Kanye And Jens Lekman Learn To Love The Dan

Epistles of love for the Dan are nothing new to these parts, so quite obviously the Becker/Fagan freaks 'n' geeks in us perked up upon hearing Kanye had plans to appropriate the Steely ones on his recent quest to sample every song we've ever held dear. Who knows the backstory, but it probably came down to someone spinning The Royal Scam for 'Ye, him hearing the line "Did you feel like Jesus?" in "Kid Charlamagne," and West saying, "Why yes, yes I have." So Mr. West is taking a page from Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz on "Champion," replete with "Charlemagne" sample. Kanye omits the Jesus bit -- been there, done that -- building instead on "Did you realize you were a champion in their eyes". Yes he did, so he packed it up and brought it back to the crib.

"Champion" / "Big Brother" Snippets

In other Steely-related news, Jens Lekman worked around his inability to secure rights to a pricey sample for Kortedala by hiring a Dan man to recreate it in the studio. At the happy end of the story, Jens learns about the smoothness of Steely. Warms our cockles. Via P4K:

I was able to replace one sample that was extremely expensive; it was like the one bad guy. And I had a guy who played with Steely Dan play it, and it came out exactly the way it sounded on the sample. Mike Leonhart plays trumpet. He's very professional; he was a really, really nice guy and he did a great job. And he took me to a Steely Dan show just a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty funny actually. I haven't listened to them before, I really was just standing there going, hmmm, they're very, very smooth.

Not sure what song Mr. Leonhart helped Jens replace. But all we need is Owen Wilson to get involved and the Dan could be back in the buzz bin.

Posted at 10:09 AM in Video
Tags: Jens Lekman | Kanye West | Steely Dan

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