DJ Premier found it in 1992. Kanye found it in 2005.

In 1992, DJ Premier found "Funk It Down" on this record and built Gang Starr's "Ex-Girl to Next Girl" around it.

Thirteen years later Kanye West lifted "Sweet Children" from the same six songs and made it the spine of Common's "Real People" on Be.

Two of the most sample-precise producers in the history of rap, working more than a decade apart, finding two different doors into the same album.

That is Ceasar Frazier's '75. Westbound Records, 1975. Produced by Bob Porter, the architect behind the Prestige jazz-funk catalog and one of the most important ears in the genre.

The session split into two recording bands. Bernard "Pretty" Purdie on drums for the tracks Premier and Kanye would eventually find. Cornell Dupree on guitar alongside him. Jon Faddis on trumpet, 21 years old, already lead trumpet in the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and fresh off recording with Mingus at Carnegie Hall the year before. These were not people trying to make a cult record. This was just what the room sounded like.

What gets me is the story before any of this.

Frazier grew up in Lake Helen, Florida, a block from a juke joint. Piano at five. Playing with R&B and blues bands by fifteen. He moved to Indianapolis after college on a friend's tip, built an organ quartet, and started working the midwest circuit.

A former member of Lou Donaldson's band heard him at a jazz club there and called Lou immediately. That phone call was the beginning of everything.

He would go on to play keyboards in Marvin Gaye's touring band. He called What's Going On one of the greatest albums ever recorded. Then he made two of his own and the world mostly moved on.

Frazier settled in California. Became a broadcast journalist. Covered presidential campaigns. He still plays when he can at age 78. The samples kept his name alive while he was busy doing other things.