In October of 1971, Godfather of Soul James Brown clocked another entry in his generational run on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with “Super Bad Part 1 & 2” — a confidence anthem commonly known simply as “Super Bad,” which hit No. 1 on the chart and ultimately became one of the many defining anthems of Brown’s immeasurably influential catalog.
It was obviously a song you could dance to, but it wasn’t technically a dance song — until now.
Via a collaboration with James Brown’s grandson Jason Brown, Brown estate stakeholders Universal Music and Primary Wave and Dutch legend Laidback Luke, “Super Bad” has gotten an official rework called “I Got Soul (Super Bad)”.
Out today (Aug. 28) via Dim Mak Records, the project finds Luke ramping up the song’s BPM and urgency, outfitting his electro production with Brown’s declarations to, among other things, “watch me!” Done in a style bloghouse fans will know and appreciate, the song bumps along deliciously, although as the producer tells it, putting it together was initially quite daunting.
“When I got those stems and opened them up, I was scared,” Luke tells Billboard. “It’s sacred material; I didn’t want to touch it.” This intimidation factor lead Luke to circle back with Jason, who “just gave me complete freedom that made me feel like I could just run with this.”
Jason Brown, who is himself a Los Angeles-based DJ/producer who’s remixed many of his grandfather’s hits and cites a mission to “revamp my gramps music to the next generation,” initially reached out to Luke via DM earlier this year to gauge his interest in being part of the project. He’d seen Luke play many times back in the day while he was a student at SCAD, a creative college in Washington D.C. and loved his classic Dirty Dutch sound. Luke read the DM and was, at first, incredulous.
“It was a little bit creepy,” says Luke, “because I didn’t know who he was and he just started talking about his granddaddy and that he had all the stems and rights to the music. I was like, ‘Wait James Brown is his granddaddy? Like, is this guy for real?”
He was for real, and after the pair had a conversation, Luke received the “Super Bad” stems from Jason and Universal Music, which owns Brown’s recorded masters. “They just saw the vision,” Jason says of the label. The project — which is being framed as an official collaboration rather than a remix — is also a product of Primary Wave, which acquired a stake in Brown’s publishing, master royalty income, name and likeness rights in a 2021 deal valued at approximately $90 million.
“It’s a bit of a melting pot and a real estate situation when it comes down to the business of it,” Jason Brown says of the project’s multiple stakeholders. “But that’s how you get it all across the board, you put everybody at the table. You get everybody on the email. And then you’ve got to know what sounds good, and the result has got to be good, and the names attached have to be somebody. It’s literally all about relevance.”
Luke says the song has been hitting hard during recent sets, with audience going a bit wilder when they realize who the song features. Having previously done official remixes for artists including Madonna, Depeche Mode, Daft Punk and Donna Summer, Luke still cites this project as “the biggest thing I’ve I’ve ever done in my whole career… Like, the only [bigger you can go] is Elvis or Michael Jackson.”
Knowing how much this project means to his career and how much James Brown means to countless people around the world, Luke was a little shy about playing Jason his finished track. “I actually ghosted him for a little bit because I didn’t know if I wanted him to hear it, because I really did my own thing with it,” Luke says.
But the inevitable listening session eventually took place in person in the Dam Mak office in Los Angeles, where Luke and Jason met for the first time and Luke recognized that “Jason is very much the real deal. He’s one of those American kids of huge legends who are just roaming around and have access to this legacy.”
Luke played Jason the track, and Jason says he while he was surprised by Luke taking an electro approach rather than going Dirty Dutch, the final product achieves what he’d hoped it might. “It kind of puts [my grandfather] into the future,” he says. “And that’s the goal. This supersedes the goal.”
