James Brown | "The Payback"

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#1 Soul Singles in 1974.

Classic. One of my favorites by him.

[Soulsista]

It's been sampled numerous times. Love it.

[Live Your Life]

Most definitely a classic. I love it.

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#115 on Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1970's

In 2015, Kendrick Lamar was pissed off, as he had every right to be: Black people were being killed by white people with no consequences at all. So he cut “King Kunta” to let off some steam. “I’m mad, but I ain’t stressin’,” Lamar exclaimed. The cadence and the groove was undeniably James Brown, who created that conversational style some 40 years earlier. The track takes direct cues from “The Payback,” the title track from the Godfather of Soul’s 1973 album, on which he throws verbal jabs over a sparse funk loop that goes on forever. Brown was mad, too, but his target was far more personal: “Get down wit my girlfriend, that ain’t right.” He could deal with just about anything else—scrappin’, shit talkin’—but backstabbing? That crossed the line. And so, “The Payback” was one of the early diss records, providing a basis for the battle rhymes that served as hip-hop’s foundation. The track itself was sampled by everyone from En Vogue to Total to LL Cool J, giving it life beyond ’70s soul, but it also went to No. 1 on the R&B charts in real time, marking one of the last times Brown topped the charts. Makes you wonder, though: Was the recognition payback enough for Brown, or did he get that scoundrel back? –Marcus J. Moore