Give Them Their Flowers: Willie Hutch
Willie Hutch is possibly one of the most influential musicians you’ve never heard of/considered. A few years back, my mans Miles was telling me about Willie and said this statement and I kind of shrugged him off. It didn’t really resonate with me until he played “I Choose You” and I immediately recognized that Int’l Players Anthem sample. Willie’s music is not only timeless, but it can be seen as a catalogue of the evolution of what was soul music being repurposed into Hip Hop. Yes, James Brown’s Big Payback is a hip hop hymnal for how it was chopped and flipped for b-boys and emcees back in the day, but Willie’s cadillac-thumpin, lady seducin’, soulful sound did wonders for playas back in the 70’s and today all the same.
William Mckinley Hutchinson was born in LA, but grew up in Dallas, TX. He was a member in his high school chorus group and started his music career in 1964 under the stage name, Willie Hutch. Willie’s music caught the ear of Hal Davis, a Motown producer who recruited his help with writing “I’ll Be There” for the Jackson 5. If you google it, it’s pretty easy to find original versions with Willie’s voice. Willie’s career continued on and was recruited to soundtrack blaxploitation movies The Mack & Foxy Brown. The vast majority of his music that’s flexed in current southern hip hop can be found on these two albums.
Alright, that’s enough stuff you can find on Wikipedia. Willie was an honest to God genius, his ideas on how to arrange music to capture the essence of an era long past will resonate for far longer even after it, and he, did. I think the saddest piece is knowing that he died in 2005, without really receiving the flowers he deserved from the greater population. Don’t take it from me, take it from his work. It speaks for itself.
Here are a couple of songs that sample his music (and the timestamps of when they appear):
A couple things when you look at this chart:
There are things to be said about Three Six Mafia’s contribution to hip hop as a whole
Some of Wilie’s music hasn’t hit streaming services yet, hopefully that changes soon.
Willie produced all of his own music so it would’ve been redundant to list it for him.
Some of Willie’s best music still hasn’t even been sampled, and most of it, as I’m finding out, isn’t on streaming services. Hopefully, this has given you reason to consider working your way through his catalogue. Willie is an icon who deserves his flowers.
But don’t take it from me, take it from another musicstorian, K.R.I.T.
-E.