Transcription
Here are seven musical influences I found in D'Angelo's "Chicken Grease."
When D'Angelo set out to make the album *Voodoo*, he was hoping to channel some of the magic from some of his favorite records. They even used some of the same equipment. Like the rest of the album, "Chicken Grease" was recorded at Electric Ladies Studios during this Aquarian period of the late '90s and early 2000s. D'Angelo even used the exact keyboard Stevie Wonder had used for *Talking Book*.
The album *Voodoo* is a reaction to the mainstream R&B of the time, which had largely become singing over a hip-hop beat. D'Angelo wanted to pay tribute to his favorite soul artists while integrating modern elements to create something new. We'll talk about some of those new elements in a moment, but D'Angelo himself felt that he was specifically channeling Marvin Gaye. In an interview with *Vibe* magazine in 2000, D'Angelo said about Marvin Gaye, "I feel his spirit." And when Questlove asked him more about it, he replied, "I just don't want to make light of this."
Marvin Gaye's influence can be heard throughout "Chicken Grease," including the overall ambiance. Pop quiz: What song is this? How about this? That was the beginning of "What's Going On" and "Got to Give It Up" by Marvin Gaye. Now listen to the beginning of "Chicken Grease." There are a couple of false starts before the groove comes in, and all throughout the intro, there's this Marvin Gaye-esque background talking. The Marvin Gaye-esque crowd noise makes it feel like it's live music being played for live people, or maybe the ghost of Marvin Gaye. I guess we'll never know what D'Angelo was going to say in the rest of that interview.
J Dilla, aka JD, aka James Yancey, was one of the four founding members of the Soulquarians, though the collective wasn't quite official until after they had already disbanded. Though Dilla isn't officially credited for D'Angelo's album or "Chicken Grease," his influence here is massive. J Dilla invented a whole new feel for hip-hop, changed the way Questlove played, and was present at Electric Lady for some of the Soulquarian sessions. He's also got production credits for Erykah Badu's *Mama's Gun*, Common's *Like Water for Chocolate*, and *Things Fall Apart* by The Roots. In fact, J Dilla was one of the things that brought Quest and D'Angelo together to begin with, bonding over their shared love of that looser time feel.
This story has so much more to it. I already made a whole other video about it. I'll link to that at the end of this one. Questlove spoke about Dilla and his influence on *Voodoo* in *Rolling Stone* in 2000, saying, "He's the zenith of hip-hop to us." JD helped bring out the album's dirty sound and encouraged the false starts and non-quantized sound of the record. Dirty sound, false starts, non-quantized sounds, like "Chicken Grease" to me.
J Dilla's biggest contribution to music was his looser time feel, which Questlove fell in love with immediately. In multiple interviews, he has said that his goal used to be to play like a metronome, but after hearing Dilla's music and working on *Voodoo*, he had a new mission: "Sound like Dilla." Dilla's time feel is so unique because he used a drum machine in a brand new way. It's not that it wasn't quantized; it's that he quantized each part of the drum kit differently, something that's incredibly difficult for a human to do. But on *Voodoo*, we have, for the first time, live musicians trying to recreate the feel of a drum machine, which in this case was already being used differently than its original intention, which was to sound like a human.
Let's listen to Questlove's drums on "Chicken Grease." So, the hi-hat is steady, and the snare sound is a combination of snare and claps, but they're not always together. The result is a snare that's longer sounding than a typical snare, but its length changes constantly. Then there's the kick drum, which is heavily swung but not perfect. The kick timing changes slightly. Soul and Marvin Gaye with a new '90s hip-hop feel that was born out of a genius with a drum machine.
Our next stop on this musical journey is the decade in between these two different styles. Prince's influence on "Chicken Grease" kinda can't be overstated. For one, Quest and D'Angelo are both huge Prince fans. In the early days of these recording sessions at Electric Lady, the two of them would spend hours listening to timeless records by multiple artists, including Prince. They'd listen over and over, trying to decode what made them so incredible. Then they'd turn around, go straight into the studio, and jam on these songs that they had just listened to, hoping to use that as a springboard for a new idea. At night, they'd watch bootleg videos of Prince shows because it was the '90s and YouTube didn't exist then.
There's the fact that Prince is one of the main reasons Questlove and D'Angelo connected in the first place. D'Angelo was at a Roots show, and Questlove spotted him in the balcony. The two had never met before, but Quest wanted to work with him, so he sent up a smoke signal and played an obscure drum fill from the song "4" by Madhouse, a Prince side project. This got D'Angelo's attention but threw off The Roots. Questlove also pulled out his Dilla feel on the drums, and the rest is history. For the rest of that incredible story, you really need to check out the video on the formation of the Soulquarians. It's an incredible story. I'll link to it at the end.
And lastly, the name of the song "Chicken Grease" comes from Prince. Questlove explained in a blog post on Okayplayer, "We named it 'Chicken Grease' after a phrase that Prince uses when he wants his guitarist to play a 9th minor chord while playing 16th notes." So, Prince is not only a huge musical inspiration, the artist that brought Questlove and D'Angelo together, but he's also responsible for the name of the song. Oh, and the chord that D'Angelo is strumming in 16th notes on the guitar part of "Chicken Grease"? That's an F# minor 9. We're literally hearing a Prince chord on "Chicken Grease," which is what Prince actually called it.
The next stop on our musical journey is in a very unexpected place, but to me, this is the most incredible part of the puzzle. We're about to take a hard left, and then a couple more, but stick with me. It'll all make sense in a minute, and it will blow your mind.
In classical music, there's a technique that's often used called counterpoint. Picture your melody; it's moving up and down, being played by maybe the violin, and it's beautiful. This is the main part that you would recognize and sing back after hearing it. But then there's counterpoint. And if you're utilizing counterpoint, you've got two or more melodic lines that are simultaneously playing, complementing each other, weaving in and out and around each other. Each melody is acting independently, but when played together, they make each other sound even better. Are you still with me?
The use of counterpoint increased in the late classical era with composers like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. For a great example of counterpoint, we'll look at the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It contains one of the most recognizable melodies ever written, and I guarantee you know it. That might be the first time anyone's ever done a record scratch to a classical symphony. This melody is also known as "Ode to Joy," and you probably learned it on the recorder in fifth grade. But what you probably didn't learn is the counter-melody.
I'm a bass player, remember? So I take pride in the fact that this melody, "Ode to Joy," starts with the basses. I mean, sure, the cellos play it too, but it's the bass's time to shine. They play it one time through with the cellos, then split off. The cellos keep playing the melody, this time up an octave, and other instruments in the orchestra join in on the melody as well. But the bass is... oh, the bass is split off to a counter-melody. Take a listen to this. Do you hear how the bass counter-melody is moving around the main one, and they complement each other? That's counterpoint. Did you hear how the "Ode to Joy" melody is made richer because of the counter-melody? That's counterpoint.
Now, hold that in your mind, and let's dissect "Chicken Grease." Here's the guitar part, re-recorded by my friend Hubie Wang. It's nice, right? But what would happen if we added a little bass underneath? All of a sudden, we've got a counter-melody going. But then, if you add in the drums, it's a whole other layer of musical counterpoint because now you have the kick drum with what the bass is doing. And this, to me, it almost sounds like it's one continuous kick line, but the bass notes are trying to escape in order to play with the guitar. And when you add it all together, it's just this multi-layer classical counterpoint being played by D'Angelo's guitar, Questlove on drums, and Pino Palladino on bass. You ready to go a step further?
Inserting classical ideas into modern music was something Pino Palladino was already familiar with. In 1982, 17 years prior to the "Chicken Grease" sessions, Pino played bass on the Paul Young song "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)." They had already begun recording the song, but they didn't feel like it was very good until Pino came in and laid down his part, and the whole thing clicked. That's because this song is essentially a conversation between the vocal and the bass. This song utilizes classical counterpoint as well, and that now-famous opening bass line, Pino has admitted, he took from Stravinsky's *The Rite of Spring*.
Oh, what's that? You want to go one more step further? Well, the song "Wherever I Lay My Hat" was written and originally recorded by Marvin Gaye. Chalk another one up for the Prince of Soul. Wait a minute, Prince? All these musical connections really do feel like some kind of weird voodoo. What was that noise? Did you, did you hear that? I'm in here by myself. Is someone here?
The idea of "Chicken Grease" meaning 16th notes on a minor 9 chord may be tied to Prince, but James Brown has been credited with a very similar idea in his music. Plus, I mean, it's James Brown, so he's influenced just about everybody. D'Angelo's "Chicken Grease" also features him singing a fairly simple melody. It's only a few notes, and it's very hard to understand what he's saying most of the time. When you can't understand him, he's singing about how good the groove is that the band's currently playing. This is a classic James Brown move. I'm sure you remember this little ditty from a James Brown video.
The connections never cease. Regarding the inability to understand what D'Angelo is singing, Saul Williams says in the liner notes for *Voodoo*: "You might respond, 'Lyrics? Yo, I can't even understand half the D'Angelo be saying. That brother sounds like Bobby McFerrin on opium.' And I'd say, 'You're right. Neither can I, but I'm drawn to figure out what it is he's saying. His vocal collaging intrigues me.'" D'Angelo himself even said, "Even if I'm mumbling, I like to keep a lot of that initial thing that comes out because that's the spirit." The spirit of Marvin Gaye, who may or may not be trying to haunt me right now.
The background vocals on "Chicken Grease" are similar to the lead vocal in the sense that it's hard to understand the words. These were recorded by D'Angelo, and according to Questlove, they were trying to emulate another funk legend. "Feel-wise, we were paying tribute to George Clinton. There's this Greek chorus thing going on, very loose, reminiscent of 'Flashlight,' you know, what you can almost hang on. Put the drums from 'Chicken Grease' over this."
There were times at Electric Ladies Studios that they were recording D'Angelo's *Voodoo*, Erykah Badu's *Mama's Gun*, and Common's *Like Water for Chocolate* all at the same time. This led to an incredibly creative atmosphere. Everyone was playing on each other's albums, and songs got passed back and forth between artists and studio rooms. "Chicken Grease" was written by D'Angelo, Questlove, and James Poyser, but was originally supposed to be a song for Common. But after D'Angelo insisted that he needed that funk, a trade was made. D'Angelo got "Chicken Grease," and Common got "Ghetto Heaven Part 2."
Earlier, I mentioned that D'Angelo, Questlove, and some of the other Soulquarians would spend hours listening to albums and songs, studying why they were so good, then go into the studio and jam on them for a while. Well, "Chicken Grease" came out of one of these jams. They had just been listening to the Curtis Mayfield song "Mother's Son" and began playing with it in the studio. Out of this jam, "Chicken Grease" was born. It's not the same; it's not the same at all, but you can hear how "Chicken Grease" came out of this, especially when you pepper in all the other influences we've just named.
All right, let's see if we can stick the landing. Curtis Mayfield was an artist. The artist formerly known as Prince. Prince, um, King. But who makes sexual decisions in the UK Parliament? Led by George Clinton, who has the classic hit "Atomic Dog." Dog, uh, Beethoven, the, the dog, um, and also the composer who was deaf. Um, and not signed to the label, but in the, uh, video game *Def Jam Fight for New York*, you can play as Jay Dilla, who on multiple occasions sampled James Brown, who is known as the Godfather of Soul, not to be confused with the Prince of Soul, aka Marvin Gaye. Oh, I'll tell you what's going on. I just nailed it.
"Chicken Grease" has all of these musical influences within it, yet somehow pulls it off effortlessly. All that listening and studying they did during this time paid off. Now, there's a lot more to the Soulquarian story. So, for now, a good place to start is in this video, which covers which artists and albums are from this time and how the Soulquarians all came together. You watched that video, and I'm going to call a priest or something because I'm pretty sure the ghost of Marvin Gaye is going to haunt me after that last part. For more music history videos, check out the rest of my channel. Also, drop a comment below and say what's up. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one.