The irrepressible Marva Whitney and Lyn Collins - the female preacher featured on classics that underpinned pretty much the entire hip-hop and dance scenes of the 90s. From NWA to The 45 King's The 900 Number and Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock, they gifted us a legacy of funk in hip-hop that keeps us digging today.
But the person in focus here is Vicki Anderson, in her original guise as Myra Barnes (later to become Mrs Bobby Byrd), and a hard funk groove that has been used in several ways in hip-hop and therefore holds many formative golden-age memories.
Listen hereMessage to the Soul Sisters opens with a rousing cry for the sisters to get together and show the brothers they can get down too. It kicks in with a pounding piano loop that riffs with hard, open drums and cries of "Yeah!". It's almost as if JB intentionally wrote it to feed the hungry samplers of 90s New York.
It didn't take long for the keen ears of DJ Premier to pick it up and rock it for Gang Starr's debut album on No More Mister Nice Guy, and then, from the west coast, Above the Law asked the question: "What's a radio cut when ya can't say shit and ya can't say fuck?" – is that Freedom Of Speech?
As Bobby Byrd's head-nodding piano groove rumbles on, it's the screeching horn solos that really grab the attention, as raw funk rains down from the sky and crashes into the brass section.
The energetic chaos builds and provides backing for one of our all-time favourite hip-hop tracks, Nile Kings's Dropping Bombs, using the power of those screeching horns to maximum raw effect. Old-school UK heads can even pick out the Principle's handiwork for Caveman's intro to Streetlife, a track that had me scouring crates for years to track down the source of that infectious baseline loop and sax lick.
Running with that gritty piano loop throughout, the track was perfect for hip-hop heads the day it was written and it still stands out today as a great track. A Soul Brother #1 Classic.
