This week we’re going way back. No really. I mean way back to 1970. This week I wanted to do something different and feature a song that has been sampled numerous times in Hip-Hop. “Hard Times” by Baby Huey & the Babysitters. I re-discovered this song while watching the opening sequence of JCVD (Dope movie by the way). The song is just made to be sampled and is dope just by itself. Some of the rappers who have sampled this particular song: Ice Cube (“The Birth”off Death Certificate), A Tribe Called Quest (“Can I Kick It?”off People’s Instinctive Travels & The Paths of Rhythm), Ghostface Killah (“Buck 50″of Supreme Clientele), and most recently Swizz Beatz (“School Of Hard Knocks”).
Baby Huey & the Babysitters worked with such artists like Donny Hathaway & Curtis Mayfield. I wish I could say that Baby Huey (Real name James Ramey) lived to make more classic music like this but he and the Babysitter only released one album (Well, one that you can find). Huey had problems with drugs as well as a weight problem and died at the age of 26 by way of a heart attack.
Check out the song and tell us what you think.