Rosie: Investigating a Crime at the Heart of the Music Industry

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2020

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Listen closely to the start of the 2015 hit "Hey Mama" by David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, Afrojack, and Bebe Rexha and you'll hear voices intoning a chant: "Be my woman, girl, I'll be your man." It's sample from a 1948 recording called "Rosie," and it's the propulsive hook of "Hey Mama," driving the song to over a billion views on YouTube. The voices in the sample belong to CB Cook and ten other unidentified prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, aka Parchman Farm. These men never got credit for their work, even though it's been reused by everyone from Guetta to the Animals to Nina Simone. We investigate the story of "Rosie" to understand an inequity that lies at the heart of the music business and our national consciousness. Songs Discussed David Guetta ft Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha, and Afrojack - Hey Mama CB Cook and Axe Gang - Rosie The Animals - Inside Looking Out Grand Funk Railroad - Inside Looking OUt KRS-One - Sound of Da Police Jay Z - Takeover Nina Simone - Be My Husband Check out Kembrew McLeod's and Peter DiCola's book Creative License to learn more about the law and culture of digital sampling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Switched On Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:16.2	And I'm Sloan writer Charlie Harding. Charlie, today we are going to investigate a crime.
0:22.0	Ooh, okay. A theft. One that lies at the heart of the music industry. It's about to
0:28.6	get CSI up in here. Central edding. I'm going to take you to the scene of the crime now.
0:37.9	It's the 2015 hit by David Getta featuring Nicki Minaj, Afrojack, and BB Rexha. Hey, Mama.
0:58.7	You have a boss, but believe that when you need that, I'm going to be a real man.
1:02.9	Charlie, are you familiar with this track, hey, Mama? Yeah, I feel like this was David Getta at this
1:09.1	sort of pivotal moment at which EDM takes over pop music right in the middle of the 2010s.
1:16.0	How many views do you think this song has on YouTube? I bet it was pretty popular.
1:20.0	Hundreds of millions. Try 1,300,000,000 views. Oh my gosh. So this is a massively successful
1:30.8	track. Yeah. And it's worth talking about for a second. It's got these EDM elements like these
1:36.0	rising builds and drops. And it might be worth zooming in on some of the lyrics, like those in
1:52.0	the second verse. Yes, I do the cooking. Yes, I do the cleaning. Wow, some rather regressive
2:04.8	gender politics here that I might not have even noticed the first time I listened.
2:08.9	This is 2015 or like 1955. Okay, so there's a weird power dynamic at play here. And actually,
2:17.3	now that I think about it, the co-writer and singer of the chorus here, BB Rexha, she wasn't even
2:22.2	originally credited on this track. She had to fight for that credit. And she's not in the music
2:26.4	video if you watch it. And this is David Getta, who's a producer DJ putting his name in front of
2:32.1	the much bigger stars that are the featured guests. So there are weird power dynamics happening
2:37.8	here as you pointed out. Okay, so now we sort of set the scene. Let's get back to our investigation.
2:44.8	In order to detect the crime here, we have to do something I've always wanted to do. My favorite
2:50.0	part of any detective movie is when they have an image and they zoom in. What do they say? I don't know.
	...

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