Gangster Tripping

Album: You've Come A Long Way, Baby (1998)
Charted: 3
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Songfacts®:

  • "Gangster Tripping," also known as "Gangster Trippin" in its clean form, is a track by British big beat artist Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim. The song was released on October 5, 1998, as the second single from his album You've Come a Long Way, Baby. It achieved significant chart success, reaching #3 in the UK.
  • The track is characterized by its extensive use of samples, a hallmark of Fatboy Slim's signature style. It notably features "Entropy" by DJ Shadow, which itself samples Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth. The line "We gotta kick that gangster s--t" originates from a Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth live performance. For the clean version of "Gangster Trippin," this sample was reedited to meet censorship standards.

    Another significant sample is "Beatbox Wash" by Dust Junkys, with the prominent chorus line delivered by their frontman Nicky Lockett, aka MC Tunes. Lockett won a three-year court case in 2013 to recover unpaid royalties from the song. Reflecting on the situation, he told Manchester Evening News: "When the Fatboy Slim track had its success, it came at a time when I had fallen out of love with the music and I'd taken my eye off the ball really. It was when I had my little boy that I started to think about it. Money's not everything, but I thought for my boy's sake I need to make sure I'm taking care of these things. I'm glad it's all sorted now."

    "Gangster Tripping" incorporates elements from several other songs, including "Word Play" and "The Turntablist Anthem" by X-Ecutioners, "Change the Mood" by Jackie Mittoo, "Sissy Walk" by Freedom Now Brothers, "You Did It" by Ann Robinson, "Barkin' up the Wrong Tree" by James Young & the House Wreckers, and "Your Love" by Michael Prophet & Ricky Tuffy, among others.
  • The official music video for "Gangster Tripping," directed by Roman Coppola, depicts furniture sets exploding from various angles, often shown in slow motion. This concept is a reference to the final scene in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point, where furniture is similarly destroyed. The directive for the video was famously minimal, with just the instruction: "Blow stuff up." Fatboy Slim makes a brief appearance as a photograph attached to a mirror. He later admitted that "Gangster Tripping" was the only music video shoot he was eager to attend.
  • "Gangster Tripping" featured in the 1999 comedy crime film Go, starring Katie Holmes. The song was also used over an ident bumper on MTV and later appeared in the 2006 PlayStation Portable game Lumines II.

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