1970 No. 1, Later Sampled By Busta Rhymes, Topped The Charts 56 Years Ago Today

Flipmode. Busta Bus. Nine-seven. Oh, we're not doing early, wildin' Busta Rhymes circa 1997? Nope, doing the much more recent and sedate, "Look Over Your Shoulder" from 2020's "Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God," which contains a sample that classic soul fans will recognize from way back in a No. 1 Jackson 5 song in 1970: "I'll Be There." By October 31 of that year, the tune was in the midst of it's five-week run at the top of the charts.

Thinking of "I'll Be There" will probably lead most readers' minds to Mariah Carey, whose famous 1992 cover created a No. 1 hit encore on the Billboard Hot 100. Much less likely to come to mind is the estimable, Brooklyn-born Trevor Smith Jr., aka, Busta Rhymes. Unlikely as it may seem that Busta would riff on a romantic soul song, he indeed sampled "I'll Be There" on "Look Over Your Shoulder." The track comes with the glowing pedigree of featuring Kendrick Lamar, the once-in-a-generation, 27-Grammy-winning rapper who's already ascended to hip-hop Olympus (but who still controversially lost a Grammy to Macklemore in 2014). Busta sampled the Michael Jackson-sung, "Just look over your shoulders, honey! Ooh" line from the song's outro as well as snippets of Jackson's, "Don't you know, baby, yeah, yeah" line.

Busta Rhymes isn't the first person to borrow from the Jackson 5's beloved 1970 hit, "I'll Be There." Folks were reinterpreting it as early as 1971, when Kai Warner basically reprised the song's entire main instrumental progression on "I'll Be There / Und Wenn Ein Neuer Tag Erwacht." It's strange to think that, by the time, the Jackson 5 brothers were only two years into their career; they'd gotten signed in 1968 and Michael Jackson was only two years out from his 1972 solo debut (at 13 years old, no less) — the quintet had quite the meteoric rise to success.

But back in 1970, at the onset of the Jackson 5's career and legacy, "I'll Be There" was just the lead track on the group's, "Third Album." The young future King of Pop heads up the track at a mere 11 years old, lending a sense of vocal purity to the maturity of the song's lyrics, which talk about sentiments way beyond his age: "I'll be there to protect you / With an unselfish love that respects you." And yet, those lyrics are sweet enough to fit a child's voice. This oddly complementary juxtaposition strengthens the song's melody and no doubt went far in elevating it to No. 1. But, songwriting credit goes to Hal Davis, Willie Hutch, Bob West, and Motown owner Berry Gordy. At present, "I'll Be There" has been officially sampled 28 times and covered about 70 times.