Hank Crawford was down with the whole Kudu/CTI gang which is collectively known for a huge chunk of Hip-Hop samples. Before embarking on his solo saxophone career, he was actually the music director for Ray Charles. His 1973 album “Wildflower” was produced by Bob James (do I really need to say who he is at this point?) and features drums by Idris Muhammad. The album titled track “Wildflower” was sampled most recently/famously by Kanye West for “Drive Slow“.

No one will argue that Kayne isn’t original, but he wasn’t the first to flip “Wildflower“. A much better use (IMO) was by 2pac for “Shorty Wanna Be a Thug” produced by Johnny J. Kanye’s version features a really weird and sloppy chop of the horn riff which just meh. Plus it features Paul Wall.