Black Sheep & Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass

Hey everyone! I've been having difficulties finding sampled brass music that derives from a brass ensemble, but for this post I wanted to try and find a specific group that has been sampled before. I remembered that I had been gifted a Tijuana Brass record a while back, so I figured I'd look them up on whosampled to see what I could find. They've been sampled quite a few times, so I might speak about them in the future, but for today I'll be talking about Black Sheep's song Flavor of the Month, and how it samples In a Little Spanish Town by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass.

Herb Alpert is a trumpet player, and founded The Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. Before the group gained other members, Herb actually overdubbed his own trumpet playing to sound like a brass section, but later the group gained another trumpet player and a trombonist. The band also consisted of a full rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, drums). The song In a Little Spanish Town is from their album Sounds like... (yes, that's the title of the album). 

Here's In a Little Spanish Town:

I think the song is alright, its not my speed but its nice! It reminds me of a children's tune, especially when they add the clapping about halfway through. You gotta keep the kids involved somehow 😂 What I love is seeing how Black Sheep decided to use this song for their own...

Black Sheep was a hip-hop duo that was active in the 1990s, made up of Andres "Dres" Vargas Titus and William "Mista Lawnge" McLean. Dres was the lead rapper, while Mista Lawnge was mostly writing the beats. They disbanded after about six years together due to creative differences, but they did gain popularity with their song Flavor of the Month, off of their debut album A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. I really enjoyed this song, which I honestly did not expect. Dres' cadence (which to all of you classical folk does NOT refer to the ends of his phrases, and instead refers to the rhythmic flow of his lyrics and their sound) can be a little too exaggerated at times for my taste, but this was just the style of rapping at the time. However, his lyrical content is great and I really enjoyed his rhymes too. The sample from In a Little Spanish Town appears at 1:09 and each time the chorus reappears. I LOVE how Mista Lawnge uses this sample. The original song is in compound meter (it sounds like its in 6/8), but he repeats the sample in a way that it fits perfectly over the simple meter (definitely 4/4) used in Flavor of the Month.

Here's Flavor of the Month:

What did y'all think about these two songs?