A few hours digging for vinyl yesterday yielded some interesting results. One of the records collecting dust in the middle of the endless copies of Ja Rule and D12 promos was this white label which includes the original version of the classic 'Its All About The Benjamins'.
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According to DJ Mike Nice this version "was released on a Bad Boy 'Shot Callers' promo tape given out at one of Puff's parties"
Wikipedia has a bit more info:
The song debuted in 1996 on DJ Clue's Holiday Holdup mixtape. This version of the song only featured Puff Daddy and the rap act The L.O.X. (excluding Styles P). The song was later added to Puffy's debut album, No Way Out, in a remix, "It's All about the Benjamins (Remix)", which added two new verses by Lil Kim and Notorious B.I.G. Lil Kim also provided the song with a chorus which the original version lacked. This version of the song also omitted the word "Hebrews" out of Jadakiss' verse, however, the word was left in on the first pressing, subsequent pressings removed the word. Additionally, when it was released on the Bad Boy's Greatest Hits Vol. I album, it retained the word. This single made it to No. 2 on the Billboard charts and its video won a Viewer's Choice award at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards show. Due to the rarity of the obscure mixtape version, the remix featured on No Way Out is often considered the song's definitive version to avoid confusion
DJ Clue - Holiday Holdup '96
ReplyDeletehttp://rapidshare.com/files/314704650/CLUEHOLDUP96.zip
thanks!
ReplyDeleteStep - thanks for putting me up on this slab, been after a good quality copy of "Benjamins" OG for a while.
ReplyDeletepz
RD
BTW - saw your post on Phila, that "You'll See" track is on a US promo of "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down"... cat no BBDP 9080. Grabbed mine for a quid in Deal Real before it closed down...
thanks for the info mate. i'll keep looking. think I've must have come across every Bad Boy 12" but this one over the years!
ReplyDeleteShit, i never knew You'll See had ever appeared on wax.
ReplyDeleteSpeakin' of Bad Boy 12"s, you ever seen that UK press of Feel So Good which actually has Hypnotize on it, Step?
cant say i have. there seems to be several different pressings for a lot of Bad Boy 12"s though.
ReplyDeletemy 'Feels So Good' is the UK release with the pic cover of Mase looking like the 4th member of Guy or something. I keep it with my R&B on principal.
Hah.
ReplyDeleteThis is the one, which i'm assuming is the same one you've got?
Never been able to find out what the deal is with it, as everyone else i know who has the UK press has never come across it. Very weird.
weird indeed. I've got that mispressed Nice N Smooth 12" with the Warren G track on the b side but hadnt really heard of too many others as far as Hip Hop goes.
ReplyDeletei was an intern working at a nice big indy label. one of the 1st 'big' things i got to do was go to a producers meet & greet at daddys house (puffys) studio. the swag bag we got when we left had the usual promo stuff in it. i didn't even bother going thru it. about a month or two later, i was looking for something new to play in my cassette walkman on my way to work, and i grabbed a cassette from the bag. it had benjamins, "you'll see", faith "i just can't", and maybe 2 other cuts on it. that record (from that cassette) became so H.U.G.E. on the streets of NY! I remember overhearing a label exec saying that Arista didn't know what to do with it, because it was out and rocking the clubs & radio for at least 6 months before they dropped the remix with biggie & lil kim. that record had MOMENTUM!
ReplyDeleteYa'll still got the tape? lol
DeleteSince you have a physical copy, do you think you could up it in lossless? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteirs bootleg vinyl so the quality isnt flawles to begin with. 320 is fine for me but if you're one of those people who insist they can tell the difference its a on a couple of different bootlegs on Discogs for not much money last time I checked.
ReplyDelete