Inside Baseball

Did you like the hand claps in SIGSALY? Wonder where they came from?

We at Rope & Pulley have a long-standing policy forbidding the sampling of artists outside our roster. In the prehistory of the label (1999), however, one finds an outlier. The Royal Ambassadors, including the young and fresh Roy L'Ambas - at the time recording under the name of Doctor Peter Venkman - used their Casio SK-1 sampler to lift a second or so from a track by hip hop greats The Roots.

Apparently, the theft left a niggling thorn in Roy's side and so, when he set to work on current pop hit SIGSALY, he decided to steal from himself. Those drums and hand claps, performed by Roy's very own hands and drums, have made a ten year journey from Red Pig Studios at 299 Pacific Street, Brooklyn, NY to Rope & Pulley's 2010 New Jersey digs.

Here's the untitled track 16 from Lubra-Smooth by The Royal Ambassadors, circa 1999.

L-S Track 16 by Rope and Pulley Records