Use in Other Songs
Parliament uses the phrase "gangsta lean" in the song "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)", from the 1975 album Mothership Connection.
William DeVaughn's original lyrics are referenced in the 1988 Teena Marie Top 10 R&B hit single "Work It" ("Don't mention you be on the scene, and you drive my car, and your gangsta lean...") and repeated later that year in the N.W.A. chart-topping rap song "Gangsta Gangsta."
Other mentions include the 1993 Digable Planets song "Where I'm From" and Adina Howard's 1995 hit "Freak Like Me" ( "and I will take you around the 'hood on a gangsta lean.") A remix of MC Lyte's song "Cold Rock a Party" also references the phrase with the line "...I be da baddest b that hit da scene since da gangsta lean..."
American R&B group DRS released a song in 1993 entitled "Gangsta Lean", which peaked at #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
"Gangsta Lean" is the title of a song recorded by alt-country band The Gourds on their 1999 album Ghosts of Hallelujah.
Rihanna's 2007 single "Shut Up and Drive" references the slang in the opening verse "I'm a fine-tuned supersonic speed machine with a sunroof top and a gangsta lean".
Ludacris' 2003 single "Diamond in the Back", which samples DeVaughn's song, references the slang in the opening chorus "I wanna (diggin' the scene with a gangsta lean)".
American rap group Clipse has a song entitled "Gangsta Lean", but unlike previous songs that referenced the title, the Clipse's version was based around marijuana.
The refrain of "West Savannah", from the classic Outkast album Aquemini, features a variation on the DeVaughn lyric: "Nine in my hand, ounce in my crotch/Diggin' the scene with a gangsta slouch, mmmmhmmmm".
Donovan Carless made in the seventies a song titled "Be Thankful", which is covered by Neo soul artist Omar and Erykah Badu, with the song lyrics: "Just be thankful for what you've got; diamonds in the back, sunroof top, digging the scene with a gangster lean."
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Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)