you gon’ take your pants off…

I'ma play this Vandross...

Call it veni vidi hindsight veinte-veinte. Call it spooky coincidence. Call it zeitgeist. Yo, kicko, I can't call it… but this is how I sees it.
ONE: A week or so ago, out of the blue, wifey asked "Is Luther Vandross still alive?" and I couldn't answer definitively.
TWO: Last Tuesday old homey (denying any relation to Nathaniel Merriweather) shows up at my fiesta cumpleanos over at the DUMBO roof jump-off rocking the black tee with "Excuse me miss…" on the front and "What's your name?" on the back. Of course Big Hovie (no homey) was the repping reference for folk but I called him a 'Luther fan' for those that actually knew the OG (Oprah Guest) sample source. (And I can't let the clarifications go without a 'peace' to Young Chris on State Prop's 'Do You Want Me' for 'letting' pre-President Carter take that shiny hook off the meat-rack).
THREE: A couple days later, as the slowed-down virus seeps ever-so slizzardly into the NY hype, I pitched a pitch-shift to Benni Bujillions pka Ben Mellman: "Let's (meaning 'him') slow down those sped-up Kanye samples… so that the samples will sound NORMAL and the Kanye parts will be all chilled-the-fuck-out". And the double-joke of doing 'Slow Jamz' seemed extra sweet (one might say 'syrupy').
Yes… I know… genius.
But, of course, someone had already done it… (game recognized, KROM... but
(as mattsoreal would say) not slow enough, mane!)

(It didn't work as well with the Michael Bolton sample… because who knows what the original sounds like… and does anybody really care?)

It's lame that all my Luther references are via the Roc (not to mention Young Gunz' 'Better Love') but it's weird that they all resurfaced a few days before his passing. LV RIP.

Luther Vandross - Excuse Me Miss
State Property – Do You Want Me
Kanye West, Twista, Jamie Foxx – Slow Jamz (chopped & screwed by KROM)