![]() Paired with an enthusiastic Philadelphia crowd who don’t give a fuck that he’s from D.C. The speed is slower, the audio is pitched down as a result, and the VERY raspy throated vocals of DJ Kool add a unique charm to the whole presentation. First of all even though 45 King originally made it famous, the sample itself comes from Marva Whitney’s “Unwind Yourself.” Second of all if we say that DJ Kool straight up did a set over it without changing a thing, we’d be doing him a disservice. Now let’s give a little credit where it’s due on several fronts. After all the “call and response” of go-go music was much like the toasting of dancehall deejays that led to what we now know as emcees, so one could even say go-go reflects a straight branch from the tree rooted in Jamaican soil by Kool DJ Herc. While some people try to separate go-go from hip-hop and associate it with house and funk, Kool went precisely the opposite direction and acknowledged their common urban roots and similar style structure. Having been active since the late 1970’s on the deejay scene, the self-styled “Kool” master of the turntables was perfectly placed to watch the rise of both hip-hop music in general and the accompanying go-go dance music of the D.C. disc jockey who knew how to rock a party. Since Todd hasn’t seen fit to do DJ Kool justice, indulge me as I tackle him myself. Fresh, but his career still died a death anyway. Everyone involved tried to remix it a few times to milk a little more life out of it, including the “Old School Reunion” version seen above featuring Biz Markie and Doug E. ![]() ![]() ![]() As an avid viewer of the Todd in the Shadows channel on YouTube, the one song I’ve never seen him cover on “One Hit Wonderland” that I’m dying for him to do is DJ Kool’s “ Let Me Clear My Throat.” For those of us around in 1996, DJ Kool seemed to rocket to meteoric fame out of almost nowhere, then disappear just as quickly after everyone had tired of his hit single. ![]()
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