ONE better than you

I love creative bragadociousness. Not the monolth kind but the over the top kind that’s audacious, and creative and a little bit self knowing. I can trace it back to Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and their mind-bending White Lines and The Message. One Better Than You. Oh yeah?

Around 2016 the kids were about four and six, and I was teaching them to sing and play around the piano—stretching their range, giving them songs from all the decades. One track we had fun with was Where’s Your Head At by Bassment Jaxx. circa 2001. I’d first heard it years earlier in Italy—on a slightly dangerous car ride that spilled into a wild club night. It’s a perfect “lose your head” record. The anthemic chorus with the drawn out “Where’s your head at!?’ is irresijstable. Later that night I played around with the bumpy 5ths on the piano from that song and a new angular thing jutted out. It was the chin of the defiant ‘One Better Than You’. Oi oi!

I demo’d it and built it with loops, piano and some spiky guitar and bass and then wrote a horns arrangement for it using oddities like Tuba and Bass Clarinet Eventually it found its home on the Mullenia album and was worked up with a full band.

I mixed it in April 2025, not long after 'the incident. It was one of the first proper creative things I did once I could finally get upright again after surgery. Then—inevitably—it got parked while I chased something else.

Mid-year, everything shifted again. AI music tools suddenly became… frankly ridiculous. Mind-bending. I fed in my entire back catalogue and started generating cover versions of my songs by imaginary bands. Super-tight James Brown drumming. Japanese punk pop guitars. Soul Revue horn sections but all playing my parts and rhythms with endless alternate realities. It was an orgiastic splurge—hundreds of versions, dozens and dozens that amazed me.

Eventually I locked onto one idea to pin things down: funk and soul versions of One Better Than You. I started building worlds—channeling Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, The O’Jays, Curtis Mayfield, and again James Brown. In my head it was 1973: funk on the brink of mutating into hip hop.

There’s a technical breakdown elsewhere if you want it, but the short version is this:I split everything into stems, pulled it into Ableton, and started chopping, looping, extending, replaying. It morphed into something else—a mega-mix mashup of all these parallel-universe versions.

It felt like I’d pressed my own dream record collection of cover versions from 1973.

Deeply meta. Deeply funky.

Same song. Different timeline.

One better than you

The musicians that played on the original record were also credited on this new record where their thing shaped how Ai interpreted their part.

1 BETTER MUSICIANS

• Drongomala - vocals, guitar, bass, percussion

• Rudio Barilaribass - bass guitar

  Zawadi Mukami - backing vocals

• Vadi Mullen - backing vocals

• O.K Subramaniam - Nadaswaram

• Rama Colomer - drum kit

• Abramo Riti - Clavinet

• Juanma Benitez - percussion (conga, bongo, tambourine, various)

• Federico D’Angelo - Tuba, bass clarinet, saxophone

Lyrics

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

You can never do the things that I've done

Feels like I'm the greatest, I'm number one! (yeah)

Better than the rest, I've only begun (huh)

Yeah, call that confidence, got them watching me

How I'm rocking it, you ain't stopping this (No!)

I know you're full of jealousy

One of a kind, there will not be another me

Never coming in last place, I'm getting to the cheese

If life is a rat race, moving at a fast pace

You gotta try to keep up, it's about to heat up

Got me feeling the rush, hey! (hey)

Right now we about to get it jumping (get it jumping)

Taking it higher, it's all that I wanting (Ho!)

Saying that I got an attitude problem (say what?!)

You got an attitude malfunction, let's go!

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

Come on

Better than you. Yeah.

Tell me

I don't have an attitude problem

You have an latitude malfunction

(at the end of the universe)

I put a sticky note for you to find 

(what it is!) Is also what it’s not

Take two of these if you sometimes feel 

(hot or faint)

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

I can do one better than you!

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

better than better than better than….

You! Sunshine (Sunshine!) One better than

You! Sunshine (Sunshine!)

If you did it then I did it before

If you dig it then I dug it with a golden spade

I’m R U N N I N G

Up that hill with my Cuban heels on!

I use your hate against you

Shift your weight with (jujitsu)

I put the sun to bed at night, I’m back at dawn Marvin’s singing (Let's get it on!)

Your future is the picture in my (rear view mirror!)

I tuck in the sun at night in my (three piece spacesuit!) 

Yeah yeaaaah!   Scoo dah getting on the good foot!

Cause I can do one better than you

(Bye bye cheerio, tata, toodaloo, au revoir, see you later) 

you can catch the next elevator

(Bye bye cheerio, tata, toodaloo, au revoir, see you later) 

 Let’s go!

I got no reality problem

You've got a gratitude malfunction

(at the back of your mind)

I put a little thought for you to find

(all of the opposites) 

Same problem, part of the same thing

(Ping pong, ping pong) one zero zero zero one

If you

(did it!) then I did it before

If you (dig it!) then I dug it with a golden spade!

(I can go one faster than you!)

Blasting away this atmosphere of you

(Blood sweat and years) gives me infinite gears

Pass me your crayons and I’ll draw you the saaa gaaa (Yeah!)

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

I can do one better than you

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

Hey better than better than better than you

You! Sunshine (Sunshine!) One better than

You! Sunshine (Sunshine!)

You can only do you

And I can only do me

At the back of your mind

I put a little thought for you to find

Make peace (Make peace)

Complement (complement)

work hard  (work hard)

share rent  (share rent) 

get down (get down)

fall up (fall up)

Boogaloo (boogaloo)

Buttercup (buttercup)

NaNaNaNaNaNaNaNaNaNa