Friday 11 May 2012

Teddy Riley Featuring Tammy Lucas – Is It Good To You (1992)

SOUL Records, MCA Records – MCSTD 1611


This is another one that should have been on here years ago!

The soundtrack album for seminal Hip-Hop movie Juice was overflowing with dope tracks from various artists like EPMD, Naughty By Nature, Big Daddy Kane and others. It really is up there with the best soundtrack albums ever put together. Leading the way in terms of single releases were Aaron Hall's superb Don't Be Afraid, and this little monster. Check the Don't Be Afraid link for a little more info.

Is It Good To You is a reworking of a tune of the same name that Teddy had already produced for  the late great Heavy D a year before. That song featured the bassline from Junior Giscombe's 'Mamma Used To Say', and, coupled with Heav's quality rhymes, made it a song of some note. Forward on a year and Teddy hooked up with long term collaborator, the honey voiced Tammy Lucas to rework the song from just a chorus on a rap song into a fully fledged R&B masterpiece.


It's a real shame Tammy Lucas never blew up in her own right. I always loved her voice; she  sounded damn near angelic, sung with real style, and stole the show whether guesting on the brilliant 1nce Again by A Tribe Called Quest, or Blackstreet's Tonight's The Night (both of which I will be adding to this site in the coming weeks). Frank/Windowlicker mentions in the comments section reading an interview with her where she mentions that, as a larger sized woman, the record company didn't know how to market her, and so she went into writing rather than being an artist herself. What a superficial world we live in; hypocritical, too, with Heavy D being perfectly acceptable.

This release, then, is a nice reminder of a wonderful soul singer who never quite got her due.

There are six tracks on this single, most of them sound almost identical barring one or two slight differences in the arrangement, so I will let you judge which is the best. However, the Acapella might be of interest for you mixologists. For me, much like Don't Be Afraid, it's the album version, conspicuous by its absence, which is best, so I've included it as a bonus track. I've also included the Percapella and Bonus Beats versions found on the US release of this for sake of completion, which leads me to this question; Is Kymba good to you? :)


  • Is It Good To You (On The Radio Mix)
  • Is It Good To You (Acapella)
  • Is It Good To You (Hip Hop Mix)
  • Is It Good To You (In The Clubs Mix)
  • Is It Good To You (Lucasade Mix)
  • Is It Good To You (Instrumental)
  • Bonus:  Is It Good To You (Album Version)
  • Bonus:  Is It Good To You (Percapella)
  • Bonus:  Is It Good To You (Bonus Beats)
The Download Link is here: Download 
Filename: Is It Good To You.zip
Filesize: 87.12MB

10 comments:

  1. By the way, if you're not familiar with the Heavy D original, I'm making a copy available here: http://www.mediafire.com/?d2bamwchv13mwv8

    ReplyDelete
  2. HI Kymba. The reason she didn't blow up was because of her weight unfortunately. I read an interview with her where she was saying as she was a 'big girl' the label didnt know how to market her so she decided to go into writing instead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, that's criminal. Thanks for the info, Frank - I've added it into the post. :)

      Delete
  3. Brilliant song. I didn't remember this tune at all until I started listening to the radio mix, then it came back to me. How could I ever forget?!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Teddy Riley dropped the bomb with this one! Thanks for sharing and the write-up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. oh Sweet Christmas, is this still available somehow? I need that acapella BAD!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Kymba... seeing as to when this post was dated, I wonder if you're even reading this.
    I've been trying to release a cover, Tammy's vocals are just so heavenly... I would love to get my hands on this acapella so I could put it on the track to either convince the publisher of how sweet it is, or to cough up dough for the rights. I'd love to hear from you, thanks. J.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jay, I'd love to help you on this - I don't have the time to maintain the blog anymore, nor do I have access to all of Micky P's tracks, but I am sure I can re-up some of ny uploads. As this song is a favourite of mine, I feel it is my civic duty to do so!

      What filesharing system should I use? I'm really out of the loop!

      Delete
  7. Hey Kymba, thanks for replying! I completely understand, at some point life happens and it doesn't hold back...
    Teddy beats and Tammy vocals. I thought she was gonna blow up, I guess not everything was better in the 90s.
    You would do me a huge favor though, so thank you. Maybe Rapidgator or Hitfile or something?

    ReplyDelete

Shout outs