De La Soul – Say No Go [Dum ‘De La’ Dum Remix]

Soulshock and Cutfather are a couple of Danish DJ’s who both managed top three placings at the DMC’s in the 1989 and 1988 respectively, which served as something of a rite-of-passage for any DJ trying to make a name for themselves internationally. Wikipedia claims that this led to Soulshock getting booked to tour as Queen Latifah’s DJ in Europe, which would seem to match up with the same time period that the duo was getting placements, but they had already done the ‘Hickey’s Around My Neck’ remix for Audio Two in 1988 so I guess Soulshock already had his foot in the door by that stage? Regardless, between Soulshock solo mixes, team-ups with Cutfather as SoulPower Productions and sometimes another dude named Karlin, these lads cranked-out a few nice rap remixes before focusing on the far-more lucrative world of R&B beats.

At this point in the rap remix timeline, it was more about tweaking and adding layers onto the original work, rather than the complete overhauls that the marked many of the best early nineties reconstructions from Pete Rock, Black Sheep and A Tribe Called Quest. There was also a trend where the European branches of labels would commission local producers to deliver them version aimed at the local market, often targeting a more mainstream club sound for the House or R&B crowds. Fortunately, this Holland exclusive Dum ‘De La’ Dum Remix mix of ‘Say No Go’ for the Big Life label didn’t fall into that trap (there were already a couple of CJ Mackintosh mixes covering that angle) and instead builds on the foundation of the De La Soul’s anti-whoola ditty.

Keeping the original bassline and hook, Soulshock and Cutfather add some animated congas, scratches and vocal snippets, but the real treat here is the way they let the Hall and Oates loop spill into the verses, which elevates this version to a complete eighties nostalgia explosion that would have been a perfect for the late DJ Spinbad’s Rock The Casbah tape.