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Children's Story

"Children's Story" is a song recorded by British-American hip hop artist Slick Rick. Taken as the second single from his album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, the song was a Top 5 hit on both the Hot R&B Singles and the Hot Rap Tracks charts. It is one of the most sampled rap songs of all time.[1]

Not to be confused with The Children's Story, A Children's Story, or The Children's Hour (play).

"Children's Story"

April 4, 1989

1988

Hip hop

4:02

Ricky Walters

Slick Rick

Background[edit]

The song interpolates the notes of the bassline from Bob James' song "Nautilus". Throughout the outro, it contains vocal samples from Lyn Collins and James Brown in their song "Think (About It)".

Reception[edit]

About.com listed it at 44 on their list of the top 100 rap songs,[2] and is ranked #61 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.[3]

Commercial performance[edit]

Children's Story reached 5 in the Hot R&B Singles, staying there for 19 weeks[4] and 2 on the Hot Rap Tracks, remaining on the charts for 11 weeks.[5] This was the best performing single from The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.

The 1995 song "This Is How We Do It", while mostly different lyrically, is musically based on an enhanced sample of Children's Story. The segment of "This Is How We Do It" sung by Oji Pierce also utilized altered lyrics of "Children's Story" as a more overt reference to the song's origins. One such example would be the "Children's Story" verse of "Me and Ty, we gonna make some cash, Robbin' old folks and makin' the dash"; this line was given reference in "This Is How We Do It" via the similarly sounding line "You and Oji are gonna make some cash, Sell a million records and we're makin' tha dash".

Montell Jordan

The opening lines of the song "Once upon a time, not long ago..." were used by on the song "Wheelz of Steel" off their 1996 album ATLiens.

Outkast

The song was covered by on his 1996 album Nearly God,

Tricky

covered the song on his 2000 album Eat at Whitey's,

Everlast

A cover by (Talib Kweli and Mos Def) is featured on their collaborative album Black Star,

Black Star

re-interpreted it as a diss song entitled "Can-I-Bitch"; including shots towards Jermaine Dupri and Canibus. It follows the flow and concept as the original, including the intro of children asking "uncle Marshall, will you tell us a bedtime story?"

Eminem

on his 2008 Mixtape BWS Radio 5; and was entitled "Compton's Story". He uses an accent much like Slick Rick's throughout the song.

The Game

The song is featured on the soundtracks for , True Crime: New York City, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and Def Jam Rapstar.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The lyrics "Knock 'em out the box" were also used in .

Star Wars Gangsta Rap

The song was also played in the films & The Sitter.

Notorious

The lyrics "I need bullets, hurry up run!" are also used by Eminem in the track "Bad Guys Always Die" featuring Dr. Dre from the .

Wild Wild West soundtrack

The lyrics "Now this ain't funny so don't you dare laugh" are used in the chorus of "Shit Can Happen" by on the album Devil's Night.

D12

It was heavily sampled on "Cops Shot the Kid" by featuring Kanye West from his album Nasir.

Nas

The song "" by the band Cru uses the lyrics "Now this ain't funny so don't you dare laugh, just another case about the wrong path" as the refrain. The song also guest stars Slick Rick and features a narrative similar to the original song.

Just Another Case

Adaptations[edit]

On March 21, 2017, it was announced that "Children's Story" was going to be produced into a children's book by Get On Down, a record label based in Boston, Massachusetts. The book was released with a reissue of the album on Record Store Day.[6][7][8]