Nov 8, 2026 · Crate digging · 12 min read

Curtis Mayfield Samples: Super Fly, Move On Up and the Hip Hop Songs That Used Them

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A self-taught guitarist from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green projects made two albums between 1970 and 1972 that hip hop has never stopped digging through. Ice-T, the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Biggie, Just Blaze and Kanye West all went back to the same crates. This is the map of what they took, and from where.

Short answer: what hip hop songs sample Curtis Mayfield?

The biggest is Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky”, where Just Blaze slowed down the horns of “Move On Up”. Kanye also used a Mayfield vocal in “Jesus Walks”. From Super Fly, Ice-T built “I’m Your Pusher” on “Pusherman”, the Beastie Boys and Biggie took “Superfly”, and Dr. Dre (Snoop Dogg’s “Bathtub”), Digable Planets and Mary J. Blige used “Give Me Your Love”, his most sampled song.

How this was made: written by GUIO, a hip hop producer who makes beats on an MPC Live III. The samples, counts and timestamps were checked on WhoSampled on November 8, 2026; the producer credits come from each album’s credits as listed on Wikipedia. A producer marked “Not listed” was not confirmed in the sources we read, and “album credit” means the credit covers the whole album.

Who was Curtis Mayfield?

Curtis Lee Mayfield was born in Chicago on June 3, 1942, and grew up partly in the Cabrini-Green projects. He taught himself guitar, tuning it to the black keys of the piano, an open F-sharp tuning he kept all his life, and sang mostly in falsetto. With the Impressions he wrote civil-rights anthems like “People Get Ready” (1965), and he ran his own label, Curtom, where his solo records came out.

On August 13, 1990, a lighting rig fell on him during a show at Wingate Field in Brooklyn and left him paralyzed from the neck down. He still released one more album, New World Order, in 1996. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, with the Impressions in 1991 and as a solo artist in 1999, and died on December 26, 1999, at 57.

Curtis (1970) and Super Fly (1972): the two albums hip hop keeps digging

Curtis, his first solo album, came out in September 1970 on Curtom, recorded at RCA’s studio in Chicago between May and July. It mixed hard funk with long, soft soul songs and topped Billboard’s Black albums chart. “Move On Up” runs almost nine minutes on the album, with Master Henry Gibson’s congas driving it.

Super Fly, released on July 11, 1972, was the soundtrack to Gordon Parks Jr.’s film. It went to No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, outsold the movie, and gave him two top 10 singles, “Freddie’s Dead” (No. 4) and “Superfly” (No. 8). “Pusherman” was cut first, at Bell Sound in New York; the rest was recorded in Chicago with Johnny Pate arranging strings and horns, Joseph “Lucky” Scott on bass, Master Henry Gibson on percussion, Craig McMullen and Phil Upchurch on guitar, and Morris Jennings on drums (Tyrone McCullen played on “Pusherman”).

Track times are from the Apple Music editions. Look at “Move On Up”: the most famous Mayfield sample comes from one of his least sampled songs. One perfect flip was enough.

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Curtis Mayfield – Freddie’s Dead (official audio)

Songs that sample Curtis Mayfield: the essential list

These are the hip hop songs that matter most from the WhoSampled pages of his songs, with the Mayfield track each one used and, when we read it, the second where WhoSampled marks the sample in the original.

Source: WhoSampled, checked November 8, 2026 (years follow WhoSampled); producer credits from Wikipedia’s track listings of each album. “Hell Below” is short for “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go”.

What song did Kanye West sample from Curtis Mayfield?

Three, and each one shows a different way to use him.

“Touch the Sky” (2005): the “Move On Up” sample

Just Blaze produced it, the only beat on Late Registration that Kanye did not make himself. He has said he tried the Mayfield record after nothing was clicking in the studio, and that he finished the beat 20 minutes before Kanye arrived at Baseline Studios. He slowed down the horn intro of “Move On Up” (WhoSampled marks it around 0:07 of the original) and let the drums ride under it. Kanye even hums along to the sample on the record, as The Guardian pointed out.

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Kanye West – Touch the Sky ft. Lupe Fiasco (official video)

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Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up (single edit, official audio)

“Jesus Walks” (2004): one vocal line from “Hell Below”

Kanye dropped a short Mayfield vocal from “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go” into “Jesus Walks”. Here is the detail most lists miss: WhoSampled places it at around 0:31 of the original, the exact moment EPMD had used on “Hardcore” (1990) and N.W.A on “Niggaz 4 Life” (1991). Travis Scott went to the same spot again on “Don’t Play” (2014). The full story of that beat, ARC Choir and all, is in our College Dropout producers and samples breakdown.

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Curtis Mayfield – (Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go (official audio)

“The Joy” (2010): Curtis on the mic

Pete Rock and Kanye built “The Joy” on the live version of “The Makings of You”, from Curtis/Live! (1971). It was recorded in 2010, during the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy period, and ended up as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Watch the Throne (2011), credited “featuring Curtis Mayfield”.

The “Pusherman” sample: Ice-T, Eminem and Clipse

Ice-T’s “I’m Your Pusher” (1988), produced by Ice-T and Afrika Islam, flipped Mayfield’s dealer portrait into an anti-drug song: the pusher sells records, not dope. Mayfield and Ice-T later recorded “Superfly 1990” together for The Return of Superfly.

That Ice-T record changed an Eminem song. According to a 2006 book on Eminem cited by Wikipedia, “I’m Shady” was first written over a Sade track; after Eminem heard “Pusherman” in “I’m Your Pusher”, he switched to Mayfield. WhoSampled marks the vocal at 1:16 of the original. Later, Clipse quoted the song on “Grindin’” (2002, The Neptunes) and Chance the Rapper interpolated it on “Pusha Man” (2013).

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Curtis Mayfield – Pusherman (official audio)

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Clipse – Grindin’ (official video)

The “Superfly” sample: the Beastie Boys, Biggie and the bass line

What producers want from “Superfly” is the intro: Joseph “Lucky” Scott’s bass line and Master Henry Gibson’s rototom break. The Beastie Boys opened “Egg Man” (Paul’s Boutique, 1989) with it, the Geto Boys took the bass for “Do It Like a G.O.” the same year, and Puffy put it in the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Intro” on Ready to Die (1994), the montage that opens the album. Nelly and Christina Aguilera brought it back in 2004 on “Tilt Ya Head Back”.

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Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (official audio)

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Beastie Boys – Egg Man (official audio)

“Give Me Your Love”: Mayfield’s most sampled song

The love song in the middle of a drug movie is the one producers use most: 94 songs on WhoSampled. Dr. Dre opened Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle with it on “Bathtub” (1993). Digable Planets looped it for “Nickel Bags” the same year, Chucky Thompson and Puffy used it on Mary J. Blige’s “I’m the Only Woman” (1994), Pete Rock came back to it more than once, and Lex Luger built Wale’s “That Way” (2011) on it. Most of these start right at the top of the song: the first seconds are the hook.

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Curtis Mayfield – Give Me Your Love (Love Song) (official audio)

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Digable Planets – Nickel Bags (official audio)

“Freddie’s Dead”, “Think” and the rest of Super Fly

“Freddie’s Dead”, with its bass, wah-wah guitars and sad strings, is in 81 songs. UGK used it on “Cocaine in the Back of the Ride” (1992) and Erykah Badu built “Master Teacher” (2007) on it, from about 1:40 of the original. J. Cole interpolated the instrumental “Think” for “Nobody’s Perfect” (2011), and Busta Rhymes used “Eddie You Should Know Better” on “Betta Stay Up in Your House” (2001). Few albums give producers this many usable moods in 40 minutes.

Beyond the solo albums: the records Curtis Mayfield produced

Mayfield the producer was sampled even more than Mayfield the singer. The Five Stairsteps’ “Don’t Change Your Love” (1968), which he produced, is in 280 songs on WhoSampled, including A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got)” (read our Low End Theory review), Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” and Kendrick Lamar’s “m.A.A.d city” (see our Kendrick Lamar discography). Baby Huey’s “Hard Times” (1971) fed Ghostface Killah’s “Buck 50” and The Game’s “Compton”, and the Staple Singers’ “Let’s Do It Again” (1975) is in the remix of Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day”. From his own 1973 album Back to the World, “Right On for the Darkness” gave Gang Starr “Take a Rest” and Mase “What You Want”.

Why is Curtis Mayfield so sampled?

• Intros built for loops. “Superfly”, “Give Me Your Love” and “Move On Up” all open with a few bars of bass, percussion or horns before the vocal. That is where most of the flips above start.
• A real rhythm section. Lucky Scott’s bass and Henry Gibson’s congas are as important as the melody, so the groove survives being cut into pieces.
• Lyrics hip hop already shared. Dealers, the street, pride, survival. Ice-T, Clipse and Eminem quote his words, not only his music.
• A voice that cuts through. A short falsetto line, like the “Hell Below” moment, sits over any drums. That last point is my reading as a producer, not a quote from any of these beatmakers.

Producer’s corner: how to flip Curtis Mayfield today

• Start with the intros, then go deeper. The obvious seconds are taken. “Move On Up” runs almost nine minutes and changes several times; “Freddie’s Dead” has a full instrumental version on the 1997 deluxe edition of Super Fly.
• Try the tempo first. Just Blaze slowed “Move On Up” down. Speed changes the weight of a horn section more than any plugin.
• Sample from a clean source. A good vinyl rip or a high-quality file, never a YouTube rip. See how to sample vinyl and our list of the best hip hop vinyl records to own.
• Chop the bass and drums apart. On an MPC, cut the intro into regions, put the bass hits on their own pads and play a new pattern. That is how I work on my MPC Live III; our guide on how to chop samples on an MPC shows it step by step.
• Give the kick room. These records have a lot of low end. Filter the sample’s bass under your kick, then follow how to make boom bap beats on an MPC for the drums.
• Clear it before you release it. You need permission for the recording and the composition. Mayfield wrote everything on Super Fly, which is why his name appears in the writing credits of “Touch the Sky”, “Bathtub” and “Tilt Ya Head Back”.

Listen to Super Fly and Curtis

Spotify · Curtis Mayfield – Superfly

Apple Music · Move On Up

Verdict

If you only own one Mayfield record, make it Super Fly: nine songs and almost every one has been sampled. Then get Curtis for “Move On Up” and “Hell Below”. Play them with the timestamps above and you will hear Kanye, Biggie, Dre and the Beastie Boys hiding inside. For more digging, go on to Ahmad Jamal’s The Awakening samples and Bob James’ “Nautilus”.

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