Kleptones, "Night at the Hip-Hopera"

Posted by Andy Baio

The Kleptones’ A Night at the Hip-Hopera is one of the the best mashup remixes I’ve ever heard, a fluid blend of classic and modern hip hop with Queen’s epic catalog. Please don’t miss the last track, Question.mp3. It’s like a plunderphonic call to arms against bad copyright law.

The official site is having bandwidth problems, so I’m mirroring the entire album, as individual songs and an uncut 110 MB MP3.

As far as I can tell, nobody has listed the sample origins online yet. I don’t have the time to locate the short samples, but here are most of the primary sources. If you can fill in any gaps (in bold) or have any corrections, leave a comment!

September 24, 2004: The sample list is almost complete, except for the source of the vocals in Stop.mp3. If you can identify the artist and song, please let me know. Found! Shane did some expert Googling and identified the sample as Looptroop w/Chords & Timbuktu, “Heads Day Off.” [MP3, 6.4MB]


01 – Precession.mp3
– Queen, “Procession”

02 – See.mp3
– Queen, “One Vision”
– KRS-One, “Hip Hop v. Rap” (lyrics)
– Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, “The Message” (lyrics)
– Kelis, “Milkshake” (closing sample)

03 – Live.mp3
– Queen, “Keep Yourself Alive”
– Afrikaa Bambaataa & Family, “Got to Get Up/Just Get Up and Dance” (thanks, Eric!)

04 – Bite.mp3
– Queen, “Another One Bites the Dust”
– Justin Timberlake, “Like I Love You” (intro)
– Ol’ Dirty Bastard w/Kelis, “Got Your Money” (lyrics)

05 – Jazz.mp3
– Queen, “More Of That Jazz”
– Queen, “We Will Rock You” (vocal sample)
– Taskforce, “Tears on my Pillowcase” (?)

06 – Rock.mp3
– Queen, “We Will Rock You”
– Iggy Pop w/Peaches, “Rock Show” (intro)
– Killa Kela, “Heavy Artillery”

07 – Love.mp3
– Queen, “Tenement Funster”

08 – Fight.mp3
– Queen, “Fight from the Inside”
– Dilated Peoples, “Marathon” (lyrics)

09 – Fuck.mp3
– Queen, “Seven Seas of Rhye” (thanks, Randy!)
– Queen, “Keep Yourself Alive” (thanks, Eric!)

10 – Play.mp3

– Queen, “Play the Game”
– De La Soul, “Much More” (intro, thanks Modofo)
– Electric 6, “Gay Bar”

11 – Ride.mp3
– Queen, “Bicycle Race”
– Eminem, “Slim Shady”

12 – Sniff.mp3
– Queen w/David Bowie, “Under Pressure”
– Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven Is A Place on Earth”
– Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby”
– Prince Paul w/De La Soul, “More Than U Know” (lyrics)

13 – Ridicule.mp3
– no music

14 – Plan.mp3
– Queen, “I’m Going Slightly Mad” (thanks, Matt!)
– Herbaliser w/Latyrx, “8-Point Agenda” (lyrics)

15 – Break.mp3
– Queen, “I Want to Break Free”
– Aaliyah w/Timbaland, “Try Again” (intro sample)
– Beastie Boys, “Shake Your Rump”
– Beastie Boys, “Body Movin'”
– Beastie Boys, “Alive”

16 – Listen.mp3
– Queen, “Radio Gaga”
– Beastie Boys, “Shake Your Rump”
– Beastie Boys, “Intergalactic”
– Beastie Boys, “Root Down”

17 – Work.mp3
– Queen, “Machines (Back to Human)”
– Missy Elliott, “She’s A Bitch” (lyrics)

18 – Come.mp3
– Queen, “Spread Your Wings” (thanks, Gordon!)
– Common w/Erykah Badu & Q-Tip, “Come Close” (lyrics)

19 – Expose.mp3
– Queen, “Flash”
– Brandy, “The Boy Is Mine” (intro)
– Beats International, “Dub Be Good To Me” (SOS Band/Deborah Cox cover)

20 – Jerk.mp3
– Queen, “It’s A Kind of Magic”
– Morris Day & the Time, “Jerk Out” (lyrics)
– Detroit Grand Pubahs, “Sandwiches”

21 – Save.mp3
– Queen, “Save Me”
– DJ Vadim w/Atmosphere, “Edie Brikell” (lyrics)

22 – Stop.mp3
– Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now”
– Looptroop w/Chords & Timbuktu, “Heads Day Off” (huge thanks, Shane!)

23 – Question.mp3
– Queen, “Who Wants to Live Forever?”

Comments

    Had to laugh at the meta-mashup of “Sniff” – Ice Ice Baby & Under Pressure. Great stuff, thanks for mirroring.

    #2 also has the “Here we go again” from Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise”, I believe.

    Many, many thanks for the mirror, Andy.

    I’d only found the zip before and, not having heard any part of it, didn’t want to get the whole shebang. Thanks for breaking it apart and providing sources.

    So…is it a secret how you handle this much bandwidth without going broke?

    Actually, the individual MP3s were on the Kleptones site before they started having bandwidth problems. That directory is basically a straight mirror of their own.

    As far as my bandwidth, my leased server plan allocates me one terabyte of bandwidth transfer per month. I use EV1 Servers, but I’ve heard great things from Server Matrix. (1.2 terabytes for $100/month.)

    Dialog samples:

    11. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (“Bueller?” and “I think he’s sick today, sir.”)

    (note: not 100% sure I’ve got the right track on this one, haven’t got time to actually check)

    23. The Big Lebowski (the “Nothing is fucked here, man, new shit has come to light” and “Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski” speeches)

    Track 4 “Bite” intro (the line about it being 1980 and getting a haircut): Lee Ving in the punk documentary Decline of Western Civiliation.

    23. Last track dialog samples:

    The Big Lebowski: [as mentioned above] (revolution is over…)

    Fight Club: (“white collar slaves…”)

    Head (Monkees movie, 1968): (“tragedy of your generation…”)

    Hugh Hefner: (“don’t watch, don’t listen,” etc.)

    I also appreciated the last track, and found some of the sample origins (see post on my site). Excellent task here to unearth them all — this is just what the internet is for. Actually, this just what a wiki is for, if you can set one up.

    Perhaps the most surprising thing for me as I was listening to this the first time through was the the “Hoorah!” in “Expose,” around 2:48. It’s the opening of Jethro Tull’s “The Third Hoorah” from their 1974 album Warchild.

    In 23, the first bit of dialogue in there (after the robotic “here comes the question”) is from an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

    So I’m sure it’s been mentioned, but there are samples in track 2 and 23 of The Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

    And also, based on this list, I’ve started an iMix on ITMS entitled “A Night In The Kleptones’ Crates“; if only iTMS had all the hip-hop tracks as well.

    On preview: Slightly beaten by Mike! *shakes fist*

    Great to hear a sample from unofficial White House consultant on The Rapture and all-round X-tian nutjob, Dr Jack Van Impe, in Track 3 (“rotten, filthy, dirty, lewd, lascivious JUNK called rock n roll” etc)

    The wav file for that can be found on Earthstation1.com

    I remember playing name the sample for Paul’s Botique .. that must have been back in the Usenet days.. anyone participate in that? It was about 10 years ago! HERE is part of a usenet thread:

    The Paul’s Botique sample list finally ended up HERE.

    I always wonder if the record companies used this to recoop royalties from all those songs the beasties sampled and didn’t license..

    A judge recently ruled that any sample, large or small, obscured or chopped, still must be licensed.

    Good luck Kleptones…heh

    I wanna take you to a gay bar.. this is retarded, thanks for the mirror!

    Lots of Googling reveals the vocals on 22 to be from DJ Promo’s “Pressure On the Fakes” — can be downloaded in MP3 here (though it’s very slow & I have yet to get the whole track), or hear a sample of the track in RA here.

    Mike: I found that, too… But if you listen to the tracks, it sounds like DJ Promo only sampled the chorus from another (unknown) song. None of the verses from the Kleptones track are in “Pressure on the Fakes.”

    Track 17 (Work) starts “Machines should work, people should think”. Thanks to the Internet I now know this is a well known IBM slogan from the 60s, often called the IBM Polyanna Principle. Wikipedia attributes it to Richard Hamming. I don’t know where the actual sample comes from.

    12 – Sniff.mp3 : I want some mo’ is Busta Rhymes. I can’t recall the title of the song, but I still remember the video. 🙂

    There’s at least one more bit of dialogue from Ferris Bueller: “What are we going to do? The question isn’t ‘what are we going to do?’, the question is ‘what aren’t we going to do?'”

    this album’s terrible. they’ve time-shifted every vocal track. very amateur thing to do. takes no skill at all.

    that said, they have put the instrumental tracks together well. and the vocal tracks weren’t chosen all that well, some don’t suit the tracks well at all; bar the latyrx track.

    Cheers tho, interesting listen.

    If you like this maybe check out Mash Out Posse. Or Z-trip’s Uneasy LIstening Vol.1. The latter is maybe the best mashup LIVE dj set ever. Andy, you’d love it.

    I know the “It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t have left you without a strong beat to step to…” (track 14? Maybe 15) bit from Erik B & Rakim’s “I Know You Got Soul”

    That one vocal bit “It’s been a long time..” is not Rakim, it’s Timbaland in an Aaliyah’s song “Try Again” (original lyric was by Rakim though)

    Also the bit about “Computers should work, people should think” can be found on Raymond Scott’s “Manhattan Research Project” which compiles his electronic works.

    And Z-Trips Uneasy Listening was great at the time but it sounds primitive now – Kid Koala’s live sets are more advanced (and more fun).

    I find most all these tracks work very well with the backing tracks although it gets a little tiresome to hear some of the same acapellas used constantly like Milkshake or any Missy Acapella.

    i think there is a sample in the begining of “live” from pizzamans “sex on the streets”. possibly this has already been a sample in this track,

    Track 8, “Fight” has a sample of The Art of Noise’s “Opus” at 0:58. The “bottanou” that gets repeated a few times right there.

    …I think.

    (I think my track numbers are off by one. Tried to add them in iTunes but I guess I messed up. Why don’t people publish their stuff with food ID3s?)

    Done now.

    The opening “This digital recording is brought to you…” is from Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s first album Flaunt It.

    some of the dialogue on track 23 is from decline of western civ. including claude bessy(“kickboy face”)

    and i think eugene as well… where’s the wiki?

    Just a tought – I wonder if it would be possible to add a source (LP, EP, whatever) to each sample track where appropriate?

    I didn’t create the mix, so I’m not sure what the original sources were. If the Kleptones ever publish their sample list, that would be the definitive source for that kind of information.

    As far as the wiki, that sounds like a great idea. Anyone want to set it up?

    Track 1 – The “Grab onto your bowels you’re about to meet your god….” sample is from “Intro” on “Hated in the Nation” by GG Allin.

    The sample from about 0:25-0:30 on track 16, “Listen”: “…stop playing with that radio…I’m trying to get to sleep!” also appears in the soundtrack to the video game(s) Jet Set Radio/Jet Grind Radio, Hideki Naganuma’s “Let Mom Sleep”.

    the beginning of track #20, “…singing brings joy and revitalises the soul…” etc. etc. is from the anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion”, the music he is talking about in the anime is Beethoven’s Ode To Joy.

    >Track 17 (Work) starts “Machines should work, people should think”. Thanks to the Internet I now know this is a well known IBM slogan from the 60s, often called the IBM Polyanna Principle. Wikipedia attributes it to Richard Hamming. I don’t know where the actual sample comes from.

    The sample probably comes from Raymond Scott’s commercial found on Manhattan Research Inc.

    http://raymondscott.com/mripr.html

    Scott was a composer well known in the 30s and 40s; many of his tunes were “sampled” by Carl Stalling for the classic Looney Tunes soundtracks, and remain familiar (in snippets) today.

    I think one of the vocals on the IBM track is by Jim Henson.

    On TRACK 23 (“Question”) at 0:45 the line “Oh is that so, and what’s so advanced about it” is Frylock from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon.

    The spoken Intro to track 3 is Larry “Bud” Melman. The guy who was on the Letterman show all the time until they moved it to CBS.

    Just wondered what I’d do without your site. As I sit here preparing for my media class, same day, just hours before, I turn to your site and pull off yet more handouts that make my students think I’m a genius. “How do you have the time to find all this current stuff?” they ask.

    I’ll never tell, Andy.

    i could have used this last year for my media class project :P.

    any album that samples ATHF, the big lebowski, and KRS1 is golden by me.

    thanks a ton andy.

    Another adition: About :20 seconds into “See”, there’s a background sample from one of the Legend of Zelda games. (My guess would be from the Super NES version.)

    03-Live (Intro): That’s Larry “Bud” Melman (nee Calvert deForest) talking about the rock museum at the beginning of the track. The sample is taken from Run-DMCs “King of Rock” video.

    #10 Play — at the end “this is an unbearable strain, but i am doing it as hard as i have ever done it before” is the mooninites from aqua teen hunger force.

    this is a masterpiece! even BETTER than yoshimi battles the hip hop robots.

    i heart the kleptones

    is the voice of: “brothers and sisters, I come here today to ask you one question” in track 23 identified? it sounds so familiar it’s frustrating. could it be Cornell West?

    “Musicians? Nah. We’re the hammer that knocks the nail in” is Frankie Goes to Hollywood, from the 12-inch of “Two Tribes”, I think. Very appropriate for this kind of thing.

    the voice of: “brothers and sisters, I come here today to ask you one question” in track 23 identified?

    not sure who the voice is but the sample is taken from Basement Boys album “Got Accapellas?”

    mp3

    at this site

    Track 17 (Work) starts with 7of9 (Jeri Ryan in Star Trek Voyager) telling Dilbert 9in a cartoon) to wake up and it ends with Cpt. Picard (Patrick Stuart, ST TNG) saying “computer end program”. Just thought worth mentioning. Briliant album!!!

    i thought the opening Dialogue on 15 “Ladies and Gentleman, your such a wonderful crowd…” was Macaulay Culkin in Party Monster (2003)…

    I love this album like no other. Definately what I needed to fill the void after listening to Yoshimi Takes on the Hip-Hop Robots. A great collective of Hip-Hop throughout the ages mixed to Queen, it’s genious. I love it.

    This is so incredible! As a Queen Superfan, here’s my Queenspottings:

    Track 7 Brian May interviews from 1970s, 1990s; at least 3 that I can pick out

    Track 8 — Freddie (I feel a little boogie coming on) from Live Magic and later Live at Wembley 1986

    Track 9 drum part from More of that Jazz as well as piano from “rye”; “Fun” sample from “Fun It”

    Track 11 “We’re not bad for four aging Queens” from Live at Wembely 1986

    Track 13 John Deacon, Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury, Brian May; most of the Roger and Brian stuff from DVD commentary of Greatest Flix 1 and 2

    Just on first listen.

    Track 9, the acoustic guitar bit starting at 00.40 mins., is a sample from the start of the Queen track “Misfire”, from the Sheer Heart Attack album.

    Very well and cleverly hidden, but the real Queen fan can figure it out!!!

    Just to confirm that stripoljub had it right: the phrase is from the final lines of “Blade Runner” (1984, Ridley Scott dir.); but the actual text should be “It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?”

    It is indeed from Zelda — I’m talking about the synths in the background, not any sort of walking sound. It’s the beginning of the Zelda theme.

    In Jazz, you can hear the words «Hold it, now Hit it», I think it’s from Pop Will Eat Itself, maybe « Not Now James, We’re Busy «.

    does anyone know where i can find a track list of the album with the length of the songs?! I got the files through Bit Torrent, but the tags are all messed up. If I had the lengths, I could more easily label the songs.

    Rock On, MSA.

    17 – Work.mp3

    – Queen, “Machines (Back to Human)”

    – Missy Elliott, “She’s A Bitch”

    – Raymond Scott, “IBM MT/ST: The Paperwork Explosion” (“…machines should work, people should think…”)

    The comment near the end about significant advances destroying the civilization in which they occur, is from a Marshall McLuhan (remember: UNDERSTANDING MEDIA?) recording — which is a “mash up” of sorts itself.

    14 – Ending sample (“Yo, ‘Biddies’ was kinda cool”, etc.) is Skit 2 from De La Soul is Dead.

    This is redundant, but I have been listenting to this album since it first came out and as far as I am concerned it is the best piece of music released last year. One of those albums I can listen to over and over and over.

    If you drop them a note at thekleptones.com (from memory) you will end up on the email list.

    Not “Night at the Hip-Hopera” related, but if anyone knows the origin of the sample in “Love Song for Yoshimi”, from The Kleptones’ Yoshimi album, where the lyrics “she keeps on passing me by” are heard, that’d be great. I’m talking about the ‘weaah, weaah, weeaaaah’ music playing during the above line.

    I’ve heard the actual song the sample is from (unless the one I heard borrowed it from elsewhere, too) on the radio once but missed the name. All I know is there was some lyric in the song about a robot, and either not letting someone die or letting someone die. Cryptic enough? Hopefully someone can help. 😀

    It’d be neat, if you know what I’m talking about, if you could e-mail me at akabugz*at*hotmail*dot*com with “Kleptones sample” in the subject field, but I’ll definitely check back on this thread in case you’d rather not do that.

    Cheers,

    Mark W.

    Track “Jerk”

    The beginning quote about “Highest Achievement of Lillen Culture” is from the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, and could have been sampled from several episodes that have the same scene (or flashback) in it.

    Can Waxy or anyone else start a new discussion like this one about the Kleptones’ new album, “From Detroit to J.A.”? I love the new one and I would love to find out what many of the songs and samples are.

    this is amazing!!! does any one know any websites you can get yoshimi battles the hip hop robots off for free and not use bit torrent. Please tell me as “have you come to realise” is the best song i’ve ever heard. long live kleptones

    Precession: 0:16 – 0:35 is the intro to a GG Allin album “you scumbags get on your knees…”

    Nothing important, I’m just posting to say I have been told the name of the song I was looking for by a kind bloke by the name of James. Thanks again, James. And a thanks to everyone else for not signing me up to beastiality incest porn.

    20 – Jerk.mp3

    The spoken samples at the beginning of this track is from a 1964 BBC interview with The Kinks. Can be found on ‘BBC Sessions 1964 – 1977’ released in 2001.

    Got-damn, I love this thing. I knew of Looptroop long before and their inclusion rules, I can hear samples grafted from the same places as the Avalanches (Sniff {- More Than U Know -} Flight Tonight) and Hideki Naganuma from the Jet Grind Radio Series soundtracks (‘I’m trying to get some sleep’ and ‘rock that $#!+ homie’ are in Let Mom Sleep and Rock It On respectively) and all over other corners of my mind (ATHF, Big Lebowski). It’s like the Kleptones bungie-dived into the recesses of my brain and synced what they found over Queen. And, damn if it’s not a showstopping classic.

    God Save The Kleptones!

    (P.S., on ‘Sniff’, the ‘your ______’ parts that interplays with the ‘I want some mo” sample towards the end near the end is from ‘We Want Your Soul’ by Adam Freeland. Friend played that for me once and I got lucky and remembered. Welcome!)

    I didn’t find out about this until early this year, but it is easily the best album I’ve heard all year.

    I googled the source for another sample I was curious about: the “Who let all these Longhairs in here? It’s 1980… can’t you afford a fucking haircut?” is also from the soundtrack of the Decline of Western Civilization and is said on stage by Fear lead singer Lee Ving.

    I fuckin’ hated Queen all my adult life……until I heard this album. A very life changing experience. Please, please, please, listen to this album.

    You’ve missed “Misfire” by Queen from “Sheer Heart Attack” on Track 9 “Fucked”.

    Anyway, i’d never known all the hip hop tracks.

    Great stuff!

    Remeber for the next time you have to go to a drunken karaoke birthday party, you have a whole new bag of lyrics to rap along to the Queen tracks. This will rock the house, especially if you pull out the ODB for ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, which is not hard to rap and which every Karaoke joint has.

    #15 “this is for a young man who doesn’t think he’s seen anything special today” is also from Ferris Bueller.

    #13: The silly talking of the band – beginning at the end of #12 with “I think that’s a surreal sort of masterpiece” and ending at the start of #14 with “m-tata-umpah-pah” is the track “Queen Talks”, originally 1:46 long and placed on the CD-Single “The Show Must Go On” from 1991.

    track 1 father to son as well, i think,

    and did you hear bad boy’s in there some place?

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