You’d think Xzibit dropping so many bars over that unadorned sample would be frustrating, but it works very well, especially with the way different sounds accentuate his story. We revisit the “twinkly” part of “Funky Worm,” which makes sense considering that the track’s all about doing hallucinogens. 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz had X crafting the kind of drug tales you really don’t appreciate until you’re riding around in a cloudy whip with the track turned all the way up. This is from way back when we loved hearing Xzibit rhyme. The marriage of both of these sounds forms a hypnotic mix, an intriguing interpretation by producer Uneek (whose limited production credits consist mostly of Masta Ace songs) that brings the West Coast east for a bit of hip-hop satire. Masta Ace was born in Brooklyn, but this track flips two distinctly West Coast sounds, taking a snippet from the “twinkly” synth on “Funky Worm” and pairing it with the heavy bass of Roger & Zapp’s “More Bounce To The Ounce” (iller than Breed did), at least for the beginning. He keeps the funky, back-porch vibe in tact with a tighter snare, breathing new life into a well-known sample, further showcasing why he’s still one of the best working producers.Ĩ. He took the same “twinkling” sound familiar to many uses of “Funky Worm,” but flipped it in a different way. Murs & 9th Wonder – “Cigarettes & Liquor”
With so many other sounds going in there, from multiple Redmans to all of these other cosmic sounds, the sample gets lost in the mix, but being a “slop” of sounds, it makes sense that such a familiar sample would be mixed into the soup Red and crew are cooking up.ġ1. The use of “Funky Worm” is found at 1:49 in the track, and is part of the lighter “twinkling” sounds from the original. Redman and Sermon were big into manipulating all of those sounds in the early ’90s, and this track was no exception. Taken from Redman’s sophomore album, Dare Iz A Darkside, this is from Red and producer Erick Sermon’s era of sampling all kinds of funk tracks-the title pays homage to a Funkadelic song of the same name. There are better uses of “Funky Worm,” which you’ll find on this list, but Breed used this before a lot of other MCs did, so credit to him for getting on it early. He flips two bonafide West Coast staples: the bass from “More Bounce To The Ounce” and the Moog from “Funky Worm,” and there’s no way to deny this track. MC Breed – “Ain’t No Future In Your Frontin”įlint, Michigan’s MC Breed was one of those artists who has a lot of critical acclaim, and this is a classic in his back catalog. Was this track any better because they snagged it from “Funky Worm?” Probably not, but the noise gives the track character.ġ3. Ice Cube (who produced the track) used a small fragment of the “worm,” pitching it up and dropping it through the track like an eerie siren or wail. To kick off our list, Ice Cube’s “Wicked” introduces one of the most common “Funky Worm” flips, the signature Moog synthesizer. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.Īs you’ll see, smart samplers snapped up bits of this to not only lightly accentuate their productions, but create whole new soundscapes based on the track. The Players’ peculiar composition catapulted “Funky Worm” to the top of the Billboard R&B charts in 1973 and to No. Whatever their motivation, this track has so many unique elements in it: the random twinkling synths, the bright Moog, the grandmother’s odd lines.
We’re not sure what made them a) have a grandmother character basically narrating the track or b) have the Moog synth they used on this track take the figurative role of a worm, funking it’s way in and out of its hole. “Funky Worm” is pretty quirky record in and of itself. Hit “next” or click the pictures to read on… Inspired by the “Funky Worm’s” recent use on Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, we dive down the wormhole and see how some other artists have tackled the the legendary, often-used sample (over 50 times, according to, not including Kendrick’s recent addition and countless other unlisted renditions).Īnd we’ve doubled down, with 14 different songs using the same track in vastly different ways. In this latest edition, we take a look at “Funky Worm” by the Ohio Players, one of the foundational sample sources of West Coast hip-hop, typifying the G-Funk sound popularized in the early ’90s, heavy on synths and a slower, funkier bop. In our first edition of this series, we dissected multiple takes on Lee Morgan’s “Shady Blues,” which ended up mostly amounting to various MCs rapping over the same instrumental.
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