Throwback Thursday - Wolfmother and The Luniz
Launched these new "Throwback" playlists a couple of weeks back on the Official Barstool Backstage Spotify account and going to add to them each Thursday, along with highlighting a couple of the tracks. The response has been strong to quite strong.
Also added them to Apple Music at the request of several people so you can find those below also.
Any suggestions throw them in the comments.
Wolfmother - Woman
Are we really "throwing it back" to a song from 2009? Yes we are. Because this song, and this band fuck(ed)(s).
Check out the rock throwback list here and follow on the platform of your choice -
The Luniz - I Got 5 On It
Top 5 weed song ever? Top 5 90s beat ever? Awesome video. Even an awesome sample for R Kelly and Puff Daddy - Satisfy You
Theres also an awesome backstory to how this song become such a pivotal part in Jordan Peele's "Us".
The Wrap - We’re introduced to the song as the Wilson family tries to relax on a trip to the beach. (Spoilers follow.) It’s a fraught trip because mom Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) doesn’t really want to go. She has bad memories of the beach from childhood.
When “I Got 5 On It” comes on the radio, dad Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke) sees it as a fun throwback. (It was the 13th biggest single of 1995). It’s also a bit of a guilty pleasure, since his kids, Zora and Jason, figure out pretty quickly that the song is about drugs. The parents make the requisite denials before the family tries to bond over a ’90s banger.
But even once they get past the drug issue, there’s still something wrong: Adelaide tries to get Jason to snap along to the beat, but she’s clearly off beat herself. This is foreshadowing how she doesn’t really fit in, to her family or her world.
Later, as it becomes apparent that the family’s apparent happiness came at a terrible price, and is built on a terrible deception, the once-fun song transmogrifies into something grotesque. The movie’s “Tethered Mix” slows things down, and fully indulges the ominous quality hinted at in the original “I Got 5 on It.”
The producer of “I Got 5 on it,” Anthony “Tonecapone” Gilmour, worked with intense care to create such a layered musical atmosphere. The song contains an almost-ridiculous juxtaposition of complex sound and straightforward subject matter, but it works beautifully because everyone totally commits: Gilmour, the Luniz (rappers Jerold Dwight “Yukmouth” Ellis III and Garrick Demond “Numskull” Husbands), and vocalist Michael Marshall.
It’s striking how passionately Marshall sings the line: “Partner, let’s go half on a sack.”
He had a good reason to take the song personally. Very personally.
Gilmour and Marshall, friends who graduated Berkeley High together in 1984, were working on Marshall’s music at Gilmour’s home in North Oakland when the Luniz came by with an early version of “I Got 5 On It.”
They knew the music well.
As Capone told WhoSampled, his experience with “I Got 5 On it” started him down a prolific and lucrative path of replaying hooks instead of sampling them, so he could squeeze out exactly what he needed from each hook without the extra percussive sounds, vocals, or whatever else that he didn’t need.
“I Got 5 On It” — and its inclusion in “Us” — has been a windfall for Gilmour, who estimates his payments for the hit are up “close to 400 percent” since the film came out. He said he, King, Foster, Thomas, Marshall and The Luniz all receive publishing payments for the song.
So yes, “I Got 5 on It” is about drugs. But it’s also about duality, and second chances… and, to some, betrayal.
Just like “Us.”
Follow the hip hop throwback list here -
