Guys and Dolls: Credit to the Nation - Call It What You Want (1 May 1993)

 

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For some artists, being played on the John Peel Show could be an immediate, life changing experience. The Midlands hip-hop trio, Credit to the Nation, were arguably the greatest beneficiaries of John Peel related airplay in 1993. Within a week of him playing Call It What You Want on this show, One Little Indian had signed them up to a three-album deal and bought the rights to distribute the single from the label which originally put it out, Rugger Bugger Discs. By the end of the year, Credit to the Nation had 3 entries in the 1993 Festive Fifty, with this at Number 24 and their collaboration with Chumbawamba, Enough is Enough sitting in the Number 1 spot.

I don’t think there’s anything especially game-changing about the content of Call It What You Want, which frames a call for racial unity around a takedown of white hypocrisy. For songs about race, as with songs about love, it becomes a question of what niches you can find to distinguish this track from countless others like it. I do like the lines about black people being better at sport, and the implication that if racists can overlook skin colour for the duration of the game when a black person is representing their team or their country, then why should it be so difficult to do that all day, every day given the basic similarities between any two people whose only outward difference is the colour of their skin. 

But what really earns Call It What You Want its place on the metaphorical mixtape is its chutzpah. How, in 1993, do you make a message about racism and the call for unity between the races stand out in a packed field? Simple, you structure the intro and chorus around the opening riff of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. And not only do you use what was, at that time, the most recognisable guitar riff in the world, you do it in such a way that it sounds less like a gimmicky lift and more like the riff was composed especially for your tune. It’s one of those instances that demonstrates how when sampling is done as brilliantly and seamlessly as it is here, the re-creators show how they too are touched with the same stroke of genius as the creators were.

Video courtesy of Credit to the Nation - Topic