Shuffle: David Banner's Playlist

The Mississippi rapper talks about what songs he's bumping, including ones by Big K.R.I.T., Hall & Oates, and Franz Ferdinand.

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Image via Complex Original
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David Banner might be getting money doing commercials for global brands like Mercedes and Gatorade, but that doesn't mean he's lost that hip-hop itch. When Banner recently stopped by the Complex office, the Mississippi producer/rapper told us about how he has been putting in work for Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV and Busta Rhymes' next project. To hear him tell it, we'll definitely be bumping some of his beats very soon.

But we can't help but wonder, what does David Banner bump? We asked him and we were pleasantly surprised to see Banner listens to a diverse range of artists from Eminem to Adele to Saosin. Check out Shuffle: David Banner's Playlist.

As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)

Rolling In The Deep

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Adele “Rolling In The Deep” (2010)


Album: 21

Producer: Epworth

Label: XL, Columbia

David Banner: “It reminds me so much of Mississippi, that soul. There’s not too many songs that touch your spirit anymore. I felt like I was in church when I heard the song. But then the little dude in the video on the cocaine—I don’t know if it was cocaine, but it looked like he was on cocaine. Her vocal presence is amazing.”

John

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Lil Wayne f/ Rick Ross “John (If I Die)” (2011)


Album: Tha Carter IV

Producer: Polow Da Don

Label: Young Money, Cash Money, Universal Motown

David Banner: “It reminds me so much of that period of music when I first got on. Like the first time you heard Tip over a Lil Jon beat or the first time I heard Eminem on the ‘Lean Back (Remix),’ to hear somebody on a beat like that. People get mad when I say this, but my music was designed to make people fight. Whether it’s fight for the person you love, fight for revolution, fight for your soul, just fight.

“Erykah Badu said something that was so powerful. She said, ‘I want you to get mad about something.’ Everybody’s so content about being in front of the Internet, and being in front of their computer, and they’re cool. They’re not fighting for their existence or the will to want to live. And that’s what that Wayne and Ross record is, it’s aggressive. And they’re still spitting. It’s a cross between what people want and what they need. And then the fact that I heard it early. I heard that song a couple months ago when Wayne played it for me in the studio.”

Sookie Now

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Big K.R.I.T. f/ David Banner “Sookie Now” (2011)


Album: Returnof4Eva

Producer: Big K.R.I.T.

Label: N/A

David Banner: “[Return of 4eva] is amazing. Well, of course I pick ‘Sookie Now,’ because I’m on the record. [Laughs.] But more than that I like the whole record. K.R.I.T., just by his voice, sounds like every record he’s talking about is about pedalling. The beat sounds like it, but it’s so much more. Again, it’s what you want and what you need at the same time. It’s crazy, the style and everything will just rock you into getting what you need. I love that.

“Even on the song ‘Sookie Now,’ on that beat, people would expect me to be talking about whatever. But that gave me the opportunity to talk about the hangings and a lot of the stuff that’s going on that people are scared to address. That’s a song that they could be dancing to it, then they come home from the club, and then the girl will be like, ‘When I was shaking my ass, did you hear what David Banner said?’ or ‘You heard what Big K.R.I.T. said?’ He says a lot of the things that people think, but are scared to really say. When he was like, he had gotten all these different things, the cars, the clothes, and the hoes, but he just don’t feel it’s enough to free my soul. That was the hardest hook of the year. I’ve heard nothing harder than that this year.”

Adult Education

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Hall & Oates “Adult Education” (1984)


Album: Rock 'n Soul Part 1

Producer: Daryl Hall, John Oates

Label: RCA

David Banner: “Just Hall & Oates period. When I was growing up, I didn’t know that they were white. They were so talented. And Oates had such cool hair. Their music is just so soulful to me and I just went back to it. I think I was looking at, it may have been Stepbrothers, I was looking at some Will Ferrell movie and they had Hall & Oates’ song in it, and it made me go to iTunes. I’m addicted to iTunes. I’ve spent more money on iTunes because I love buying records. My mentor once told me, ‘How can you expect people to buy your records and you don’t buy one?’ So I try to continuously do that.”

For You

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Bilal “For You” (2001)


Album: 1st Born Second

Producer: Megahertz

Label: Interscope

David Banner: “That’s super jamming. I won’t have to ever go and say anything about that record, because that record is so soulful. That record is ten years old, and it sounds like it could come out tomorrow.”

Benz

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David Banner, Estelle, & Daley “Benz” (2011)


Album: N/A

Producer: David Banner

Label: N/A

David Banner: “That song was just super dope. All of the songs I’ve been trying to do outside of rap, I’ve been trying to bring back that old soul feeling. But with a dope, upbeat, contemporary beat. Everybody thinks that I’m sampling. I’m not sampling. This is just all original music. To be able to capture that soul where young people like it, and old people like it, I think is pretty dope.”

The Way I Am

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Eminem “The Way I Am” (2001)


Album: The Marshall Mathers LP

Producer: Eminem

Label: Aftermath, Interscope

David Banner: “As an emcee, there’s not too many times that you can hear a rapper that has the emotion. Usually a person can just rap. And if they can rap, then they usually don’t have any emotion. If they have emotion, they usually have too much emotion and they really can’t rap—it’s all emotion. ‘The Way I Am’ was all that in one record which is super dope.”

Teach Em

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David Banner “Teach’em (AKA Malcolm X)” (2011)

Album: N/A

Producer: N/A

Label: N/A

David Banner: “I’ve got a new song now that’s called ‘Teach’em (aka Malcolm X).’ It’s going to shake a couple people up. It’s going to be controversial. It’s asking, ‘What are the effects that my music has on them? What am I teaching them? Do I want to teach them that?’ But to the most banging hood beat that you’ve ever heard. The song is almost like an oxymoron, because you would think I’m talking about kill everybody and the song is actually saying the exact opposite.”

Take Me Out

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Franz Ferdinand “Take Me Out” (2004)


Album: Franz Ferdinand

Producer: Tore Johansson

Label: Domino

David Banner: “It’s a jam. If I could pick any type of music that I could do, it would be rock because in one song in rock you can go through seven different emotions that’ll take you seven songs in rap to go through. You could be like, ‘I love her so much, I love her. But I’m going to kill that bitch, I’m going to kill that bitch. Now she’s gone, I’m sad’ and then the song goes off. [Laughs.] Time signatures change, the beat completely switches, if I tried to do that in rap somebody would be like, ‘That’s dope but what the hell are you doing?’ There’s all those emotions in this one song. By the time I finish listening to ‘Take Me Out’ I’ve done a whole workout.”

Voices

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Saosin “Voices” (2006)


Album: Saosin

Producer: Howard Benson

Label: Capitol Records

David Banner: “This is usually how I feel in my head. I’m a pretty aggressive dude and I love driving fast, that’s probably more my addiction. People like weed and coke, I like to get in my Bentley and do 160. And this song sort of represents that. I turn it up real loud, roll the windows down, and wait until they give me a speeding ticket.”

Move Bitch

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Ludacris f/ Mystikal & I-20 “Move Bitch” (2002)


Album: Word of Mouf

Producer: KLC

Label: Disturbing tha Peace, Def Jam

David Banner: “This song used to be the song that I would listen to before I went out on stage. This song is one of those songs that was a top song during that time. And then Mystikal just showed out so much on this.”

I Think She Knows

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Justin Timberlake "LoveStoned/I Think She Knows (Interlude)" (2006)


Album: FutureSex/LoveSounds

Producer: Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Danja

Label: Jive

David Banner: “Timbaland produced this. The end part of this song is probably one of the dopest parts of any song I've heard in recent history. It’s more the end of this song than anything. Just the transition into the strings—into the morphing of the song. That’s really where I am as a producer. Just allowing the music to grow the same way a real child would because I look at my music as if it’s my child. And it wants to grow, speed up, and evolve into something else.”

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik

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Outkast “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (Remix)” (1994)


Album: N/A

Producer: The Organized Noize

Label: LaFace Records/Arista Records

David Banner: “The Organized Noize remix version with the piano, that’s the greatest song ever created in the history of man. It’s just soul. It’s just a feeling. It’s amazing how space-age Outkast was, but still with such basic instruments. Later on in their career it was real synthy, but it was just the same instruments you would find in a band with the exception of a drum machine, and they turned it into contemporary dope music.”

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