Frank Ocean has Teddy Riley, Babyface and R. Kelly to thank for his taste and passion for the thumping and the melodic music he writes just as much as Teddy and crew have the Beatles to thank for the very same thing. John & Paul, heck they have Bach to thank! Alas, it would seem that all roads lead to Bach.
Teddy Riley (the producer and co-collaborator of Wreckx-n-Effect) is without doubt a musical genius and did a lot more than write great beats and sample obscure sax solos. If you know what New Jack Swing is then you need look no further. If you don’t know what it is, think of it as the glue between rap, hip-hop and pop.
And while that’s a very simplistic view of the evolution of pop, there’s no denying the paths and strings the connect all musicians of the last 200+ years and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Circle’s new cover tackles this very topic, drawing inspiration from a few sources to present a chilled and very 90’s infused hip-hop cover.
Circle have always sounded both fresh and well worn in (their obsession with analog gear may have something to do with this), and their new cover of the classic track Rump Shaker which is as much a homage to 90’s hip hop as it is to the concept of all music being connected is no exception.