One day, we doing little block parties and rockin’ outside for free, to doing big clubs and arenas and stuff like that. How did your life change immediately after? So if you got played during the weekdays, that was amazing. That was the only time most rap records would get played. And on the weekends, Fridays and Saturdays. “When we get into “It Takes Two”, people they respond like the record came out yesterday.”Īll the rap radio shows at time were still late night at that point, correct? As soon as I heard it, I knew right then. I was like, “All right, we made it.” ‘Cause back then, if you got a rap record on prime-time radio, you pretty much made it. Well, I was laying in my bed and I heard it on prime-time radio. When was the first time you realized you had something huge? We just went out there and started shooting. It wasn’t like nothing was really planned. Red Alert was walking down the street and he came in there. He was across the street and we seen him and he came across, got in the video. Yes, Biz walked up, he was on 125th Street. We seen them and we said, ‘Hey man, we want to get a video.’ I guess at that time, we didn’t have any idea where it was gonna get played, but we just want to shoot one, you know? I think it was only a few rappers out with videos at the time. Where were you expecting to get it played? There was no Yo! MTV Raps until the middle of 1988. I think the record company didn’t want to give us a video at the time, I think, so we just went out and put together our own money and shot it ourselves. In the music video, you’re outside the Apollo, the landmark of your native Harlemĭefinitely. “It definitely was like what they say: “Overnight success.” We woke up and we were just different people.” It’s crazy, even til today people still coming up to me and ask me about that. They thought I was saying “can’t stand sex.” I was like, uh, no, I’m not saying that, it’s sensimilla, talkin’ bout marijuana. There’s the line in there, “Don’t smoke Buddha/ Can’t stand sess.”Ī lot of people get that mixed up. So, I don’t know who else could say they’s there, ’cause it was just us. Well, me, E-Z Rock and William Hamilton produced the track. A lot of places say Teddy Riley was involved. There’s a lot of conflicting information about who actually produced the track. On Ultimate Breaks & Beats Volume 16, the Lyn Collins break and Galactic Force Band sample used in the intro are right next to each other on Side Two.īasically, it’s just like, it was right there. That’s got to stay in there.” And people didn’t understand where I was coming from. A lot of people said, “Oh too much ‘woo, yeah,’ you need to take it out at some point.” I had to fight and say, “Nah, we got to keep that in the whole record. He liked one thing, I liked one thing, and we blend it together and just came out to be “It Takes Two.” The Lyn Collins part made a big impact on the song, the “woo, yeah” part. I liked the Lyn Collins sample and E-Z Rock, I think he’d liked “Set It Off” beat. Who ended up picking the Lyn Collins sample? Yeah, it was just, “Alright, let me throw something together.” It was just spontaneous. We just went in there and did it, basically.Īnd you wrote the rhymes the night before? The guy that was managing us at the time, he told us, “Yo, we need to get in the studio, knock out a song or whatever.” So me and E-Z Rock, we just threw something together real quick and we went in the studio and knocked it out. Yeah, we did it as a demo trying to get a deal. So, you recorded “It Takes Two” before you were signed. Rolling Stone caught up with Rob Base to talk about the long legacy of a real funky concept. E-Z Rock” Bryce passed away in 2014 at the age of 46.) Rob Base is still performing “It Takes Two” all over America on the unstoppable I Love the ’90s package tour and, nearly 30 years later, you can still hear it yeah-ing and woo-ing throughout the trailer to the summer blockbuster Ant-Man and the Wasp. Eventually, “It Takes Two” would be sampled, interpolated and covered, appearing in Chicago house tracks, Miami bass tunes like Luke’s “I Wanna Rock,” a Top Ten single by the Black Eyed Peas and a Target commercial starring Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty.
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