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The third and final leak is "Shimmy Shimmy Ya," by the late Ol' Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan. Remade by Von Pea of Tanya Morgan and Spec Boogie of the Lessondary crew, the track over­flows with horns and adds a child-like voice to rap the cho­rus. While recre­at­ing the clas­sics was never an easy task, the vari­ety of artists that cre­ated Enter The 38th Chamber didn't try to over­shadow the leg­ends. Instead, they revamped the tracks to demon­strate their own unique styles, bring­ing new life to the Shaolin classics.

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Next on deck is Nuk Farm, N.R.O., and The Dugout's cover of "Protect Ya Neck," re-titled "Trifect Ya Neck." Taking the orig­i­nal dia­logue from Wu-Tang's ver­sion, the cover's dis­torted bass, aggres­sive lyri­cal attacks, and strong instru­men­tals bring Wu-Tang's clas­sic sound into the 21st cen­tury. Paying homage to the clan, the tri­fecta per­formed "Trifect Ya Neck" live at Southpaw in con­junc­tion with the release of Enter The 37th Chamber.

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After leak­ing the ini­tial series of remakes from Enter The 37th Chamber in late 2009, El Michels Affair is back with the final three install­ments to the remix series. Released last year on Fat Beats, Enter The 37th Chamber is El Michels Affair's retro-soul recre­ation of many clas­sic Wu-Tang Clan songs with an infu­sion of their sig­na­ture style. In a project pre­sented by URB.com, Fat Beats, and Audible Treats, Enter The 38th Chamber was released fea­tur­ing a slew of artists remak­ing their own ver­sions of these Wu-Tang Clan songs using El Michels Affair's instru­men­tal covers.

The first leak in this series, "C.R.E.A.M." fea­tures A-Plus of Souls of Mischief and Knobody of the Hieroglyphics crew. While recre­at­ing a Wu-Tang anthem may be a dif­fi­cult feat, the two met the lofty chal­lenge. Over top El Michels' jazz-soul instru­men­ta­tion, the duo main­tains Wu-Tang Clan's orig­i­nal mantra with, "Cash rules every­thing around me / C.R.E.A.M. get the money / Dollar dol­lar bill, ya'll." Their new tone is com­pli­mented with upbeat gui­tar and bass and a more promi­nent embell­ish­ment of the track's orig­i­nal piano melody, all while main­tain­ing the orig­i­nal sounds and ele­ments that made the track a classic.

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This is the lead off sin­gle from Aloe Blacc's forth com­ing album Good Things, pro­duced by Truth & Soul, and fea­tur­ing the back­ing band known as Expressions and El Michels Affair. The A-Side “I Need A Dollar” has just debuted as the theme song to the HBO series How To Make It In America.

The 12-inch vinyl for “Dollar” will be in stores April 2010. This is an advance dig­i­tal release, which is also avail­able on iTunes. Instrumentals for both tracks are included.

The album Good Things will be released in 2010 – track list & street date TBA.

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For El Michels Affair and Wu Tang Clan fans, the release of the Enter the 38th Chamber project is a dream come true. And the next sin­gle "Can It All Be So Simple", fea­tur­ing the lyri­cal stylings of Portland natives, Sandpeople, is guar­an­teed to sat­isfy fans world­wide. Often described as "a beau­ti­ful fusion of tal­ent and depen­den­cies" this ten mem­ber gath­er­ing of hip-hop artists take the clas­sic urban track and add their own fla­vor. Emcee Gold, one of the Sandpeople mem­bers, had this to say on the cre­ation of the track "I pic­tured the record as being one part "an ode to" and one part "our take on the con­cept". I fig­ured we should embell­ish on the lines that made the song so time­less and with sapi­ent singing the hook it brought every­thing full cir­cle." Mission accomplished.

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URB.com, Fat Beats, and Audible Treats are col­lab­o­rat­ing to present Enter The 38th Chamber, a remix series that finds a crew of elite emcees rid­ing the rhythms of El Michels' down and dusty soul instru­men­tals. Appearances by Diamond District, Del The Funky Homosapien, A-Plus of Souls of Mischief, Kam Moye, Nightclubber Lang of Boom Bap Project, Sandpeople, Von Pea of Tanya Morgan, and many more will add lay­ers of lyri­cism to El Michels' sig­na­ture funk, mak­ing it a com­plete and com­pelling pack­age for all listeners.

The newest track from the project finds Oakland's finest, Del The Funky Homosapien, lay­ing his lyri­cal stylings over Wu-Tang's "Bring Da Ruckus." Remaking a clas­sic is no small feat, and remak­ing a remake can bring along a whole new set of chal­lenges, but Del says he wanted to bring "more fire" to the song and also to expand lis­ten­ers' per­cep­tions of his lyri­cal range. Call it a remix, but there's some­thing famil­iar about hear­ing Del's cadence over El Michel's smooth RZA rein­ter­pre­ta­tion. As he tack­les the dusty-soulified ver­sion of "Bring Da Ruckus," Del drops metaphors, shows off his math­e­mat­i­cal dex­ter­ity, and holds back no poetic punches, all in an effort to "keep it real funky for you turkeys and dia­mond head buz­zards." Mission accom­plished, Del.

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Last spring, El Michel’s Affair released Enter the 37th Chamber, a funky soul cov­ers album of some of the Wu-Tang Clan’s fiercest cuts. Now, URB will be bring­ing you Enter the 38th Chamber, fea­tur­ing some of today’s hottest MCs going off on the 37th instru­men­tal cuts. In the com­ing weeks, we’ll be debut­ing tracks fea­tur­ing Del The Funky Homosapien, Mr. Lif and Akrobatik, but to start things off, here’s Diamond District (Oddisee, X.O. & YU) on a beat that EMA orig­i­nally laced for Raekwon. Enjoy.

As a bonus, I included the ver­sion from Fallin Off The Reel Vol. 2 (Truth & Soul Singles Collection). [via Potholes & URB.]