Originally recorded by The Temptations for their 1969 album Puzzle People, Message From a Black Man is a song that has been covered and sampled many times since it’s original release.

I recently heard the version by Don Julian and The Larks from their soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Shorty The Pimp. This is a great album, if you’ve heard Too $hort’s album of the same title you’ve heard a few pieces from the soundtrack sampled. As well as Message From a Black Man it has a several other well done covers including Curtis Mayfield’s (If There’s A) Hell Below and Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues. If you like some funky soul music, do yourself a favour and checkout this soundtrack.

When I first heard the Don Julian version I knew it was familiar, it took me a moment to place it but the first one I thought of was by Mos Def on his 2006 track Undeniable. When looking for Undeniable on Youtube I found The Whatnauts version which is the other version that seems to be heavily sampled. At this point I was beginning to realise the various version of this song have been sampled a lot.

I did a little (virtual) digging and I have compiled a Youtube collection below.  Check it out! If you interested there are a few more covers you can find on Youtube and I am sure it’s sampled by many more.