Track Of The Day: Malcolm X - No Sell Out (Tommy Boy)

A track that goes under the nom de plume “Malcolm X”, but is the largely the work of Keith LeBlanc, the in house drummer at Sugerhill Records and also a member of Tackhead, along with Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald and Adrien Sherwood. The premise is simple: spoken word samples from the man himself, with an incredibly funky foundation highlighting the drum machine, which canters on, loudly, sparsely and assertively. This is electro stripped down to its bare bones, it’s influence apparent in releases that came three or four years later; Schooly D’s first album for example, and predating Spike Lee’s movie by nine years. I don’t remember whether or not this track was revived then to add to the general hoo ha, but that film took the states by storm for a few months, and it would probably have started an electro avalanche if it had.