Learning recently that Nas had been thinking about rocking over the Juicy sample on Illmatic before Biggie did it on Ready To Die reminded me how much hip-hop is built on smoothed out 80’s R&B. So, this week here are 2 playlists. The first is full of smoothed out R&B tracks from the 80’s that have been used in some hip-hop classics over the years. The second playlist features songs that used these R&B tracks and includes music from Biggie, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba, LL Cool J, De La Soul, Redman, The Luniz, Tha Dogg Pound, Warren G and more. The playlists are ordered so that that originals and sampling songs match. Check out both below. Related: AFH Samples playlist part 1 featuring music inspiring Black Moon, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, EPMD, DJ Quik and more

Smoothed Out 80’s R&B

80’s and 90’s Hip-Hop