Stu Reid Sampler: Luda Meets Classical

I love classical music. And thus, I love those rare moments when I come across a track in the popular sphere that samples classical music. Such an occasion came when I discovered the Ludacris track entitled “Coming 2 America,” off of Luda’s 2001 Word of Mouf. The track samples not one but two of the most well-known works from the classical canon: the “Dies Irae” from Mozart’s Requiem and the final movement from Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.”

What first struck me about the track was how powerfully odd the juxtaposition of rap language and classical music is. "Coming 2 America" opens with a woman speaking the words, “The royal penis is clean your highness,” to which a male voice responds, “Thank you, king shit.” Then the track proceeds into the Mozart sample. Talk about cultural dissonance.

Yet the more interesting sample is certainly the Dvorák. Indeed, the use of the famous “New World” Symphony is pretty loaded. It was written by Dvorák in the years just after he had moved to the United States from Czechoslovakia to teach in New York, and served as a musical reflection on the America he found. Thus, it fits nicely with the idea of “Coming 2 America.”

But the use of the Dvorák is powerful on a deeper historical level. Dvorák was a famous composer, but he also was famously the first major figure from the Western music tradition to speak to the value of African-American musical traditions. In an 1893 New York Herald article titled “Real Value of Negro Melodies,” he wrote:

I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies…In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. They are pathetic, tender, passionate, melancholy, solemn, religious, bold, merry, gay or what you will…There is nothing in the whole range of composition that cannot be supplied with themes from this source. (Quotation from Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise)

How fitting, then, that rap music, the most prominent contemporary form of musical expression for African-Americans, would sample a work by Dvorák, particularly this symphony which draws on African-American music. I have no idea if Bangladesh, the producer of “Coming 2 America,” had any knowledge of these associations. His better-known tracks, such as Luda’s “What’s Your Fantasy” and Lil Wayne’s “A Milli”, don’t display such historical awareness. Regardless, in "Coming 2 America" he creates a juxtaposition of two seemingly disparate musical traditions that is compelling on several levels, and a great track to boot.

Ludacris - Coming 2 America (YSI) (filesavr)
Dvorak - Finale from Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" (YSI) (filesavr)
Mozart - Dies Irae (YSI) (filesavr)