Pete Rock Tribute: James Brown

If there’s even been a beat spun from a James Brown bridge then Pete Rock’s strained the impurities and let the needle drop on a tribute, dished out in a consommé of the Soul Brother Number One.

Former one-half of Pete Rock & CL Smooth, The legendary DJ and producer Pete Rock rinses a crate of vinyls on this tribute, chopping and screwing the breaks behind the funk that shaped the Godfather of Soul’s legend. 

This tribute breaks hip-hop down to its foundations of James Brown, the J.B.’s and the driving bass of the Collins brothers (Bootsy and Catfish) before they went Funkadelic leaving Fred Wesley to the reigns of Brown’s signature funk that founded the samples and records cut to make some of hip-hop’s most classic tracks bang. Over loops to Rakim’s “I Know You Got Soul” from Bobby Byrd and the J.B’s, to Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock’s screaming “It Takes Two” to Das EFX’s sewer-creepin’ bassline and the brass of Fred Wes’ “Blind Man Can See It” to make that Black Caesar “Paid The Cost To Be The Boss” gangster shit on Nas’ “Get On Up”, Rock steals the wheels to illustrate how time-framing James Brown’s music is in the annuls of hip-hop’s 40 plus year history.

Pete Rock released this tribute mix to run with the James Brown biopic, Get On Up, in theaters now. The producer had this to say about the legend James Brown: