The Whispers & Fatman Scoop 'And The Freak Goes On' (greg wilson mash-up)

The Whispers & Fatman Scoop ‘And The Freak Goes On’ (greg wilson mash-up)

112 bpm

Only previously shared for a limited period via SoundCloud.

Here’s one from 2006 – I’d been commissioned via DJ Cosmo and Adam Dewhurst to put together an exclusive edit for a radio project they were working on for Bacardi. They’d sent a list of tracks they were able to license, and I picked out two to work on, ‘And The Beat Goes On’ by The Whispers and ‘You Gave Me Love’ by the Crown Heights Affair (my edit of which, four years on in 2010, was included as a bonus edit on the limited Digital Deviance CD). I knew exactly what I wanted from ‘You Gave Me Love’, which was an instro edit, but ‘And The Beat Goes On’ was a bit trickier. I retained the chorus, removing the verses and filling in the gaps with compatible instrumental sections, but it was missing a dynamic, so I looked for something else to pepper it up. I overdubbed an assortment of spins and samples, but this still wasn’t enough, so I listened through some acappellas, finding exactly what I felt was lacking via Fatman Scoop’s hype style of rap. It was a done deal once I heard him ad-lib ‘I don’t wanna be a freak, but I can’t help myself’, as this directly connected the two tracks together, the source of this line being Dynasty’s ‘I Don’t Want To Be A Freak (But I Can’t Help Myself)’, a big club hit on Solar (Sound of Los Angeles Records) in 1979, the same label, of course, that scored a major success with ‘And The Beat Goes On’ the following year.

Greg Wilson – August 2011