Who Is And What Is He To You

This is a wonderful Bill Withers tune that was covered by Me'Shell NdegéOcello in 1996. Bill Withers produced her version of the track. The choice of artist was perfect because Me'Shell is a big butch lesbian (ok, she might not be a lesbian but she definitely has that vibe) and the song took on a really menacing girl on girl atmosphere.

For that release, Danny Tenaglia did a whole bunch of remixes. This was during his residency at Twilo in New York and thus has a really mournful, dubby, but also overwhelmingly spacey feel to it. Imagine the quintessential house club erected by a Mississippi chain gang, humming away whilst they work.

There's a Twilo mix, a dub, and an NYDC mix. Hell I like this tune so much I bet even the instrumental kills it with that stabbing bass riff. Have scoured the internet and have been able to track down a few versions on Discogs, but it seems different remixes were attached to the various international releases. Thus, the Japanese release features no Tenaglia remixes whilst the Australian version has no remixes at all. Looks like I'm going to have to purchase it on vinyl.

Anyway, if you want to hear it, it can be found on the Larry Heard mix about 1/5th of the way through.