I think we all need to.
It started out harmlessly enough. I was listening to a record by Yusef Lateef called Eastern Sounds. I was smiling to myself over a discovery I had recently made after hearing (for the first time) the initial track on the B side: “Love Theme From Spartacus”. Within seconds, I recognized the melody as part of a sample from one of my all-time favorite French hip-hop tunes: “Manifeste” by Shurik’n. I will forever feel the nostalgia attached to blasting that track while speeding down the autobahn in a rented Mercedes C-Class W203 C200 Kompressor, my older brother at the wheel. I decided to look further into the story of this Spartacus song, whose two very different renditions both captured my heart.
A quick DuckDuckGo search resulted in this article (I give thanks to the author, DJ Asma): “Version Excursion: ‘Love Theme from Spartacus’ (1960, Alex North”. Not only did I learn that there are over 20 different interpretations of the Spartacus love theme but that Shurik’n had managed to skillfully sample the original ballad by Alex North, written for the 1960 movie, Spartacus. I remember trying to interpret the lyrics from French to English after first hearing it — in part because I wanted to practice my French language skills and in part because I felt the need to know what I was bobbing my head to…
