Blackstreet's "This Is How We Roll" Used an Uncleared Sample of Mic Geronimo's "Masta I.C."
A look at how producer Buckwild's underground classic made its way onto a multi-platinum album.
Veteran producer and Diggin’ in the Crates member Buckwild got his start DJing and making mixtapes. When he met fellow D.I.T.C. members Diamond D, Lord Finesse, and Showbiz in the early ‘90s, it marked the beginning of his beatmaking career.
He made his early tracks on the E-Mu SP-12, using the machine’s limited sampling time to his advantage. “When you have 5 seconds on a machine and you can't save, unless you're saving to a 5.25 floppy, you had to be more than creative with it,” he told Redef Records co-founder J-Nota in a 2011 interview for the out of print SP-1200: The Art and Science book.
After he sold Diamond D the instrumental for the rare “You Can't Front” single, it gave him the necessary finances to purchase a more advanced SP-1200. From there he quickly mastered the machine and earned himself production duties on eight tracks from O.C.’s seminal 1994 debut Word...Life.
Though he didn’t have the money to purchase the same sample sources as other A-list producers at the time, Buckwild made due with whatever records he could get his hands on. “We did something different because we didn’t really have the money to buy these expensive records, so we just used what we had that were bits and pieces,” he told Jaeki Cho in 2011 Complex interview.
Reflecting on the album’s influence on sample-based rap beats some 17 years later, Buckwild felt that Word...Life set a new course for other producers. “Taking the sample, chopping it up, adding the horns, and playing it out and experimenting with SP-1200,” he told Complex. “I think O.C.’s album opened up a whole other way for a lot of dudes to do beats if you look at that time.”
Not long after the release of O.C.’s impressive debut, Buckwild gave a beat tape to up and coming MC and Blunt Records centerpiece Mic Geronimo. Though other people questioned the quality and viability of the instrumental that would eventually become “Masta I.C.,” Geronimo was immediately taken with it and decided to use it on his 1995 debut The Natural.
Once the beat was selected, things got off to a bit of an inauspicious beginning. Geronimo came to every single session with a massive entourage that made a focused recording process difficult. After several sessions they only had a sketch of song laid down, so Buckwild asked the promising rapper come by himself to their next meetup. He instead responded by cutting his crew in half.
They were ultimately able to finish the song after 10 sessions, with Geronimo’s crew member/rapper Royal Flush helping out on the hook. Once the verses and chorus were recorded, the late legendary X-Ecutioners DJ Roc Raida laid down the scratches. Raida—who was recording guest DJ appearances for a wide variety of artists at the time—had a well-established relationship with Buckwild after doing the scratches for songs like O.C.’s “Time’s Up.”
Though Buckwild later estimated that Geronimo’s debut sold about 100,000 copies, it definitely made some noise and caught the attention of more well-established industry figures. Blackstreet, who were working on their 4x platinum sophomore album Another Level, wanted to use the original sample from “Masta I.C.” for the track "This Is How We Roll."
With former Trackmasters member Frank "Nitty" Pimentel co-producing the song with Teddy Riley, Tone of the Trackmasters reached out to Buckwild for the sample source. “I was like, ‘Why don’t you just let me produce the song with you?’” Buckwild told Complex.
According to Buckwild, Pimentel and Riley went ahead and sampled the beat without clearing it. Blunt Records later sued and earned a huge payout from the uncleared use of the instrumental.
In the end, Blackstreet probably should’ve brought Buckwild on board to help out. Though “This Is How We Roll” is a decent song, it lacks punch that make “Masta I.C.” a special musical moment from the mid-‘90s.
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always knew it was from MIc But it made me believ it was an original sample and made me wanted to hunt even More