and the aching melancholia of an affair that has finished, "things will never be the same again". And yet in Regulate, Warren G inverts the yearning sentiment, and replaces it with the mellowest of tales of his own chilled out G-ness. Sometimes, creative genius demands that the purveyor takes some big risks, stakes his reputation on a vision that few others can initially see. But surely Warren G's use of this sample takes the biscuit. "G-Funk, step to this, I dare ya" he boldly challenges as he lays down the G-Funk template, and it is soon very clear that he who dares wins. And it samples Young Guns.
Ridiculous.