The three samples that make up House of Pain song ‘Jump Around’
White hip-hop’s respected hall of fame really only boasts three venerable portraits: Eminem, Beastie Boys, and House of Pain.
Not that they can count the same lauded body of work, but the rowdy, Irish-American duo Everlast and Danny Boy, backed by the turntable skills of future Limp Bizkit scratcher DJ Lethal, would score a mammoth single scoring the dancefloor while pleasing the rock fans with 1992’s ‘Jump Around’, a raucous shamrock-slapped rap swagger that stands as one of the defining songs of the decade.
‘Jump Around’s celebrated backing beat almost never made it to House of Pain’s eventual hands. Produced by DJ Muggs, the buoyant hook was initially kept for his Cypress Hill day job, but following frontman B-Real’s lack of lyrical inspiration, a rejected offer to Ice Cube during his post-NWA infamy would prompt Everlast to eagerly put pen to paper, lyrically matching the roof-raising surge of the party piece while also lacing the rap gem with some grim lines like, “If your girl steps up / I’m smackin’ the ho.”
Still, a hip-hop classic was born. The distinctive sonic character of ‘Jump Around’ has long been pored over by dedicated crate diggers and record riflers, eager to source exactly Muggs’ artful grab bag behind House of Pain’s defining smash. ‘Jump Around’ sits atop three essential samples. First is the opening horn section heralding the arrival of House of Pain’s green braggadocio. The brass blast is lifted from Bob & Earl’s 1963 hit ‘Harlem Shuffle’, borrowed almost verbatim with little in the way of any extra production trickery.
Fuelling the main piano riff that grooves throughout is Chubby Checker’s ‘Popeye the Hitchhiker’ from 1962. However, Muggs snipped a loop before the backing vocals shoot in on the original and slowed down the sample to charge ‘Jump Around’ with its essential strutting riff.
The third sample invited some controversy. It’s either your favourite feature of ‘Jump Around’ or the touch which forces a swift track skip, but the distinctive screeching saxophone sound peacocking across the number was originally taken from famed session saxman Junior Walker and his All Stars project from 1965’s ‘Shoot Your Shot. This wasn’t direct, however, as ‘Jump Around’s specific sax source was sampled from Divine Styler’s single ‘Ain’t Sayin’ Nothin’, beating House of Pain to Walker’s sax punch a whole three years earlier.
Some have debated this. The Roots drummer and frontman Questlove has suggested Prince’s ‘Gett Off’ was the squealing source, the Minneapolis maestro’s eager jump into hip-hop in 1991. After some studious spectrogram analysis of the audio of both samples, ‘Shoot Your Shot’ was determined to best resemble ‘Jump Around’s whiny sax.
Everlast had always maintained that a horn was the sample, but Muggs has remained coy about the exact source, crediting neither Junior Walker nor Prince for his sonic pilfer, possibly to avoid licensing headaches.
Whatever the case, hip-hop was gifted an eternal anthem, ‘Jump Around’s cocky bounce ensuring House of Pain’s spin amid many a DJ set or club night well over 30 years later.
