Take 6’s silky smooth harmonies set off the opening scene in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing as ‘Don’t Shoot Me’ played behind Señor Love Daddy’s morning wake-up routine1, but thanks to the work of The 45 King, they also become part of an essential hip-hop breakbeat.
‘Spread Love’ was a popular a cappella single in 1988 (also winning the group the ‘Best Jazz Vocal Performance’ Grammy the following year), before The 45 King flipped a version for a promo for Kool DJ Red Alert’s 98.7 KISS-FM show – part of his always anticipated ‘45 King Special’ exclusives. From what I can gather, he originally supplied this to Red on a self-released Test Press EP of instrumentals, and it became so popular that it was inevitably bootlegged on the Bozo Meko label as a b-side to BDP’s ‘The Bridge Is Over’ in…1991?!
I can’t figure out why anyone would bootleg ‘The Bridge Is Over’ in 1991 considering how many copies would have still been floating around from 1987, but the b-side includes the ‘Spread Love’ remix alongside dance floor edits of Earth, Wind and Fire’s ‘Gazillion Rhyme’ and Mandrill’s ‘Fence Walk’. I never thought confirm if The 45 King was responsible for these other two mixes when I spoke to him since I was too focused on all things Flavor Unit, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he got a cheque for all three contributions if it’s true he produced the whole b-side.
Regardless, now that the ‘Spread Love’ remix was available any DJ who wandered into UpStairs Records or Beat Street, it soon joined the pantheon of breakbeats to cut-up when you had some rapping at your party or radio show, thanks to the clean drum section halfway through which showcases the powerful Ike and Tina break. The most well-known recording was DJ Mister Cee break-beating it for Biggie Smalls, Tupac and Big Daddy Kane’s crew at a Madison Square Garden performance in 1993 as part of the Budweiser Superfest, which proved to be so popular that Cee put it out on his own white label.
Before long, the clean drum loop section was itself being looped for other records – I mean, why wouldn’t you? Those shits are heavy as all get out. It’s unclear which rap songs used the ‘Spread Love’ version and which producers had their own copy of the ‘Cussin’, Cryin’ and Carrying’ On’ album (the US release of the 45 edited out the drum intro apparently), but The 45 King’s version was definitely first out the gate and certainly inspired the spread of the beat, if not outright hijacking.
It’s a testament to the influence of The 45 King that his music was part of so many different touchpoint over his career. ‘The 900 Number’ was inescapable in the eighties – on its own merits and providing the theme song to The Ed Lover Dance on Yo! MTV Raps every week – and had a second lease of life when DJ Kool remade it for ‘Let Me Clear My Throat’ in 1996.
His persistence with making classic, loop based music when many producers had abandoned their samplers for keyboards saw him creating hit records for Eminem and Jay-Z2 in the late nineties and early noughties (even resulting in a brief-yet-wonderful fad of Broadway Musical Rap).
Most significantly, he brought the world the first Chill Rob G, Lakim Shabazz and Queen Latifah albums, which showcased his knack for finding powerful drum loops and bringing the horns to the forefront3, while not being afraid to experiment by making records from more left-field sources like The Police, which in itself went on to spawn an international club hit (albeit by another group).
If we also consider The 45 King’s involvement with early records from Gang Starr, X-Clan, Big Daddy Kane and Eric B. & Rakim, it’s fair to say that he helped shape the sound of (good) rap for at least twenty years, and never stopped releasing beat albums until his death in 2023 (his final release was a box set of remixes from the Westbound Records vaults) – a true stalwart of the endless search for that next break.
Originally published on The Eight Pint Hype substack.
- Not to mention the fresh to def We Love radio promos. [↩]
- The royalties for which were still covering his utility bills in 2013! [↩]
- On account of his extensive collection of Kool & The Gang albums, as he told me in 2007. [↩]
45 King was easily the most eccentric cat in the biz and I loved it. R.I.P