The Heavy: How You Like Me Now?

It’s TV Thursday and I realized that it has been real difficult for me to get my posts earlier on some days of the week and today was one of those days. Today’s song I heard in a Kia Sorento ad about three weeks ago – the hook, “How you like me now?” which is also the song’s title really caught my ear. The group is The Heavy, and while I liked commercial edit, I wasn’t sure I liked the entire song. The more I heard it - it became one of those songs that grew on me and I love it.

The Kia Sorento ad

The song has that late sixties funk that originated with the recordings of James Brown, “the Godfather of Soul.” Part of the reason it sounds so authentic is that the instrumental hook was sampled from a 1969 recording by Dyke (Christian) and the Blazers: “Let a Woman be a Woman and a Man be a Man.” Dyke and Blazers did the original version of “Funky Broadway,” which was later covered by Wilson Pickett. The song's structure is so simple it is brilliant as it centers on one chord: Dm. As the song continues, a Dm - F - G progression is added.

Dyke & the Blazers: Let a Woman be a Woman and a Man be a Man

From the village of Noid on the outskirts of Bath in Somerset, England, The Heavy is fronted by vocalist Kelvin Swaby who has been compared with a number of classic soul and funk vocalists. When The Heavy performed this song live on the Letterman show on January 19, 2010, Letterman asked them to do an encore performance. Apparently from what I read, this was the only time Letterman did this in the history of his shows. On this live performance, The Heavy augments the Dyke and the Blazers sample and uses an actual horn section consisting of a trumpet, tenor sax, and baritone sax. If you look closely at the video during the encore, Paul Shaffer’s band mates add additional horns with trumpet, trombone, and tenor sax.

The Heavy: Live on Letterman