Aerosmith has no shortage of arena-filling bangers. With Steven Tyler’s high-flying vocals and Joe Perry’s ear-worm guitar riffs, it would be hard to mistake an Aerosmith song when it comes through your speakers.
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Despite being distinctive, contemporary artists have managed to rework the band’s timeless catalog for their own uses time and time again. Rap—the genre most notable for its use of samples—has borrowed from Tyler and co. a fair amount. We’re highlighting four of the best uses of Aerosmith songs in rap and R&B, below.
1. “Sing for the Moment” (Eminem)
Sampled “Dream On”
Eminem makes use of the iconic intro to Aerosmith’s “Dream On” for “Sing for the Moment.” The track appears on the rapper’s 2002 album, The Eminem Show. It went on to be an international hit, peaking at No. 14 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Along with interpolating the intro, the rapper tapped Perry to play the guitar solo toward the end of the song.
2. “Never Be Friends” (The Game)
Sampled “Dream On”
The Game also sampled “Dream On” for “Never Be Friends” in 2005. In the lyrics, the rapper immortalizes a childhood friend who was shot just a few days after being released from prison.
“My best friend, Billboard, had just got murdered,” The game revealed to Complex at the time. “When he died, I was in this funk. Nothing was really making sense to me.”
3. “Dreams” (Big Sean)
Sampled “Amazing”
Big Sean includes a pitched-up snippet of Aerosmith’s “Amazing” on his track “Dreams.” The song appears on his 2011 project, Finally Famous: The Mixtape. In the introspective track, the rapper reveals his big aspirations in the rap game—that would eventually come to fruition.
4. “Pynk” Janelle Monáe feat. Grimes
Sampled “Pink”
“Pynk” acted as the third single for Janelle Monáe’s fourth studio album, Dirty Computer. They tapped Grimes for both a feature on the song and production duties. The song has both a similar theme and melody to Aerosmith’s song “Pink” – so much so that Tyler has a writing credit on the song.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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