Little Children, All Grown Up: Exploring the Ways A Kool & The Gang Album Cut Was Flipped
Ah, the 1970s. It’s a time of political upheaval, social discontent and infrastructural degradation. The very same decade that opened with What’s Going On – Gaye’s mirror of an America fatigued by war, scarred by drugs and burdened by entrenched racism – closed with Floyd’s The Wall, a searing look at isolation, institutional distrust and the lasting effects of trauma. In between times, however, the advent of disco put America (and much of the world) in high spirits, fostering a degree of diversification and a deluge of dancing. It may have been funky, but make no mistake: life in the ‘70s was rough.
It was also a time of great change. One beneficiary of this change was Robert “Kool” Bell, an Ohio-born bassist and bandleader, who finally came into his own alongside a new genre explosion. Having cut their teeth in New York City jazz clubs, Bell’s outfit, which had cycled through a number of names and spent much of the ‘60s toiling in relative obscurity, finally started working on studio records. In 1969, the live staple landed on what would be their band name: Kool & The Gang.
Their mainstream successes started with 1973’s Wild and Peaceful, buoyed by smash hit “Jungle Boogie,” and continued for the next three years, spurred by singles like “Spirit of the Boogie” and enduring favourites such as synthesizer classic “Summer Madness.” Despite this run, the band’s favour was all but exhausted by the end of ‘75. Their haphazard fusion of funk, soul and disco fell to the wayside as acts such as The Bee Gees and ABBA, with their tight, pop-heavy disco, began to dominate.
“Little Children” is hidden in the depths of 1976’s Open Sesame, the second record released by the group that very year. Though the album – particularly the title track, which later featured on the era-encapsulating Saturday Night Fever OST – experienced some success, it wouldn’t be until 1980’s “Celebration” that the outfit returned to the top of the charts. As such, “Little Children” is seldom remembered, an album track on an otherwise unexceptional record.
The song revels in the kind of saccharine earnestness that’s since fallen out of favor. There’s no ironic veil to cloud the affection, nor a knowing wink when Donna Johnson sings:
“All the little children /
Just like little flowers /
Growing in a field of love /
With sugar skies above…”
The track exudes the simple hope of a better tomorrow, one furnished by the hardship of a helpless time. Dreams of peace are passed onto the next generation, then little more than innocent and impressionable children. “Happy little people, friendly little people, special little people you are,” croons Johnson, coddling what she considers the best hope for humanity. “Keep growing and laughing, and reaching for the stars.”
–and so, they did.
It’s 1995, and disco has well and truly come and gone. Kool & The Gang are but nostalgic cultural touchstones, beloved by adults and familiar to the kids they raised. In the eight years since the introduction of the E-mu SP-1200, this familiarity had brought forth no small amount of Kool & The Gang infused joints, including hits such as “Summertime,” “Doggy Dogg World,” “N.Y. State of Mind” and “Don’t Sweat The Technique.” It wasn’t until 1995, however, that a producer saw the potential in “Little Children.”
AZ’s debut, Doe or Die, was more anticipated than most: presaged by what might just be one of the strongest guest verses of all time, the East New York, Brooklyn emcee was burdened by his own brilliance before he’d even really stepped onto the scene. A classic record nonetheless, Doe or Die found AZ carving out a place in the burgeoning mafioso subgenre, regaling listeners with street stories framed in classic mobster tropes. One of the most memorable tales on the 12-track is “Ho Happy Jackie,” which broke “Little Children” as a sample.
Buckwild, the legend of D.I.T.C. fame, was responsible for that inaugural flip. It leans into the qualities that make him one of the best producers of the ‘90s. The hazy nostalgia, which plays like a half-formed memory, bears similarities to his work on “Blowin’ Up In The World,” released just one month earlier on Kool G Rap’s 4,5,6.
The elements lifted from “Little Children” – an uplifting, vocal-free chord progression – are taken from the 4:00 mark. Though the passage is wordless, his use of the song as a sample undercuts the earnestness of Johnson’s heartfelt lyrics, inadvertently acting as a comment on the 1976 original.
A seething warning about Jackie, the local gold digger, “Ho Happy Jackie” reflects equally on the author and the subject. AZ’s fame and riches have brought him to the attention of the opportunist, which prompts his lyrical tirade, and Jackie’s unsavory scheme reflects her own character. Through manipulation, coercion and temptation — at least as it’s presented by AZ — she lives at a means that she’s otherwise yet to acquire. It’s intended as an impugnment of character, but Jackie’s predicament also talks to greater societal ills: the lack of genuine opportunities for young women, the reliance on fickle relationships for financial security and the fetishisation of wealth and “glamour girls.”
AZ’s song finds the little children — once heralded as “happy,” “friendly” and “special” — almost two decades on, trapped in their own complicated webs. The twee innocence expressed on “Little Children” is decidedly a thing of the past: not only is the sentiment dated, the message is moot. Could it truly be said that Jackie is “growing and learning and reaching for the stars”? The entire story, Jackie’s opportunistic infidelity and AZ’s resentment, is at odds with the composition underpinning it.
Pudgee The Fat Bastard’s use of the ballad was similarly grim. The aptly named “Things Ain’t Changed” was included on Pudgee’s King of New York, an unreleased record that leaked in 1996 and circulated as two separate mixes. Despite their somewhat differing tracklists, “Things Ain’t Changed” opened the b-side of the much-proliferated cassettes, presaged by an introduction from the one and only Barry White.
King of New York came so close to an official release, it even received 2.5 mics in The Source before being pulled by Perspective Records. The reasons for the shelving remain mysterious, but it’s just one setback in a career plagued by misfortune – Pudgee also accused Joe Fatal of stealing his bars on Main Source’s “Live At The Barbeque,” the track that launched both Nas and Akinyele. Fatal disputes this.
Though producer Ez Elpee’s sample of “Little Children” is less immediately obvious, the same enchanting chord progression underwrites the busy instrumental, peppered with wordless vocals and ad-libs. Pudgee’s brisk verses float atop the beat, isolated and clear:
“Struggling, thuggin’ kids be ready to die /
Same kids ready to commit homicide /
But if I die, it’ll be for more than the stress /
Got a family, I ain’t ready to be laid to rest…”
In spite of what Kool & The Gang would have you believe, the kids are not alright. Children, once caught up “in a world of lollipops and lemon candy drops,” are no longer afforded the luxury of innocent escapism: their world is one of gats, grudges and grieving. The way that it was is the way that it remains, muses Pudgee, leaving the future all but decided.
“Same shit, different day /
And things ain’t changed around the way…”
Again, the aspirational take of Kool & The Gang is undercut by the track that put it to use: the romanticised hope of a better tomorrow is all but extinguished. In fact, Pudgee’s sombre take on his neighborhood seems to call into question the entire idea underpinning “Little Children.” His resigned perspective on the unchanging world suggests a grim cycle, one which leaves us destined to repeat the same mistakes, generation after generation.
The third sample of “Little Children” can be traced back to the work of Buckwild and Ez Elpee. Buckwild first produced for Artifacts in 1994, helming four cuts from Between A Rock And A Hard Place, whilst Ez Elpee contributed heavily to 1995’s Dynamite Soul, a seven-track EP. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be until 1997 that the sample reappeared, featuring prominently on Brick City Kids’ “What What,” the b-side to their sole self-titled 12”.
Artifacts emcees Tame One and El De Sensei only ever appeared as Brick City Kids the once, suggesting that the new name may have allowed the Big Beat signees to release the single through Rawkus Records. Nonetheless, “What What,” produced by Beatnuts affiliates Ghetto Professionals, was built around the same familiar passage from “Little Children.”
Brick City Kids are less concerned with neighbourhood exploits and signs of the times, instead dedicating three verses to their emceeing prowess. “My whole team fiends for ill skills I sell out,” raps [?], “but when you rock spots I hear your block yells out ‘sellout!’.” It’s hardly revolutionary, but what it lacks in vision it makes up for in tight boom-bap lyricism.
The most inspired use of the sample, however, arrived at the turn of the century. Quasimoto – the one-man collaboration between producer Madlib and his delinquent alter ego Lord Quas – released their debut LP, The Unseen, in 2000. Prepared in Peanut Butter Wolf’s basement and fuelled by magic mushrooms, the suitably psychedelic effort samples “Little Children” on “MHBs,” itself inspired by AZ’s earlier interpretation.
“MHBs” is shorthand for “money hungry bitches,” the wrath of which had been previously explored by the Brooklyn emcee. Whereas AZ’s take is more focused on the behaviors and habits of the gold digger – their clothes, their schemes, the high flyers they’ve seduced – Quas’ take is more insular, delivered exclusively in the first person. It decries the stupidity of those falling for their charms, considers the impact of their behavior and presents them as ‘dreamers’ in their own right.
Most radically, “MHBs” enshrines AZ’s interpretation of “Little Children,” then just five years old as a staple. Madlib presents the sample and the subject as a package in their own right, pairing his fondness for “Little Children” with his appreciation of AZ’s narrative. Whilst his verse isn’t anywhere near as dense and assonant as AZ’s, it’s a distinctively Quas’s take on the same concept. The fact that the two emcees are so vastly different only increases the significance of the flip; both the sample and the newfound thematic association have spanned subgenres.
In 1994, “Little Children” was an untouched relic of a bygone era, but by 2001, it’d become a familiar presence. Originally composed as an earnest prayer, the song found its largest audience in boom-bap adherents and underground aficionados. The singular instrumental loop, paired with harsher takes on the modern world, underwrote an age of rampant gangsterism and rap virtuosity. This transformation is testament to the strength of sampling, a culture imbued with the power to resurrect, recontextualise, reminisce and revitalize.
Buckwild’s sample resurrected the otherwise maligned album track, exchanging soaring optimism for middling realism. His use of the song revitalized it, turning an obscurity to an in-demand cut and prompting artists such as Pudgee and Brick City Kids to impart their own meanings. Madlib’s later sample recontextualised the familiar passage yet again, approaching it through the novel lens of AZ’s “Ho Happy Jackie” and enshrining that take in hip hop’s rich referential tapestry.
Now, almost two decades on, “Little Children” endures as a relatively obscure entry in the pantheon of samples. It’s infrequently used and seldom discussed, more a slice of history than a pillar of the future, but it remains a particularly beautiful example of the ways in which hip hop adapts other media, a reminder of the virtues of crate digging and an illustration of the potential of unassuming passages. Though the teary-eyed optimism of Donna Johnson’s innocent ballad has since come to pass, the music that underwrote it, lofty and ethereal, endures.
