{"id":3564306,"uri":"https://api.kexp.org/v2/plays/3564306/?format=json","airdate":"2025-10-12T19:03:55-07:00","show":64818,"show_uri":"https://api.kexp.org/v2/shows/64818/?format=json","image_uri":"","thumbnail_uri":"","song":"Midnight Theme","track_id":null,"recording_id":null,"artist":"Manzel","artist_ids":[],"album":"Sugar Dreams / Midnight Theme","release_id":null,"release_group_id":"b1e4bc5d-f250-40f4-9ced-fdacf797f356","labels":["Fraternity"],"label_ids":["8da18280-b4ab-4ec8-be5e-270205cb764e"],"release_date":"1979-01-01","rotation_status":null,"is_local":false,"is_request":false,"is_live":false,"comment":"Manzel released \"Midnight Theme\" and b-side \"Sugar Dreams\" in 1979 with the Fraternity label.\n\nA very, very obscure instrumental funk group from the mid-'70s, Manzel would find much fame decades later once numerous hip-hop producers sampled the drum intro from \"Midnight Theme\" and, in turn, sent breakbeat collectors scurrying for copies of the original record. During their heyday, Manzel didn't amount to anything more than a pair of 45 rpm singles for the independent Fraternity Records. It was only later, during the '90s, that the group attained notoriety. The drum intro from \"Midnight Theme\" -- the A-side of the second of the group's two 45s -- was sampled numerous times, and quite famously at that: most gloriously by Prince Paul (on De La Soul's \"Plug Tunin',\" from the trio's classic 3 Feet High and Rising album), and later by DJ Muggs (on Cypress Hill's breakthrough single, \"How I Could Just Kill a Man\") and RZA (on Ghostface Killah's debut single, \"Winter Warz\").\n\nMembers of Manzel were Larry Van Dyke, Manzel Bush, and Steve Garner.","location":1,"location_name":"Default","play_type":"trackplay"}