Do you love music? Do you find yourself hearing a song and thinking, "This sounds SO familiar?" Well, chances are you have heard that song before, but in its original form. More often than not, artists today sample music from other artists and give it new life.

In today's episode, listen as I play excerpts* from the hit song "Super Freak," by the OG himself, Rick James. This song was sampled by MC Hammer, Jay Z, Nikki Minaj, and Gucci Mane, among others. I call them the "Wannabes."

Rick James may not have won a Grammy for this hit song, but MC Hammer won two for his song "U Can't Touch This!" Because of that, Rick James also got a Grammy since his was, you guessed it, the original singer, the OG!

Nikki Minaj also won a VMA for best hip hop song and video of the year in 2023 for her version, "Super Freaky Girl."

Gucci Mane and Jay Z also sampled the epic "Super Freak" in their songs "Freaky Girl" and "Kingdom Come."

Keep listening as you'll also hear a "Special Segment!"

*I do not own the copyrights to these songs, this is all for fun and a bit of learning, dare I say, educational!

What do Beethoven, James Brown and Alicia Keys all have in common? Well, you'll just have to listen to this episode to find out! Alicia Keys released "Fallin'" in April 2001. On this inaugural episode of OG'S and WANNABE'S (OGW) we'll talk about whether Alicia Keys sampled Ludwig Van Beethoven's popular song and James Brown's when she came up with "Fallin.'" And we will dig a little deeper into the songs "Moonlight Sonata" (Beethoven) and "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (Brown) that Keys (our "Wannabe") may or may not have sampled from those esteemed OG's.

Each episode will begin with an introduction summarizing the podcast. What it's about, how it came to be, the origin and evolution of OG's and Wannabe's. Then we will segue way into the Song of the Day. We will focus on a song, its origins, evolution and its impact.