The Samples that Shaped Hip Hop: “Juicy Fruit”

We begin with “Juicy Fruit”, the title track from Mtume’s 1983 album. The success and importance of this record are a testament to the power of change and innovation – in and outside of the recording studio. James Mtume and Reggie Lucas initially met as members of Miles Davis’ band. They spent the 70s and the early 80s writing and producing songs that sit in the canon of American classics. Their hits range from “The Closer I Get to You” and “Back Together” by Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway to providing the musical foundation for  Stephanie Mills, for whom they crafted the Grammy Award winning tune entitled, “Never Knew Love Like This Before”. By 1981, however, it seemed like the music may have stopped for each. To quote Mtume, the two had a “grow out, not a blowout”; choosing to grow in different directions.

The timing of this grow out is important because by late 1982, Reggie Lucas would take his talents on the road as an independent producer, writing and shaping the self-titled debut album for a new singer named Madonna. The gentlemen remained friends, and Mtume often credited their creative marriage as a major influence on his career.

While Lucas’ professional fate was tied to Madonna, Mtume’s second act became very much aligned with, and eventually propelled by, recent developments at Linn Electronics, whose Linn Drum arrived on the pro-recording market at the same time he found himself working on his group’s new project at EARS (Eastern Recording Studios) one evening in a sleepy section of East Orange, New Jersey. Mtume’s recording session had reached its end and he had sent his band members home when he noticed a Linn Drum in the corner of the control room. He instructed his engineer to “hook it up”! What happened next was Mtume’s arrangement of a song with a drum program, melody, chords and a set of lyrics, written on the fly, that would, at times, have weeks where it would out sell Michael Jackson’s Thriller. “Juicy Fruit” was a hit that became, and Mtume, continued to be a sought after producer, scoring projects like Native Son before going into somewhat of a retirement.

By 1994 Mtume received a call by Uptown Records’ chieftain Andre Harrell, who off of the success of Jodeci, Heavy D & the Boyz and Mary J. Blige was producing a new television show called New York Undercover, as his VP of A&R, Sean “Puffy” Combs, began to develop his Bad Boy Records  imprint under the Uptown umbrella. Producing a television show required identifying a music composer and supervisor to select and craft theme music and scores. The job of crafting a theme song as well as various cues was now Mtume’s, and like any day in an office brewing with creativity, Combs would at some point approach Mtume to discuss music. In this case, however, it wasn’t about something new, but to get his blessings for a new artist to sample “Juicy Fruit”. That new artist was Notorious B.I.G., the song was “Juicy”, and the rest is history.

Mtume’s decision to approve Puffy and Biggie’s use of “Juicy Fruit” extended the life of his song in ways unimaginable at the time. The Bedstuy kid was another rapper with a deal, and an opportunity when his lead single, “Juicy”, cemented his ascension into the fabric of popular culture. “Juicy Fruit” has been sampled countless times by artists ranging from Keyshia Cole and Chris Brown to Tamar Braxton and Saweetie. Leading the late James Mtume to explain,