The Wu-Tang Clan were a formidable force in the 1990s. With their lo-fi production and grimy, abrasive edge, the Clan made music that resonated with the city of New York. Founded by RZA (real name Robert Diggs) in the depths of Staten Island, the Clan rapidly ascended to the top of the hip-hop charts and made history with their projects.

RZA was the collective’s beatmaker extraordinaire and founder. The musician and actor played a critical role in shaping their production style that became the signature sound of the Staten Island group, and he has since grown to become a versatile icon, who has his fingers in many pies across the creative industries.

Diggs recently sat down for an in-depth conversation on the Lex Fridman podcast to discuss East Coast hip-hop, the 1990s and his transition into Hollywood. During this, he reflected on hip-hop’s golden era and his memories from that special period in his life.

While discussing the state of rap music in the mid-90s, the New York emcee addressed the best lyricists of the era and reflected on who he believed had the biggest impact on the culture. When asked who the best wordsmith in hip-hop is, Diggs responded, “Let’s name a few. You’re gonna have to start with Rakim. You’re gonna have to put Kool G Rap in there. If you wanna get technical, you might have to start out with Grandmaster Caz!”

He proceeded, “I’ll name a couple more; you gotta put Nas in that category. To me, I met Nas when he was 15, and he was already a master lyricist! It takes about ten years to become a master lyricist, so by the time the world heard Wu-Tang, most of us had ten years of rapping in us already.”

RZA continued to sing the praises of Nas (real name Nasir Jones), declaring, “I’m four or five years older than Nas, so I was always feeling my confidence, but I was like ‘This kid is only 15!’ Then, when he was 19, we got Illmatic. One of the greatest to do it.”

Nas’ debut album Illmatic and his sophomore project It Was Written are considered hip-hop classics, and concerning the greatest lyricist of all time, Nas is one of the top contenders.

(Credits: Drew de F Fawkes)

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The five best Chic samples in hip-hop

Chic, powered by the songwriting partnership of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, were one of the biggest disco acts of their day. Rodgers and Edwards together created hit after hit after hit, but their legacy eventually expanded way beyond where they could have predicted. So much of their music lived a second life as samples within other people’s songs, and some of those tracks became massive hits in their own right.

Chic released so many glitzy, colourful hits in their day: disco classics such as ‘Everybody Dance,’ ‘Le Freak,’ ‘I Want Your Love,’ and ‘Good Times.’ These songs remain party bangers to this day, five decades after their release, but they only scratch at the surface of Chic’s true discography. Rodgers and Edwards were busy men.

The Chic duo were the masterminds behind so many other hit songs and albums. They wrote and produced absolutely massive records for the likes of Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, and Debbie Harry, while Rodgers alone produced Madonna’s Like a Virgin and also helped David Bowie to produce his Let’s Dance album. Edwards, while not as central to these latter two records, did nonetheless contribute to them, too. In other words, the Chic Organisation, as the wider project became known, helped to shape literally some of the most popular music of the ’70s and ’80s.

There are more Rodgers and Edwards-produced hits than would be reasonable to list here, but the situation is complicated further by all the artists that later sampled their compositions. Chic songs have formed the basis of so many sample-based tracks, which, obviously, means plenty of hip-hop songs bear their trace. With that in mind, here are five of the best hip-hop songs to bear a trace of Chic’s dazzle.

The five best Chic samples in hip-hop

5. Digital Underground – ‘Doowutchyalike’

Digital Underground are remembered for kickstarting the career of a young man named Tupac Shakur, but he wasn’t the group’s driving force. That was Shock-G, who jammed his love for funk music into his hip-hop project—both figuratively and literally. The general sound that Digital Underground created was clearly influenced by funk, but it was meticulously built upon it, too. The group’s music sampled heavily from ’70s funk bands, to the extent that listening to a single Digital Underground song could almost serve as an exhaustive education in the genre.

Digital Underground’s 1989 hit track ‘Doowutchyalike’ alone is full of interesting, funky samples. Within this single song multiple George Clinton and Parliament samples can be found, as can snippets from KC and the Sunshine Band, Isaac Hayes and Prince. There are, according to the WhoSampled website, a total of 17 samples buried within ‘Doowutchyalike,’ so it’s not terribly easy to pick a single one out. But Chic are in there, too, with their 1979 classic ‘Good Times’ playing its part in the song’s construction.

4. De La Soul – ‘A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”’

For their second album, De La Soul Is Dead, the pioneering hip-hop group sought to move away from the brighter sounds of their debut record, 3 Feet High and Rising, to produce something darker. They did just that, for the most part, but there were some notable exceptions on the album—the Q-Tip-featuring track ‘A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”’ being the prime one. A sun-drenched song literally focused on how great roller skating and weekends are, ‘Saturdays’ needed a positive beat to do its upbeat lyrical content justice, so De La Soul turned to the most obvious source of positive, colourful sounds imaginable: disco music.

There are a fair amount of samples used within ‘A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”,’ although Frankie Valli’s title song for the movie Grease is arguably the standout. When that sample drops within the track, it is entirely unmissable. What’s a little more subtle is Chic’s presence. Yet again, a hip-hop producer—in this case, Prince Paul—decided to reach for a ‘Good Times’ sample to help construct their track, and, yet again, it worked a treat.

3. Will Smith – ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It’

If the sounds of Chic were buried very deep within Digital Underground’s ‘Doowutchyalike’ and De La Soul’s ‘A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”,’ the same cannot be said for ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It.’ This song, one of Will Smith’s signatures, is plainly, unashamedly powered by Sister Sledge’s classic song ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer,’ which was written and produced by Rodgers and Edwards. They made it for Sister Sledge’s now classic album We Are Family.

Plenty of other artists have sampled ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ through the years, but Rodgers suspects that the song may have an even more important legacy than is immediately apparent. He wonders if a section of the lyrics, which were written by himself and Edwards, helped to start a trend within popular music that would eventually become especially prominent in hip-hop. “He wears the finest clothes, the best designers, heaven knows / oooo from his head down to his toes / Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci”—Rodgers thinks this section may have been the first time that a pop song specifically mentions famous brands.

2. The Notorious BIG – ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’

Life After Death arrived on March 25, 1997, only 16 days after its main man, The Notorious BIG, was murdered. This was a dark time for hip-hop, but, from the darkness, emerged this track from the record, ‘Mo Money Mo Problems,’ powered by a Diana Ross gay anthem. ‘I’m Coming Out’ was written by Rodgers and Edwards for Ross’ 11th studio album Diana, which also featured the out-and-out disco classic ‘Upside Down.’ The sunny, positive vibes of ‘I’m Coming Out’ helped to cut through the bleakness of this period following Biggie’s death, and ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ became a number one hit when it was released as a single.

While Ross apparently didn’t know it at the time, Rodgers specifically wrote ‘I’m Coming Out’ with the gay community in mind. He confirmed as much in a TikTok video a few years ago, in which he explained that the idea for the song came after he visited a drag club in New York. There he saw lots of drag queens dressed as Ross, and he realised what an idol she had become to this community. He set to work making them a song that Ross herself would sing.

1. The Sugarhill Gang – ‘Rapper’s Delight’

‘Rapper’s Delight’ is where it all began. While some debate around this contention exists, it’s widely held that this Sugarhill Gang track was the first to introduce mainstream listeners to the joys of rap music. Released in 1979, it was certainly one of the first truly popular rap songs, and it set the stage for lots of hip-hop to come. It was truly groundbreaking, and, at its heart, was Chic’s ‘Good Times.’ Rodgers is today extremely proud of the part he and Edwards played in hip-hop’s development, but, at first, he was actually really angry about it. He felt cheated.

Rodgers and Edwards actually threatened to sue The Sugarhill Gang, which, on the surface, seems surprising. But this was an era before sampling had become so widely understood as an art form. At the time, the Chic duo felt like one of their works had been stolen without them receiving due credit, but, in time, they came to understand what sampling was really about. Rodgers now recognises how important ‘Rapper’s Delight’ really was, and he even performs parts of it during his Chic sets.