Production Breakdown: Von Pea’s “Something to Do”

I'm going to guess that I'm far from the most hardcore crate-digger to frequent this site. For one thing, I prefer finding my tunes online rather than actually, you know, digging through crates, whenever possible (I'm lazy and allergic to dust – sue me!). But, as anyone who's glanced over one of these columns know, I have musical tastes that, if it weren't pretentious as hell to describe your own musical tastes as “eclectic, and occasionally obscure,” I might describe as “eclectic, and occasionally obscure.”

Damn – that last sentence may be the most pretentious thing I've written in my life. Pretend you didn't read it, OK? The point I'm getting around to is, when a rapper cuts an incredibly dope record centered around a sample from my favorite track off one of the most underappreciated albums on my hard drive, causing me to spit coffee all over my monitor and wonder whether I'd somehow bumped into my keyboard in such a way as to open the original track in a different window, how can I, in good conscience, allow that sh*t to be slept on?

Which track am I referring to, you ask? “Something to Do,” the latest mixtape leak from Tanya Morgan member Von Pea. This breezy, summery joint found the Brooklynite painting a lyrical portrait of nine-to-five boredom, grappling with the urge to skip town and start fresh in a place where life moves a little slower – like, say, Rio de Janeiro... yeah, that'd be nice. On the production tip, brandUn DeShay served up a beat as blissfully head-noddable as his moniker is unusual. The song sampled on “Something to Do” is one that would likely be familiar to anyone hailing from Brazil. Originally released on Jorge Ben's self-titled debut album, “Pais Tropical” (literally “Tropical Country”) is one of the singer's best-known compositions, though the original



didn't see as much initial success as Wilson Simonal's cover version, released soon after:



The dreamy background vocals and swaggering horn blasts that backed Von Pea's track, however, didn't come from either of these well-known renditions (which are only two out of, like, a jillion). The version sampled (and my personal favorite take on the song) is the work of Luiz Eça and La Familia Sagrada, off an LP titled La Nueva Onda de Brasil. Recorded in 1970 but not released till eight years later, the set saw the renowned bossa nova/samba pianist and his backing band blending Latin grooves with elements from jazz and psychedelic rock to achieve some spectacularly fresh results. This flipped version of Jorge Ben's classic, more of a reimagining than a straight-up cover, exemplifies the album's absolutely crazy level of creativity.



If you've ever experienced winter in Minneapolis, you can understand the heavy (and I mean heavy) rotation I gave this one between the months of November '09 through February 2010.

Anyway, for those digging this track (uploaded to YouTube by yours truly – good deed for the day, check!), I'm happy to say that La Nueva Onda de Brasil is currently in print, and Von Pea's So Motivational! mixtape is out now online. Until next time, RefinedHypesters!