Hip Hop

Blue Scholars – New People (Empire Way Remix)

blame it on Meka April 7, 2010


Story time, courtesy of Sabzi

Back in 2008, one of the tunes that was in (figurative) rotation on the iPhone was a little Australian hit called “Walking On A Dream” by a group called Empire Of The Sun. Whether or not that song is garbage is up to you. Either way, I snatched the best loops in that song, added some extra percussion, and chopped a Biggie sample for the bridge and we came up with what is now known as New People.

DOWNLOAD: Blue Scholars – New People (Empire Way rmx) | Mediafire

Since we wanted to release New People on the OOF! EP we ended up making a different version of it because a) the Empire version didn’t match the sonic texture of OOF!, and b) you can’t really do an official release of a song with such a recognizable sample anyway. You know, lawyers and such.

Long story short, this “remix” (aka original version) didn’t come out until a year later in August ‘09 and even then I don’t remember exactly how we put it out. We were so busy with the release of the actual EP and the Hawaii trip that I must have overlooked the fact that this remix only made it onto some crappy jewel-cased promo CD sampler that nobody listened to. ‘Cause seriously, who the hell listens to CDs? Every time I’m at an event and somebody gives me a demo or sampler on CD it’s like they’re saying, “Hey man, will YOU throw this away for me?” (RIP Mitch Hedburg).

Anyway, I guess we waited too long on making this version known ’cause after the shows this weekend I was getting Twitter questions about this song from people like they never heard it before. What’s likely more of a kick-in-the-hip-hop-testes is that, although we made this joint a year and a half ago, Wiz Khalifa has his own version that came out sometime (I think) in the last 6 months. This of course helped make an awkward moment at the show we did with Wiz Khalifa the other day when we rocked the New People {Empire Way Remix} in front of some of his fans.

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