Free The Music is song released initially as a non-album track on the single The Good Life, the second single from the New Power Generation's second 'solo' album Exodus, on the North American release only (it was not included on the single in territories where the album Exodus had been released, probably due to the message of the song).
It was later included on the The Versace Experience (Prelude 2 Gold) promo cassette distributed at the showing of the Versace fashion collection on 8 July 1995 (and commercially released in 2019).
The full-length version, containing samples of James Brown, was included on the The Good Life Exodus Sampler Experience promo cassette distributed at some Paisley Park Studios shows.
The track is a medley of seven tracks from the album Exodus (New Power Soul and Hallucination Rain are the only musical tracks not included), using music from The Good Life (Big City Remix), and repeated phrases of "Exodus" and "Free the music" delivered by Mayte.
Tracks sampled, in order, are Get Wild, Count The Days, Cherry, Cherry, Return Of The Bump Squad, Big Fun, The Exodus Has Begun and The Good Life. "Free the music" was a phrase used commonly by during The Ultimate Live Experience tour in relation to the then-unreleased The Gold Experience, but here related to Warner Bros.' refusal to release Exodus in North America.
Specific recording dates for Free The Music are unknown, but it is likely that basic tracks were recorded in January-June 1995 at Paisley Park Studios.
|