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Song Stories

“Oh Boy”

Cam'ron feat. Juelz Santana | 2002

Harlem resident Cam'ron's 2002 single "Oh Boy" featured an instantly recognizable beat courtesy of producer Just Blaze, who used a repeating, high-pitched Rose Royce vocal sample to anchor the song. Released during the heigh of the infamous Nas vs. Jay-Z feud, "Oh Boy" might have gone down in history as a Nas dis, if a planned Jay-Z verse made it onto a remix. Juelz Santana, who made a guest appearance on the original track, explained "[Cam'ron] made [engineer Young Guru] erase the verse," about the rapper's reluctance to include the insulting lyrics. "Cam told Guru, 'You better erase that, I don't ever want to hear that.'"

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

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