Soulwax / Skee-Lo : I Wish

This first mashup is the one that started it all out for me.  It's a version of a rap song by Skee-Lo, which itself is pretty funny in that it's self-deprecating, the complete opposite of every other rap song out there.  This is placed over the top of some creative resampling of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" and "Cannonball" by The Breeders.  Both songs fit the original rap pretty well, which I think is one of the keys to a good mash.  You can't just throw an a cappella rap over any old tune.  You need to find pieces that sort of match in feel.

Although, I was thinking, there isn't much different between this mash (especially the beginning) and any song by, say, Will Smith or even off Paul's Boutique from the Beasties.  I'm not sure for a rap song when it moves from plain old sampling to a full-on mashup.

Anyway, the song rocks, mainly because Survivor rocks, and Soulwax, one of the progenitors of popularizing the mashup, does a great job of taking the propulsion of their instrumental parts and creates a super bed for Antoine's rap. It's especially cool if you've ever heard the original, which is slower and laid over a sample from a 1981 R&B jazz-fusion LP. Yeah, the mash is better than the original.

You can't buy the mash anywhere. But Skee-Lo's original is off his 1995 album, I Wish. You can find Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" on their Greatest Hits and The Breeders' "Cannonball" is from their album, Last Splash.

[You can listen to Soulwax's mash of Skee-Lo's "I Wish" by navigating to the post "Song081" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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