“Step To My Girl” is an early 1990s demo recording by Oakland hip hop group Souls Of Mischief. Along with “Cab Fare,” it was among the demo recordings that helped the group land a record deal with Jive Records.

The song is a fantastic example of underground Bay Area hip-hop, with vastly more complex rhyme schemes and creative slant rhymes than typical of early 90s mainstream rap, and heavy influences from freestyling/battling. “Step To My Girl” features verses from Tajai, A-Plus, and Opio, who each riff on the same theme: what happens to the chumps that try to steal their girls. The imagery is violent – “wood bat,” “suture,” “knuckles buried in chins,” and a “coffin.” – but the tone is playful, and even juvenile. Tajai said in a later interview: “We made that song when we were 15.”

This song was recorded prior to Souls of Mischief’s seminal debut album 93 ‘til Infinity, but did not make the album due to sample clearing issues. The saxophone melody heard throughout the song is a sample from “Audrey” by smooth jazz musician Grover Washington Jr., itself a cover of the song by 1970s soft rock band Bread. The song’s chorus, “every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl,” is a sample of rapper YZ’s song “Who’s that Girl.”

Years later, the song was finally released as part of Hieroglyphics Hiero Oldies albums. (Souls of Mischief is a sub-group of larger Oakland hip hop collective Hieroglyphics.)

More recently the song was interpolated by indie rock band Vampire Weekend on “Step,” a hit from their award-winning 2013 album Modern Vampires in the City. In Vampire Weekend’s more famous homage, the “girl” is widely considered to be a metaphor for frontman Ezra Koenig’s love of music (especially the obscure.) Vampire Weekend not only had to clear their samples with Souls of Mischief, but also had to clear Souls of Mischief’s original samples. The only thing that did not get clearance was the name. Koenig wanted to use the same name as the Souls of Mischief track, but Tajai asked that they change it.

https://genius.com/Souls-of-mischief-step-to-my-girl-lyrics

It is a bummer that the same name was not able to be used, but it may make sense to others.

Here is the song mentioned, I enjoyed it, invokes a different feeling and vibe:

Vampire Weekend - Step (Official Lyrics Video) [04:11 | Pop, Chamber Pop, Art Pop, Baroque Pop, Indie, Indie Pop] | https://youtu.be/_mDxcDjg9P4

“Step” is inspired by “Step to My Girl” by Souls of Mischief. Per the band:

“Souls Of Mischief I’ve always loved. I kind of associate them with the first time that I really started become a music fan as a young teenager. This song apparently was recorded around the time of their first album, which was called 93 ‘til Infinity, but it never made the record and it floated around as a bootleg for awhile. I only discovered it five or six years ago but it always really stuck with me, especially the chorus. I didn’t know where it came from but they’re kind of like scratching somebody saying, “Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl.” Slowly as I listened to this song, I found myself kind of writing this alternate song based on that phrase.”

Souls Of Mischief, however, also recycled this line which appeared first in YZ’s “Who’s That Girl.”

The first verse is almost a parody of the early Vampire Weekend lyrics, as they’re so dense and knotty that they are really superfluous and unnecessary to advance the melody. That was part of their charm, if you are into that kind of thing, but could be alienating as well. This narrator rejects that knowingness for deeper, more primitive truths. Given the recurring references to an ex from northern California on Contra, it’s possible that this one might have been written during (or cut from?) that album.

The official lyrics video shows scenes of New York in a black-and-white scheme reminiscent of the iconic opening to Woody Allen’s Manhattan.

https://genius.com/Vampire-weekend-step-lyrics