If you are of a certain age, and you grew up listening to a lot of Beastie Boys’ albums, there’s an unforgettable phrase that probably bangs around in your head every once in a while. If someone does something ridiculous at a party, for instance, your mind’s immediate reaction might be, “Sh*t. If this is gonna be that kind of party, I’m gonna stick my d*ck in the mashed potatoes.” More often than not, depending on the context, you don’t actually say that aloud, but it’s always there in the back of your mind.
This happened to me a few weeks ago, and I was in the right company, so I did respond aloud, and everyone around me knew exactly what I was referring to: The Beastie Boys’ song, “B-Boys Making with a Freak Freak,” off the 1994 album, Ill Communication. But this time, we got to wondering, “Where does that sample even come from?” A friend of mine said he’d Googled it at some point, but had completely forgotten. So, I Googled it again, and sure enough, it’s already been deeply explored on another site, Dangerous Minds , and if you want to know the full history of the man behind the phrase, you should click the link.
Here are the bullet points:
— The man who originally made the statement was Mantan Moreland, who is most famous for playing the black chauffeur in Charlie Chaplin’s movies and for the 1941 film, King of the Zombies.
— While most popular as an actor in the 1930s and 40s, as a comedian in the 60s, he also worked with the likes of Bill Cosby and Carl Reiner.
— Moreland also recorded a comedy album, That Ain’t My Finger, released in 1965. That’s where the Beastie Boys sample comes from.
You can listen to the entire routine below, and YOU SHOULD. It’s hilarious. It starts a little slowly — a woman is told that the word “f*ck” means “to serve” — and around the 1:20 mark, that confusion elicits the statement sampled in “B-Boys Making with the Freak Freak.”
And now, the next time that phrase rattles around in your head, you’ll know where it came from.
via Dangerous Minds
