Most famously sampled by De La Soul on Say No Go – this 1972 single was featured on The Detroit Emeralds album You Want It, You Got It.
Originally The Emeralds formed as a vocal harmony group comprising of four brothers – Ivory, Abrim, Cleophus and Raymond Tilmon in Little Rock Arkansas. By 1968 Cleophus and Raymond had left the group, replaced by childhood friends James Mitchell and Marvis Willis and the relocated to Detroit and added the city to their moniker.
Abrim wrote the song – a mid-tempo slow burner with that ever-so-funky and now-infamous riff repeated in various forms throughout – serving as a rock-solid anchor as the subject of affections is implored to allow the protagonist to kiss their lips / feel their souk / to take the into their arms / to hold them / feel their charms / call their name and basically, show them that they love them.
It always makes me think that if someone has go so far as to write this sort of song for someone they are really close to being a bit of a nuisance and she’s just not that into you. But hey, that riff is probably worth a restraining order.
THE PERFECT MOMENT
It’d be pretentious to claim that this track appears on the Yeah Bagel Ultimate Playlist for any other reason that the “De La No Go Riff”, but here in it’s original habitat in one of it’s forms that riff is just a preemptive motif preceding a wee drum roll just ahead of the first chorus at the one minute at five mark. That drum-roll is this song’s “perfect moment” for me.
Yeah Bagel 