Tag: Jocelyn Brown

  • Snap! – The Power

    Last week I discussed Love’s Gonna Get You by Jocelyn Brown from 1985. One of the most famous tracks that sampled it is The Power from 1991 by Snap!. The song however is surrounded by controversy.

    First of all there’s the obvious use of Jocelyn Brown’s vocals. Jocelyn Brown’s sample was used without permission or credit by the German producers behind Snap!: Michael Muenzing and Luca Anzilotti. Jocelyn Brown wasn’t pleased with that and still isn’t.

    Secondly the first version The Power sampled the vocals and music from Let The Words Flow by Chill Rob G from 1989. Originally The Power was released under the name Power Jam (feat. Chill Rob G). When all of the samples didn’t clear and they threatened to get in trouble, the producers said fuck it, and re-recorded the vocals with Turbo B, an American soldier/rapper who was stationed in Germany and re-released it as Snap!. It’s ironic considering Turbo B’s lyric “copywritten lyrics so they can’t be stolen” in The Power.

    Lastly, the music used in The Power is mainly one sample from the Mantronix track King of the Beats from 1988.  Which is silly considering they could’ve just sampled the original that Mantronix used. But more about that original next week.

    Eventually, as The Power got embedded in pop-culture, it too got sampled. The Farm’s Stepping Stone remix from 1990. Everybody by Members of Shockwave in 1995. The Ting Tings covered the song Standing in the Way of Control by The Gossip in 2008 with a sample from The Power. Hit the Floor by Big Ali ft. Dollarman from 2008. Ghettosocks used it in Take Chains Off from 2009. There’s a remix of Kanye West’s song Power from 2010 which, apart from featuring vocals by Jay-Z also features a sample of The Power.

  • Jocelyn Brown – Love’s Gonna Get You

    A while back I was going to do a post about this, but there were so many links to other songs, I had to split it in three parts. Today part 1.

    In 1985 Jocelyn Brown released Love’s Gonna Get You, after being the backup singer for many other artists. The single itself went to the top of the dance tracks at the time (#1 in the US dance chart). Now as you may have noted from the YouTube video, this is the dance mix, but the same single also had an A Capella mix. This makes it ideal for sampling.

    In 1990, Boogie Down Productions used the chorus in the hiphop song after Love’s Gonna Get’cha. With the dance scene taking off, Jocelyn Brown’s voice became a popular source for sampling. Off Shore used a different bit from the same track in their 1991 track I can’t Take the Power. The sample ‘Deputy of Love‘in the track with the same name by the Deputies of Love from 1991 is again Jocelyn Brown. The yeaaah-sample in Moby’s track Go! from 1991 is Jocelyn Brown. Bizarre Inc.’s 1992 track I’m Gonna Get You partly samples and works around the original. Apart from bursting from cliché dance samples of the time, the 1992 track Running So Hard by Sophia also puts a sample in there, including the yeaaah that Moby used.

    Suddenly, when the whole ‘diva dance’-genre sort of died out and people started simply hiring Jocelyn Brown to sing lyrics for them, the usage of samples from that track died out too and was pushed to less mainstream genres. It only popped up twice again in 1994: in DJ Dano’s hardcore track I’m gonna get you and the drum ‘n bass track You Got Me by Alex Reece   and Wax Doctor. It wasn’t till 2008 it popped up in I Got The Power by Ya Boy from 2008.

    You’ll notice however I left out the biggest hit based on Love’s Gonna Get You. That track is The Power by Snap! which I’ll discuss next week.