My Inner Lester Bangs: "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock

Sometimes you just got to go old school, you know?

25 years ago this year, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock released one of the great party jams of all time.  You play the first part of the song, with the low-voice track, "Right about Now, you are listening to the sounds of MC Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock!!!" and everyone knows exactly what comes next.  "YEAH! WOO! YEAH! WOO!"

With samples from Lynn Collins 1972 hit, "Think about it" (including the aforementioned "YEAH! WOO!" and the chorus "It takes two to make a things go right/It takes t wo to make it out of sight") the song moves forward in an easy rap that flows quite well even today.  Rap from back in the day has a way of sounding dated in today's music world.  Don't believe me?  Try listening to Houdini.

Anyways, everytime you heard this song back in the day you knew dancing was going to occur.  It just kind of hyped people up and made you want to dance.  I grew up Southern Baptist, and even they liked dancing to this song.  (Southern Baptists believed that "you don't find dancing feet on praying knees!"  There is also a great joke about why Baptists don't do something while standing up which I won't finish here, but the punch line is: "It could lead to dancing."  Drop me a line and I'll tell you the joke if you're actually interested.)  A strange mix of pimping himself "I'm Rob Base, the one who knows about THINGS", and odd disses (the diss on the Big Mac is legendary, for it is one of the first times you ever heard a word bleeped out on radio in the 1980s.)

The staying power of the song is something that no one expected.  Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock never really had another huge hit.  They still tour, but it's not like they are looked at as scions of Rap History.  They will never be mentioned in the same sentence as people like Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim, EPMD, NWA or Boogie Down Productions.  (If you don't know who these people are, please go read the book, Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation by Jeff Chang.)  However, many of these rap heavyweights don't have an instantly recognizable song like Rob Base.  "No Half Steppin'" is good, but you don't hear that on the radio in South Africa.

My point being that sometimes something you hear one day is going to be trash the next.  (Again, listen to Houdini.)  But sometimes you hear a song that sounds just as fresh today as it did when it first came out.  "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince is like that, but it doesn't even come close to "It Takes Two."  Go listen to it, but make space in your room.  You'll probably feel the need to move around a bit while it's on.