With global morale feeling damn near catatonic right now, people have been turning to the unexpected for answers. Evidently, the bassline of D'Angelo's Voodoo classic "Devil's Pie," released to instant acclaim in 2000, has been proven to have curative properties. One of the lead singles from an album widely considered to be among the top tier, "Devil's Pie" emerged as a collaboration between D'Angelo himself and DJ Premier, who held it down with a brilliant flip on Teddy Pendergrass' "And If I Had."
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Taking Pendergrass' slowed-down bassline and adding a new layer of sauce to it, D'Angelo barely had to do any of the work; for the most part, the instrumental spun a tale of its own. Honestly, it's impossible to avoid nodding your head or tapping your foot upon hearing five seconds of this one -- such is the power of the bass, an instrument that has blessed countless hip-hop classics from Outkast's "Wheelz Of Steel" to Kendrick Lamar's "King Kunta."
That's not to take anything away from D'Angelo's vocal performance, as he lays down observations and critiques on commercial obsession. "Tell my peeps all is well, all them fools whose soul's for sale," he sings, his voice striking a delicate balance between swagger and vulnerability. "Sitting next to the Jezebel, demons screaming in my ear." Be sure to check this one out now, and show some love to some of the game's great basslines in the comments.
QUOTABLE LYRICS
Main ingredients to this dish
Goes like this, here's the list
Materialistic, greed and lust, jealousy, envious
Bread and dough, cheddar cheese
Flash and stash cash and cream
Temperatures at a high degree
Wheres n***as come to feast