10 Hit Songs You Had No Idea Used Samples
5. Me Myself And I - De La Soul
The crew known as De La Soul began life as three best friends getting through summer school by rapping over their parents' records. It wasn't long before they evolved into one of the most subversive hip-hop groups of their time.
No strangers to sampling, their debut album 3 Feet High And Rising draws beats and melodies from EVERYWHERE. One thing it was initially missing, however, was a radio-friendly single. Under pressure from their label, Tommy Boy Records, De La Soul agreed to add in a nice, non-challenging song at the last minute.
According to Maseo, the DJ of the group, they attempted to show Tommy Boy how ridiculous this request was by making "the worst record possible." De La were always up for getting silly, but they got especially silly on this one, sampling no less than six different songs and completely "taking the piss" with the lyrics. And thus, Me, Myself and I was born.
Their main instrumental came from Funkadelic's Knee Deep, which proved to be impossible to turn into a bad song.
Paired with the fact that, as Maseo puts it, "the sillier we are, the more we pop," and the resulting track became De La Soul's biggest song of all time.
This process eventually came full circle, with Me, Myself and I being sampled, remixed, and covered in at least nineteen other songs.