Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” (Bad Boy Remix ft. ODB) with Durand Bernarr

Hey One Song Nation, we're off this week, but we wanted to share an episode from our archives where we dive deep into Mariah Carey's fantasy, specifically the Bad Boy remix. And to help us break down the song, we enlisted Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer, Durand Bernard, who, since we recorded this episode, has really gone from being, you know, already a legendary background singer on songs by Erica Badu and Anderson Park and Kate Renata to being wildly, widely regarded as a superstar in his own right. If you have any awareness of Durand, you already know this episode is a wild one. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, enjoy our episode on fantasy. You know, we practiced on this for weeks, and I think it shows. Now that we've established that everyone is in the house, it's time on One Song to talk about a pop masterpiece, a collision of two worlds. You have the pop princess of the 90s. You know, we already know who this person is. But then we put her with Staten Island's grimey SMC, one of the first stars out of the Wutang clan, and we've got a song powered by, you know, one of the greatest hooks in, you know, history. It's like a song that, like, if you were a certain age, you heard it on the radio, you seen it on the TV show, I'm going to stop using hip hop references, and I'm going to talk about this song. The song is called Fantasy, the bad boy remix, featuring Mariah Carey, an old, dirty bastard. This is Fantasy, and this is One Song. This shining star, you're my shining star, girl. It's room vibe, here we go. The way her voice comes in, it always reminds me of being a DJ, because as a DJ, when that vocal comes in, like, oh, dirty always got the party hype. But when her vocal came in, all pristine and perfect, like, it just sounded different coming out of those speakers. It always got the party hype. But I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Luxury, tell us what we're talking about. Well, first of all, it's around, welcome to the show, my friend. It's nice to see you. Glad to have you, in particular, as a guest for this episode. I think it's a perfect match. I actually got a quick question. You were just humming the intro right there. How many voices, have you ever counted how many different voices and characters and registers and ranges? Mariah's going a lot of places on this song. Like what from the singer's perspective, since you are yourself an incredible singer, when you hear it, does it sound complicated? What does it sound like to you? What are your feelings as a fellow singer when you hear this song? That's a big question I know. Yes. First of all, it's good to be seen and not viewed. Not right now. It might feel a little bit of both. There might be some stuff on Instagram. That far. Listening now as an adult, Mariah is the female Luther with a whistle register. Wow. That's amazing. When you really listen to their choices and how they approach things, it feels, but it's a lighter texture. Heels with velvety hers is lighter. That gives a different contrast to it. I've always appreciated her voice. You're talking about Luther Vandross, obviously. There's really only one Luther. Only one Luther. That's the Luther. We're not talking about the Netflix series. L-O-O-T-H-A, Luther. I like what you're saying because some people have gratuitous runs. We don't need to name names. Come on, gratuitous. Grituitous runs. Name of a great album, by the way. She doesn't. She really feels like she's feeling everything. I never thought of it before. I can see the connection with Luther. She has also said that she sings her songs the way that she does because she didn't want anyone else to sing them. Yeah, it's impossible. I've worked with some singers and it's amazing to me how the degree to which, whether they say it or not, they are trying to make every song their own. They're like, I don't want anybody else to be able to say this. I feel like it goes back to Stevie. I feel like nobody. It's hard to cover Stevie. Durand, as our guest, what is it about this song that means so much to you and do you have any sort of stories like the first time you heard it? Is there a connection you feel to fantasy? Because growing up, my mother didn't play a lot of secular music. So it was a lot of jazz and gospel and whatnot. And a little bit of New Age in there, that Inya, that you play in the over-clash. We can listen to that. But there were some artists that I was able to sneak into the house. Janet Jackson was contraband. We didn't exhale. That was contraband. But Mariah would get played on the jazz station. So Mariah was actually cool. So I could listen to Mariah and Whitney and Michael Jackson. I feel like Visions of Love was a big song for Mariah early on. See, mine was Can't Let Go. I can't speak for Visions of Love. Really? No, I can't let go. I need a baby. And when you, oh, I need AI to do a Luther, which I'm going to call it, swap on that song. So we can hear what it would sound like. All the way to where singing. Him singing. Don't let go. Him singing. Can't let go. You'll be like, oh, that's where it is. I mean, right now that's the sound of everybody who's listening to this. Doing exactly that. The Luther and Mariah connection is so interesting. Because I heard her somewhere talking about how Luther actually, I think she got some singing tips either directly or indirectly from his idea that like you should always only ever be in humid environments for your voice. Like literally voice saving tips. But is there more to that connection? Like the, like tell us more from a singing standpoint. I'm so interested in the connection that you're making a few times now between Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey. Yeah, they actually have a song together as well, but it just clicked. Like it's interesting how these vocal tightens can also influence each other and get tips from how to care for your voice, how to placement. You know. Like note placement? Oh yes, that's so key. I feel like note placement is more effective than the run. That's like where to place the note in time. Like where to syncopate, how long to elongate it. There's so many details about singing that like I want to learn from you because it's like I'm a musician producer, but it is my weakness is like I just, I can do my thing and that's it. But you, I've heard from, from your amazing music and Mariah as we were talking about earlier with her, with her multiple vocal range and the whistle, all of this will get into it. But did you kind of over time have you kind of like gradually conquered maybe each area of singing separately or did it come naturally to you? Did you have a teacher like how did you learn to sing is my question? So I feel like singing learned me. You know, I didn't get a chance to take music serious. First, it kind of, it was there, you know, because both of my parents are musicians and they both sing as well. And also my, my cousins, you know, they're, they're musically inclined, you know, to, you know, to their singing, inquire or, you know, chorus or, you know, taking some kind of drama class, you know, so there's, there's all these ways in which we express ourselves through music. So it wasn't until I went on the road with my dad with earth, when it fire when I was 16 and I was able to see like how you were, you were young, right? 16. Yeah. And you're out there with Verdeen Verdeen. And then the guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. You don't know that is an amazing impression. And I never got a chance to work with Cabron White. Yeah. So, you know, I used to see those guys sometimes. Yeah. That's an amazing impression. Yes. Now I love him. Love, love him. Diallo, please set the scene for us. If you will, this song is released. It's 1995. Where are you? Where is Diallo Riddle in 1995? And what do you think of Mariah at the time? I'm glad you bring it up. I was in, I just, I was in college and you know, that's like a time when you're in college, like nobody can tell you anything about music. If you like music, you feel like, you know, just enough of what happened in the past, but you're like right in the zeitgeist, you know exactly what's going on in the culture. And you got your identity too. And you got your identity. And I was firmly implanted in hip hop by this point, you know, growing up, I would like, you know, Michael Jackson and the Pet Shop Boys. Like at this time, like I was a hundred percent in hip hop and 1995, like Mariah is cool. You know what I mean? Like nowadays my wife is like, you know, she's of the perfect age where like Mariah is like her Michael Jackson Madonna just given the age. And so like she likes, you know, some of those Mariah Carey songs and I'm like, you know, like, because to me that's not what I was trying to hear. Like I was about Mary. I was about faith. I was about like, you know, there were there were R&B, you know, Queens at that time that like, you know, you just were impeachable. And I think the most interesting thing about this song that we're talking about today is that when it came out, it was like, wait a second, she's got a song with old dirty bastard. Like it was, you know, I always say Mariah, I'm sorry, Mary and meth with you're all I need was like, that was like one of the first ones. It won a Grammy. It was like, oh, this when SWV did the remix of anything with Wu Tang, like we were like, yo, anything is possible now. This is the crossover moment between this is like what it was like, wait, even Mariah is an apparently her, you know, her husband at the time, Tom and Metola runs the record label and he's not happy about this. He's like, you're throwing away all of the pop princess, you know, branding, if you will. He's scared. Yeah. There's no way this could work. Yeah. But it was Mariah's idea. Older bastard in her words. He reminds me of the uncle who's drunk at the barbecue. We always bring up these drunk uncle. And so she was like, I really want it to be him. So it's interesting also from a, let's get really granular on this. This is a time when according to Nas Wu Tang and bad boy have beef because Wu Tang feel like they represent where East Coast hip hop and York hip hop is. And they feel like Puffy is ruining it with, you know, all the Versace shades and talking about that connection. I was curious about that. I hope you'd explain that to Wu Tang, Stan Nyland grimy. And here comes, you know, Puffy like, I mean, by, you know, 1995, not is a seminal year. We talked about this on the show before. It's a very important year in terms of hip hop. It's the year that the one more chance remix by Biggie samples, debarge and suddenly black radio stations that never played hip hop before. They were always R&B in the day and they might play hip hop at night. All of a sudden during the daytime, they're playing baby one more chance. You know, like it changes overnight. And that's the sound that wouldn't normally. That junior mafia album came out like everything is changing like really rapidly, you know, during this time. And so 1995, Mariah doesn't solve an old dirty bastard. And we're going to get into the shenanigans that take place in both the recording and the music video. But this was big. This was big because it showed how much not just R&B, but now pop is now going to basically be singing over hip hop in ways that it hadn't been before. Now, Mariah herself picked this sample. Genius of Love by Tom Tom Club. And let's hear a little bit of it. Love this song. Here's what Mariah said about her use of that sample. I was listening to the radio and heard Genius of Love and I hadn't heard it in a long time. It reminded me of growing up and listening to the radio and that feeling. The song gave me seemed to go with the melody and basic idea that I had for fantasy. I initially told Dave about the idea and we did it. We called up the Tom Tom Club because, you know, they were like listed and they were really into it. By the way, the Dave that she's referring to is her producer, Dave Hall, who worked on records with a lot of artists, including Mary J. Blige and Madonna. And here is how that Tom Tom sample, Tom Tom Club sample sounds in the song. Sorry. I just laugh sometimes because there's so much going on there vocally. There's like 50 different ideas, but it works somehow. Like there's and then there's like maybe literally three different lines happening at once in a different way. It's it just made me laugh in that. It's very, it's very charged when you have like the counterpoint. It's all all the different things. The top notes is doing something different from the from the main note. And then they kind of come together at the end to kind of add this lush kind of cascade of different. Yes. But it reminds me of the Stevie Wonder. What we talked about with the clavinets, because like we did an episode about Stevie Wonder superstition. And when you isolate the clavinets, there's like four different ideas on eight different tracks and they're all doing different things. But they're finding different syncopated pockets and different notes. And that's why it works in the mix. And there's kind of an interesting parallel here too, because each of those singers is singing a different note with a different rhythm, different lyric. Anyway, it's just it's in the mix. It works. Mm hmm. I just I just love the idea of Mariah Carey being in a car listening to radio hearing a song she likes. She's like, oh, that's cool. Let's talk. Let's call it the Tom Tom. Okay. Right. That's that's called access. Yeah. Yeah. Now we do have a lawyer in the house, Leslie Guam. And she was keen to note that Mariah has a songwriting credit on this song. Does Mariah get the props she deserves as a songwriter? I'm asking both of you. I'd like to hear your opinion. So she's been writing for a nice little while now. Some of the lyrics might tickle me. Right. What's a lyric that tickles? Those chickens is ashen. I'm lotion. Why are you in my George Foreman? That's good. I had to think about that one. I had to think about that. That's good. She mentioned something where she was saying cheetos. I was just like. So the answer is no, she's not getting the props she deserves as a songwriter. I mean, what depends on what she's writing? No, we don't know. It depends on what she's writing because I guess I'm just mentioning things that tickle me, but she's written like she's had great songs. No, I mean, yeah. And I think one thing that's very clear is that fantasy by Mariah Carey, like there are two popular versions of this song. And until we just played that other one, I totally forgotten that there was one other than the old dirty because I only really messed around with. Well, we got to talk about the backstory of how we even came to this episode because we were talking about Mariah and trying to choose what Mariah song should we do and fantasy came up pretty quickly for me because I love this song. I love the backstory, which I'm about to go into with all the samples and interpolations. Like that's my jam. Like I can live for that. We're about to go down a really fun rabbit hole about that. But when we were talking about it, like I did not. I mean, I'm raising my hand like I first to admit, I did not know of the existence of the remix. That's crazy to me. Never heard it. And yellow because we're it's not that he had never heard the original, but it's like we absolutely had two different worlds. But maybe I had roundly avoided it. Wow. No, that's one thing I love about 90s hip hop is that there was always a remix and a lot of times the remix was a completely different song. Like a completely different record. Come with new vocals. New vocals. Oh, by the way, I want to, I want to talk about my favorite old dirty bastard song of all time. It is the radio edit of Brooklyn Zoo because as opposed to nowadays, when like you just drop out the curse words and even my kids are like, man, they're cursing a lot because this is essentially like, you know, whole verses go away and stuff like that. In the early to probably mid 90s, there was a lot of just rerecording clean lyrics. So, you know, one of the first first where I really noticed that, you know, sometimes the clean version is better is a deep cover because Snoop on the dirty version is like, I got a gauge and Uzi and my mother in 22. But on the edit, he's like, I got a gauge and Uzi and my nickel plated 22. And I was as a writer, I was like, ooh, nickel plated 22. Like it was more, there was more imagery that was forming in my brain. But but old dirty bastard takes the cake. He takes the cake when it comes to coming up with completely different lyrics. I'm going to play you a snippet. And really, if you get a second, just go on YouTube or wherever you can find Brooklyn Zoo, Clean Edit. The whole song is like this. If you if you play the dirty version first and then the clean version, it's a completely different song. Some of the best ad libs in history. I'm just going to play a snippet. Here he goes. Who couldn't figure? Yo, but a new who couldn't figure how to pull a gun trigger. Get out of here. That is a sampling. There are so many sound effects. There are so many places where he just changes the lyrics like that one part. I think he says like, without a gun trigger, you crazy. Instead of that, he goes without pulling a gun trigger. Get out of here. Like he screams, get out of here. And I just feel like that's some stuff that you would never use a better choice, frankly. It's a better song. It was Wiley Coyote building in the song. Like he brought Looney Tunes. He brought the Acme. He brought the Acme Box. Yes. Now, Lex, you're going to take us on how we go from Tom Tom Club to fantasy to to Lotto. You're going to take us through the whole. You just know I'm going to have a great time with this and everyone. You're all going to have a great time with this interpolation, interpolation, sampling rabbit hole. It all begins. It's 1981. And one of my favorite parts about this journey is especially at the at the top half of it, there's a lot of we're going to talk in a later episode about the history of remixes and which I'm so excited for, because I'm a big Jamaica and Dubb Buff. But there's a lot of Jamaica in the original song, in the original sample. So really quickly, the Tom Tom Club, for those who don't know, this is half of the band talking heads. It's the husband and wife team of Tina Waymuth on bass and Chris Franz on drums. And they're on a break. They go down to Bahamas, Compass Studios. And the first Jamaican connection here is that Compass Point is owned by Chris Blackwell of Island Records, in other words, the guy who made Bob Marley famous. So right out the gate, we've got Slain Robbie are in the next room, seeking of reggae there in the middle of 1981 of a new era of reggae that they kind of pioneer. And Steven Stanley is their producer, a Jamaican man, who's also a co-writer of the song. So they're they're steeped in what is at the time, kind of a new sound of Dubb and sort of extended remixes. So on day one, they're thinking Jamaica, they're thinking, sampling, they're thinking remixes, interestingly, baked into this song already when it's made is this idea of like reusing and repurposing other songs and other material. That's the core of Jamaica. Again, deep dive, big time deep dive in another episode. If I could just jump in real quick, there's one other part that I think is worth mentioning, which is that, you know, if you think about the first bebop song, you know, like one of the first by Charlie Parker is a song called Coco, where he admits like, you know, that is my interpolation, if you will, of Cherokee by Ray Noble, which had come out like 20 years earlier. So I think that in a lot of these, you know, American and African American and Jamaican American music forms, there is this tradition of like taking something from about 20 or 30 years back and then just, you know, revving it up and making it more modern. And I think that's one of the coolest things about this particular song is that it just keeps coming back, you know, every, you know, other generation. Yeah, we're about to hear that same snippet, which you've already heard a lot on the show a lot more times. It is one of the most sampled licks of all time, that two bars of drums and bass that we keep hearing throughout this episode. So getting back to Tom Tom Club, Genius of Love, in part inspired by a song called More Bounce of the Ounce by Zap, which I'll play a little snippet for you right now, in particular, the beat and the very slowed down funk beat and the big delicious clap, one of my favorite claps. Oh my God. I can listen to Troutman, Roger Troutman. Black people just be inspiring everything. I know, because all I hear is that part now when I hear, you know, those. The talk box. Yeah, man. I mean, like, I can just imagine those two French guys being like, that's the sound, you know what I mean? Like, that stuff is wonderful. It is deep. It is wonderful. And they love that beat. So they tried to do something with a similar beat, 103 BPM, slowed down. And to get that clap talking about Jamaica, I mentioned before when they recorded it, Sly and Robbie were in the next room and actually get a shout out on the song. This is that song where they mentioned Bohannon, Bohannon, Bohannon, James Brown. As another thing I wanted to talk to you about with this song is this is an example. They have like 50 different voice ideas in the song, Genius of Love, which is why another connection to me with with Mariah is like all of these different ways of presenting vocal material, like all the different ways to do it. It's so interesting. So I want to get your opinion about that before we move on. Like, is this a song that means as much to you as it did to Mariah? Maybe are you a fan of Genius of Love? Let me ask you that way. I do like the song. Yeah, I love it. And it wasn't until I started DJing, I was just like, no, I need to add this in there because I might be more prone to play the original than the just to remind people where these songs came from. Yeah. Yeah. So. But then you can always go into one of the other songs. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love one of my favorite parts is what you're going to do when you get out of jail? I'm going to have some fun. Everybody. I love just the different conversations. Where's that conversation taking place, by the way? I mean, just like in meeting in the ladies room by climax, you know, at the beginning of the song, she's talking about, I need to get myself together. Where's my jury? Can we talk? I need the powder, my nose. You know, right. I know what that means. I don't see in the studio 54. Documentary. So Sly and Robbie are in the next studio. Tom Tom Club, Chris and Tina are like, come on in here, contribute to the song. We just gave you a shout out. We love your music. So they come in there and they record three layers of claps. So the claps you hear on this song are they went through the whole seven minute long version and just 20 minutes of clap. No clap looping. It's 21 minutes of Sly and Robbie on claps in this in this in the mix in there. Yeah, which is really amazing. So, so as I mentioned, this is one of the most sampled songs of all time. It's in the cannon as a song itself and as a reuse use. So it's been sampled. It's been interpolated. One of the more famous ones, one of the earliest ones is this is Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and it's actually not a sample. It's an interpolation. It's nasty. We try to get some rapping. Thank you. 1982. This is how we rap. Okay. You know, I would have loved to be that guy who's auditioning to be a rapper from like, like famous rappers back then. Like you can be like, I got those skills that really good. They're like, no, you doing it wrong. I don't know. There's something wrong about it. It's not just me, right? I want to see those people audition. Oh, God, they all have the same voice. Yeah. Well, and I'd be remiss if I didn't include this one sample out of many. Return of the map. And it's just the beat. Oh, that's what I was saying. Okay. Really? That's Sly and Robbie on those claps, right? Now we know. Whoo. That's a distinctive clap. Come on. Yes, you did. Oh my God. It's like he's like a more. Mark Morrison. He's more he's more of a vote, more a vocally interesting version of Keith Sweat. Because, you know, because Keith Sweat being all about you got it. But he's one of my favorite things about return of the map and long time listeners should know this is that it is a Chucky Booker's game. I want to say why you want to play games. Why you want to play? Why you want to play? And he hit that one note. Why you want to play? Why you want to play? Shout out to Chucky Booker. Chucky Booker, man. Like that. I got to do a wellness check on him. I just randomly did a wellness check on Jason James Richter and La Chat. Oh, they're all doing well. Okay. Yeah, we was worried. Where is this like a service that you like randomly? I was really thinking about what happened to that little boy that was on free willy. Let me just see. Okay, he did his last post was a week ago. All right. And I checked on the chat, you know, but you need some gum like some thunder, you know, just how are these people doing? I might do one of those on a big tuck. I'm like, what? Yeah, just do a random wellness check and go on Twitter and be like, y'all, I was I was thinking about such and such and they are. All right. So that's genius of love. That's Tom Tom Club. That's the origin. We have samples. We got interpolations all over the place, but it is also the bedrock of Mariah Carey's fantasy, which is the bedrock itself of the song. Ostensibly we're talking about today, which is the remix. So layers are layering in real time right in front of our very eyes. Let's get into Mariah Carey's fantasy. This is from 1995. We talked a little bit about producer co-writer Dave Jamhall. As I was doing my research, I learned the fact that I did not know. Besides having produced Mary J. Blight is what's 411. Do you know who producer Dave Jamhall was married to at the time this record was made? Nope. Tell us. Miss Wanda Sykes. What? I did not know this. I did not know this. I didn't know that. True fact. So Wanda didn't know that. I don't know. Okay. No. Wanda may have been in the studio the day the song was recorded for all I know. We do not know. But he did. What's the 411 for Mary? He did Mary's 411. What's the 411? He had a hot hand because I'll tell you, man, these are these are huge records. These are huge, huge records. Yeah. The bedrock of fantasy is a two bar loop of genius of love. And on top of it, there's some light synth sprinkled. I'm going to play you a little moment. Here's just from the instrumental backing track. In the mix, you may not even notice this because it's very, very minor, but it does add a little bit of juice. So here is the fantasy instrumental and some of the additional sauce. This is really cool. I'd never noticed this before. I love it. Right? I'd never noticed that little kind of it's almost like a rose or something like that, but it's really buried. It almost sounds like a vocoder. Oh yeah. Because she up in here. Yeah. Yeah. Shit. Oh, you don't hear all that. So, you know, but now that's real pretty. It's really pretty. Yeah. It's really basic. And it kind of mirrors sweet, sweet, sweet. Any conversation about the song? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Any conversation about Mariah and especially this song would be, I'd be remiss to not mention something that only Mariah can do. And that's this. That's called the whistle tone. Oh my God. Can you do the whistle? What is it? And how do you do it? We don't forget about Betty and Minnie. I was going to get into Minnie in a second. I mean, modern day. Let me reset. You're absolutely right. It's not the only one, but she is certainly known for it in the modern era. Oh yeah. The way she colored her whistle and the approach. Yeah. She started that. As a singer, when you hear that, what does it mean to you as it like, is it something that you've ever tried to do or used? Is it achievable by mortals? What's the story with the whistle? I look at it as this tiny hole in your throat that you can push air out of. And if you can get sound out of it, then. And also men are because we can get lower. Right. If we can access a whistle, we can always have a broader range than that. So is it true? I'm going to be the I'm going to be the dumb layman here. Is is is it true that women don't have a real falsetto? So men have falsettos. Women have head voices. OK, it's just it's just a term. It's just a term. Yeah. But they're both technically the head voice. Is that right? So yes, it's just that when we're doing our false, it's a false note because that's not our natural. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, I always had a pretty good falsetto. Yeah, that was my sweet spot. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I've heard your falsetto. I love your falsetto. Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Well, I'll ask you later. What's that? I said, I want to hear it later. OK. Once you got some rest. Yeah, because that was telling from what I understand, it's like we. Humans aren't really sure how it's produced because you can't actually get a camera, but I understand like in the epiglottis, it's like it's very from a medical standpoint, it's beyond what I could understand. But like there's a little mystery to how it is actually produced. It's one of those things that you just kind of feel and aim and practice until you get, I suppose. That's literally how it was for me because I found it out. I found out that I had a whistle by laughing. What? Like it would just be this screech. Like. Oh, there it is. All of that is range. That's range. It's just and it's a note. You know what I'm saying? So you find by accident. Yeah, yeah, it just happened. You're like, oh, I got it. And then literally a friend was like, you should try that next time you record a song, like try to access that. Right. And so you just spend time with it and then you learn how to access it sometime. Well, because I'm sorry. No, no, no, please. Except for when Layla had to try to teach me the two note thing. I thought I was going to hurt myself. Oh, is that singing two notes at once? A chord? And anytime that I do fall in because no, wait, I did hit two notes when I did during Sam's vibe on Tiny Desk, but that wasn't on purpose. Oh, wow. That was not on purpose. I just knew that I it was there. I just knew the whistle was there. But how it was going to come out. OK, you know, this thing pays the mortgage. So you have one of the best voices out there. Period. It's amazing what you're able to do. And by the way, as a comedy writer, I'll say you do it in very funny ways. Like you're since the humor is still there. I always respect Fonte Coleman and somebody who I have a great deal of respect for it because he reached out to us on comedy. And it was, you know, and we already knew Little Brother, but then it was like, oh, man, you know what? Now we think about all them little brother homes are a little hilarious. Yeah. So yeah, I think that comedy and music often go together. And since you mentioned it, I'd be remiss if in the conversation about Mariah Carey and the whistle, if I didn't play a little bit of mini-repretent for you, this is this is maybe the most famous whistle prior to Mariah. And this is Lovin' You from 1975. So crazy. Shanice and Shantae Moore covering this song is amazing, especially when Shantae does it because then she goes, she goes higher. She was just up here chirping, talking to the clouds. It's a magical sound. It's like a Disney movie or something. Of course, a lot of people know this, but if you didn't, that's my Rudolph's mom singing. Yes, that's my Rudolph. Absolutely. I didn't I only found this out when I was researching, but at the very end of the song. Listen to what she sings. Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya. Sing Maya, Maya, Maya. How did I miss that? How did I miss that? We all missed that. Maya didn't miss that. Baby Maya. But I've worked with Maya Rudolph on a couple occasions and they talk about it a lot. He got the cassette tape of that. Maya Rudolph was in the room, young baby Maya, and that's what she's singing. I love that. Sweet moment there. All right. So that's Mariah. That's fantasy. That's the original version. But we came here today to talk about the remix. And the bad boy remix featuring ODB was done by Puff along with his fellow bad boy hitman member, Nishim Myrik. So do you all break it down for me? What did this remix mean to hip hop? How did it change things? I mean, again, I, you know, I was, I was, I feel like I was immersed in the scene, both as like a DJ and an active listener. I was buying all the mix tapes. And I do think that, you know, this was one of the times where we realized hip hop wasn't just taking over R&B. It was taking over pop. And I feel like for the next 10 to 15 years, almost all hip hop, I mean, I'm sorry, almost all pop and definitely R&B, it was, it was so heavily in hip hop influence that it was hard to figure out where hip hop ended and where R&B began or where pop began, you know what I mean? Like, so, um, I remember especially like when everybody really started singing, like, you know, like when Drake started, like to really do his thing, like by 2009, it was like, man, is it hip hop? If they don't rap one verse, you know, if it's just all singing, like, right? This is even kind of hip hop. Yeah. I mean, like the first time I noticed like people were calling, you know, like some of the greats, I'm talking about Lauren Hill, Miss Education, you know, like there's, there's some songs on there where she doesn't really, you know, rhyme a verse. Like she sings, you know, the entire song. So I feel like we had already been heading in that direction, but definitely for the next 10 or 15 years, like that's all that we were until pop sort of became kind of where it currently lives, um, which I always say like right now, most pop singers, like the dual leap is, they're singing over what is essentially EDM music. They're singing over like, you know, if you, if you took their vocals off and you put a few more techno flares in there, it would be a straight up dance track. But, you know, for quite some time, at least from 95 until 2010, uh, you could make the argument that hip hop was for lack of a better term pop. All, you know, hip hop had all the biggest artists, you know, from Ludacris to Tia, Missy Elliott. Um, we were definitely driving that culture for a long time. Um, and I do feel like as many people have noticed that has changed, you know, like now, you know, a lot of what is hip hop with the exception of ironically of the women, you know, I think that, you know, if you were to ask who are the big male hip hop stars, like they're not the household names, the way that they were, you know, now it's, it's mainly about, you know, the Cardi's, the Megan's, uh, you know, Sawidi ice spice, but there was a time when, uh, you know, hip hop was just, was running things. And I feel like this was a point where hip hop and pop really merged in a way that it did, you know, now it almost seemed passe, like, you know, no heads would turn if, you know, I mean, do a leap and literally do the song with the baby. So I mean, like, and nobody cared, you know, they, they judged it on the merits of the song, but like the time when like you could take a pop princess and put it with a hip hop person, that seems very passe. I gotta ask you real quick, what's your favorite remix of all time? Who is between, uh, me and Siaka's new phone, who dis or me and our relentix's remix to FaceTime, you know, I was gotta plug myself. No, I love it. I love it. This is something I know about you. But if we're talking about a remix that like, ain't it funny is a good one. That they say. Samplecrate Mac. With everybody's favorite rapper. Also the, the bootylicious read the rock, wow, the bootylicious remix. Oh, and the Rex, the Teddy Riley remix to bumps. No, not that's MC Hammerlord. All I want to do is zoom, zoom, zoom. Yeah. The remix to. The remix. The. DOOM DOOM. Oh, wow. Wait, yes. I think we have to play a little bit of that. Oh, oh, oh. But you know what? Hold that, hold that. Scoop love like this by faith. Hello. Hello. Okay. That song, you got a hundred dollar bill, put your hands up. Okay. We got to, you know what? We should talk about that song. I will say, let me just pull it up because that's not the name of it. It's not called that. It's called, um, guys, Fat Man scoop. Is it love like this? Yeah. Love like this. Never had someone to show me love like this before. What shows? So the XI be faithful is the name of the song. I'm going to, I'm going to pull the DJ card and say, I knew it. It's called be faith. Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, and that song. Yes, it is. Okay. I did not know that when that. I got it. So came out. This is a DJ story real quick. When that song came out, let me tell you. It drove me nuts because I would say from the time it came out, probably like 2002, somewhere in there until I got it. Like 2010, I had to hear that song five times. It was unavoidable. When I was writing an early script, I actually had my character go to five different clubs on one night and every single club he went into was playing that song. It's like, what shows? Oh, the XI, you know, that's safe. You know, that's from save the last dance. That's why it really popped off. Is that what really did it? Yes. It's just like how it's just like how the Joe, the Joe Budden song was in one movie, pump it up. I think it's the first step to the street. Right. Oh, I know that. But his song, Fire, was in Mean Girls. Fire is in Mean Girls. You're right. You're right. There were certain there were certain movie usages that made these songs ubiquitous, but I will say, God, you're right. It's an absolutely fantastic, you know, use of faith and about two other songs. It's got the engine, engine. Number nine. Oh, New York. That's a lot. If my tree falls off the back, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up. Bistro. Who's fucking tonight? You know, like you had all that stuff. We have gotten off topic, but we're talking about big club hits. And one big club hit was, of course, the fantasy remix featuring ODB. After the break, we'll be back with more on this song. And we will talk about her collaborate on this song. I'm talking about a song unique, dirtiest man alive, Dirt McGirt, DJ Cooley, hot Joe bananas, the specialist dirt dog. Oh, Cyrus. Oh, Cyrus, Dirty McDirster, big baby Jesus himself. The old dirty dog. I had to say it like that because I say this song, presumably for radio. He's just to his friends, old dirty bastard. And we're going to talk about that. Russell. After the break. Well, he's Russell Jones to his mom, but it's a he's ODB and we'll be right back. Welcome back to one song. Now I want to change things up a little bit. I want to tell a story, the story of how old dirty bastard got on this track and how he worked on this track. Now, recording a fantasy, like we said, Rick record label wasn't happy with it. Tommy Matola, her husband is not happy about it. But Mariah was like, I want to do this song specifically with my drunk uncle, dirty bastard. And true to form, they set up some record time and old dirty bastard showed up three hours late and apparently had been drinking all day. Oh, gosh, I was going to ask if he was inebriated for real. He was he was not sober. The instincts were right on the show. He showed up. And one of the first things he said was he needed Moet and Newports. And it was apparently because he was three hours late. It's around midnight. You know, this is I feel like in New York now, you could find Moet and Newports at midnight. But maybe in 1995, that wasn't a thing. So they tell the interns who, I guess, are all white to go get him Moet and Newports. They just like, we probably can't find that. He tells them that they are. He said, you also white devils, y'all don't want black people to have. So the white devils went to go get Moet and Newports. They searched for an hour. They came back with Heineken's. He was irate. I got to say, if I'm old dirty bastard, I'm kind of I kind of I'm kind of team old dirty bastard on that. Like Heineken is not Newport. You guys, he apparently took the Newport. I mean, he took the Heineken that we will never find out they found the Newports. He took the Heineken. He smashed it on the ground. He was like, all right, let's work. He records the famous line. Me and Mariah go back like babies and pacifiers, which is just an amazing song. Just an amazing lyric for any song. But he accomplished that line. Should we hear? Should we hear that line from the song? Go for it. All right. Here we go. And that was it. He recorded that line and he's like, I need to sleep. He lays down and goes to sleep apparently for a whole hour. Everybody's just sitting around waiting him for, you know, to wake up and do some more. Old dirty gets up. He records the next line. Old dirty dog, don't lie. Keep your fantasy hot like fire and then went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. At some point in the evening, he tells the engineer, he's like, hey, I hope you got your shit right because I ain't doing it twice. I have a theory about that. I have a theory. He wasn't actually talking to the engineer. I think that was his next verse. Make sure you got your set right because I ain't doing it twice. It almost rhymes too much. I think he was to keep that. He should have put it in some bars. He goes to sleep again. This time apparently he kicked off one shoe and the whole studio smelled terrible. There was some other stuff that he might have done. I'm not going to go into it. You can find the story online. I don't want y'all to tune out, but like it's, it's a mess. And by the way, the whole time Tommy Mottola and Mariah are calling every hour in the hour asking, how's it going? Like, is it going well? Like, what are you recording? So it took them all night to record that one verse. And if you listen to it, you hear that his voice feels very punched in. Like it's not like one continuous take. Like there's a reason why. Like even some lines like, I'm a little bit country. I'm a little bit rock and roll. I'm soul to soul. Like if you listen to that part in particular, like the lyrics are like lapped over each other, not for a fact, but just because they just didn't line up. Just one idea at a time. Yeah, it was just one idea at a time. But you know, when you write me and Mariah go back like baby, the fast. You take it up. You listen, listen, long nap. He might have known in his brain, you know what? This is good enough to be a part of hip hop history. Yeah. So he leaves the studio. They finally play the track from Ryan, Tommy, Matilla, and this story doesn't go the way you think it's going to go. They loved it from the first time they heard heard it. They knew they had a hit. So they said, hey, that was really good. Can you get Old Dirty Baster to come back and add more cities? We like when he said New York is in the house. The engineers are like, no, I don't know if you know this, but like he's going to charge us the same amount all like $15,000, which is a lot of money back in 1995, but maybe not that much for a Mariah Carey song. But they're like, no, no, no, we need more cities. We need more towns. Like we love that part. So he gets another 15 grand to come back. Shout out to Corey Summers, by the way, the guy who told this story because he was there that night. He came back and he added more cities. That's when he adds Japan because if it sounds like he's just making he's just throwing out places. Well, there's a reason for that because, you know, he's just in the studio. And by the way, when he came back to record those other places, he was apparently like hungover and tired. So he didn't fall to sleep a bunch of times, but you're working with an even more grumpy Old Dirty Baster. So that to me is part of the genius of Old Dirty. Like, you know, you hear about Hank Williams, you know, when you hear about country, you hear about, oh, they had to give Keith Richards a whole new set of blood because his blood was so tainted like they had to. Like these are stories told about other people. But I feel like we don't know all the stories about our our our friends in hip hop in the same way. And to me, this story is like, I don't know if I want to be there that night, but I'm happy that it happened. I'm happy that a man could be so free as to insult the interns, smash a bottle of beer on the make people wait while he sleeps, subject them to smells and then take all night to record one of the shortest verses, I think, on a feature that you're ever going to come across. But you know what? It worked for him. It worked for Old Dirty. I mean, like, I don't know. Is there a part of you as an artist who I'm not you seem like a very good individual, but is there a part of you that secretly likes to like, like, would love to be just unhinged, just unhinged for once. I am. I am unhinged, but I'm not unhinged in a way. At least to my experience from myself, because I have to live with myself, but also the people around me, you know, that are not. Yes, man. I can be unhinged with my transparency and my honesty, but it's never to like truly hurt somebody's feelings. I'm a joke. Like I'm a jokester. You know, if I can find some areas where we can we can joke and throw a little read in there, like that's that's cute. But you're not hurting anybody. No, no, no. And I think that, listen, the people here at One Saw, we do not promote bullies. So to speak. But every now and then, it's just something fun. I think I enjoyed this. I think because honestly, this is getting really real. I think because I am just generally such a polite person that the same way, like British humor is always based on people being loud and saying things obnoxious that they would never say because they're also but I feel like sort of the same way, like it's fun for me to hear these stories about old dirty bastard and Rick James just being unhinged, like not Oh, Rick James. Hearing at all. You know what I mean? Rick James was a whole another level of unhinged. James Brown was another one, especially with how they fire people. I mean, I love to me, I just I love old very bastard. I think he was one of the most innovative rappers of all time. We're talking today about fantasy with Mariah Carey, but like we're talking about the same guy that got your money. You know what I'm saying? Shimmy, shimmy, yah, shimmy, shimmy, yah. I mean, you know, nowadays we look at old dirty and we think, man, maybe, maybe, maybe we needed to be better friends. Maybe we needed to help this man. But what do you think about that? I mean, like, what do you think about old dirties? You know, what made him great? And, you know, what's his legacy and hip hop? I think in my mind, his his his legacy. Just being a human being is is how many different dynamics there are these different nuances to how our brains process things. The psychology behind things that we've experienced and how we cope with it. I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah. And also just not having maybe not having access to, you know, therapy. Exactly. That time this is this is not at a time where black people are unpacking things. Let's unpack that. You know, we didn't, you know, so it's this it's the role of like, you know, where was hip hop on mental illness? Why I think that we were definitely weren't talking about it back then. You know what I mean? Like the idea of a therapist, you know, yeah, we were still we were still a little bit of ways from that. Yeah. Totally. I mean, and, you know, again, I think to a certain extent, you know, I just love a good story. I mean, the idea that this guy was a fugitive, but he was still showing up at concerts, you know, when they dropped the W in 2000, he was already on the run from he had like literally run out of rehab. Like he was at a rehab in Pasadena, California, and they said, we got to take it down to the to the court. And dude just said, I'm not doing that. And ran away. And like they said, well, we don't have, you know, this is not a rehab where we, you know, restrain me by it. Like he just lay around away. And so for the next couple of months, he was showing up at concerts, showing up at record release albums. He doesn't get caught until he's in Philadelphia signing autographs at a McDonald's drive-through. And they said that the crowd got so big with people coming up to get signatures from ODB that the cops didn't know who was over there causing a commotion. They just went over there because they were like, who are all these people hanging out at McDonald's drive-through when they figured out that he had bench warrants. That was when they took him back in. But I mean, like to me, this is, this is who old dirty bastard was like and his cousin, the RZA said, my cousin was a genius. He was like, old dirty bastard was a genius. And to a certain extent, I feel that way. I feel like he was untethered by social norms. And I'm not, obviously he did some things that, you know, are not excusable or funny, but, you know, just from an artistic point of view, there's a part of me that respects that sort of wild man that he was. You know what I mean? So where do we land after all this? I'm a riot carry. Like, do we, you know, what do you as a performer, you know, take away from this artist and this, this time? I think she's an artist to definitely study from the, from the ways in which she has honed her skills and not only the singing in the writing as well. So, yeah, and also take a listen to Luther to see where those, where those worlds meet, because there are also other ways in which artists, like I said, influence and inspire each other. I love how you are, you know, not afraid to champion yourself. I actually truly appreciate that because I think sometimes, you know, we, we weren't credit for being like, you know, humble and not sort of putting our names of the conversation on stuff, but quite frankly, there is so much music. There's so much TV. There's so much culture out there that sometimes if you're not actively out, pushing yourself like it's really easy to get lost in the mix. Absolutely. That being said, who are, you know, they don't have to be, they could be current, they could be in the past. Who are like the three artists that, you know, you feel, I'm not even going to say inspire you, but, you know, make you like, oh, yeah, you know, like, this is, this is why I'm an artist. I want to make something that makes someone feel the way I feel when I listen to blank. Okay. I can actually just give you my, um, Mount Rushmore. Yeah, on Rushmore. And, um, it's of ladies, gentlemen. And then we have the personality and the foundation of which that's those things sit on. So on the lady side, we have Badu, Phyllis Hyman, Lisa Fisher, and Sarah Vaughn. And of course I got to give our honorable mention to Jill Scott and Layla Hathaway. Then over here on the gentleman side, we have a B-slay formerly known as the gospel singer, Tony. We have Rick James. We have Nate Dahl. And we have Luther. And then of course, as our honorable mention over there, we have Phillip Bailey of earth, wind and fire. And we have Crash Cut. Levi Bennett, if you don't know who that is, just go ahead and look him up. All right. That's a nice cover. Yes. Looking forward. You'll, it'll make sense. Okay. And then the personality side down here that, that, that those two things sit on, we have a little Richard. Bugs Bunny. Babs Bunny. We have Jim Carrey, specifically from Lyre Lyre, Ace Ventura, and the mask. My parents took me to go see the mask at the movies here. Who's Babs Bunny? Babs Bunny. Okay. So, okay. So that's from, uh, that's from Tiny Toons. Yeah. And so you got Busta and Babs Bunny. Those are the, like the, the grandchildren, like of just the, the new bunnies that are coming up and Babs is me and I am Babs. And then of course we step into this world. Um, Ricky Smiley, Dave Chappelle, uh, Arnest J, Monique. Of course. Uh, Steven Wright, Bo Burnham, Jamie Foxx. There you go. Like these are, I'm also inspired by comedians. I was going to say, you have almost as many, if not more, comedy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I grew, I grew up on that, you know, so it's. You know, it's funny. There's actually some overlap in your list because, uh, when I was talking to Neil Brennan, he said, I knew Dave Chappelle was great because he seemed like Malcolm X and Bugs Bunny had a child. And I was like, yeah, I absolutely see that. The whole way through. And I think, look, we talked about Mariah doing sort of pop R&B and then becoming, you know, one of the people who was merging it with hip hop where R&B goes next. None of us can say for sure, but I can say that this group of people here feel like you absolutely are part of that future. And we want to thank you for coming through today. So thank you so much, Durant. Um, where can we find you on the internet? Yes. I'm so glad. Yes. So, uh, you can find me on the Tik Toks and the Instagrams and the Twitters. Listen, your mama called your mama named you, Twitter. And that's what I'm going to call you. So, um, yeah, if you say X, nobody else can handle it. Yep. Durambranar D U R A N D B E R R N A R R. And that's also my website as well. You can find merch. We also got socks. Make sure you get your little bit. Hey, we got it. Come on. My face on it. I always wear, I'm wearing socks with a face right now. That's Michelle Obama. Yeah. Oh, face socks. I will buy some face socks. Face socks brothers. They're called the little bits and we got mango butter too for all the dry face to death. We're gonna make sure that you know, you, you stay moisturized. We don't want you out here in these streets looking crazy. I feel personally attacked. Listen, listen, listen, but I'm also going to find a solution. Okay. I'm gonna state the problem, but in that same breath, we're going to provide the solution. You know, that's what you're going to learn about me. I'll tell a joke, but I never tell you a lie. I got off a plane. Lecture. Help me in this thing. All right. Well, I'm producer DJ and songwriter luxury. That's L UX X U R Y on the internet and I'm actor, writer, director and sometimes old dirty DJ, the yellow riddle. You can find me at D. A. L O D I A L L O on Instagram or D. A L O Riddle on Tik Tok and this is one song. We will see you next time. Come on, baby. Come on.