Today was a relatively slow day in hip hop history, so I’m gonna dig real deep to bring y’all some knowledge. Let me bring it back to 1960 and the third annual Grammy Awards. The legendary Ray Charles took home four Grammy’s that night. Two of them were for his work on the classic “Georgia On My Mind”. Now y’all might be thinking, “Why is he talking about Ray Charles when we’re supposed to be learning about hip hop?” Ray Charles has been a huge influence in hip hop. Many artists have referenced him and his lyrics. And he has been sampled in over 100 songs, many of them being hip hop tracks. Ray Charles music was beyond soulful. His voice is one in a million and his skills on the piano are untouchable, even before you consider that he was blind. So today’s playlist is going to look a little different. We’re gonna throw up a bunch of classic Ray Charles songs and some of the hip hop tracks that sampled him. The Charles song will be followed by the tracks with the sample, so see if you can pick them all out. I couldn’t find all of the Ray Charles tracks I was hoping for, so I added some newer songs that have Charles samples without the Ray song to go with it. Appreciating hip hop is appreciating all music. So much of hip hop is pulled in from other genres of music, so why not pay homage to one of the best musicians of all time. Enjoy stretching out your musical palate tonight and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for another hip hop history lesson.