On the extended version of his 1988 single “I Wish U Heaven,” Prince sang “Take this beat / I don’t mind / Got plenty others / and they’re so fine!”

Apparently a few hip-hop producers got the message and began mining Prince’s catalog for samples!

Here are a few of our favorites!

Kanye West “Big Brother”

DJ Toomp produced Kanye West’s ode to his “big brother,” Jay-Z.   The song replays a riff from Prince’s “It’s Gonna Be Lonely” from his 1979 self-titled album.

2Pac “Heartz Of Men”

Taken from the last album Tupac released before he was murdered, “Heartz Of Men” samples the end of Prince’s “Darling Nikki,” that creepy backwards bit that probably scared Christian parents all over the country.

2Pac “What’z Ya Phone #”

The raunchy closing song on disc 1 of 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me album is built off of a loop from The Time’s “777-9311.” The Time was formed by Prince as an outlet for his funkier material. Prince produced, wrote, and performed most of The Time’s material with his friend Morris Day handling vocals.

Jay-Z & Beyoncé “’03 Bonnie & Clyde”

The Jiggaman launched The Blueprint 2 album with this Kanye West produced single featuring his then-girlfriend Beyoncé.  The song features Beyoncé singing lyrics from Prince’s 1987 classic “If I Was Your Girlfriend.”

MC Lyte “Paper Thin”

MC Lyte’s classic “Paper Thin” features a sample from Prince & The Revolution’s “17 Days” which was the b-side of “When Doves Cry.”

RELATED: AUDIO: Beyonce On Performing With Prince: “I Was So Scared!”

RELATED: VIDEO: Prince Performs “Purple Rain” For The Very First Time

Female rapper/hip hop artist Yo Yo, born Yolanda Whittaker, 37, who made herself known in the early 90’s after being introduced to the hip-hop world by Ice Cube on the single “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” and then a year later with her 1991 debut album “Make Way for the Motherlode” and hit single “You Can’t Play With My Yo-Yo?” featuring Ice Cube, is set to return with her first full-length release, “My Journey to Fearless: The Black Butterfly” following behind her last album “Total Control” released in 1996.

The first single off the album released is entitled “Give It T’um!”

Early in December, the rapper’s album was believed to be releasing in March, but is now stated to be releasing sometime in April with a date of TBA.

For “My Journey to Fearless: The Black Butterfly” Yo Yo collaborated with a number of producers and artists including Missy Elliot, Keri Hilson, DJ Quik, Ceelo, DJ Toomp, Erick Sermon, The Lab Rats, Raheem Davon, amongst others.

In other news, besides music, the rapper also gives back to the community with her youth foundation “Let Your Light Shine Youth Foundation” along with Lana “Lyte” Moore which she created in 2005. The organization acts as Big Sisters to young women via mentoring, education and providing positive influences.

SOURCE: HipHopRX

It’s a safe assumption that there are no gray areas in Kanye West appreciation. Either you consider him a genius or you want to send him on a shopping spree with Sarah Palin using an an expired Amex Black card and a stack of I.O.U’s from MC Hammer. After listening to the leak of 808s and Heartbreak, I won’t be petitioning for his MENSA membership anytime soon.

Mr. West has been tried in the court of public opinion ever since he announced this ambitious (or pretentious, depending on what side you’re on) project. But before you render a final verdict on this most-likely unfinished version of 808s & Heartbreak keep these observations in mind:

The Truth: Kanye West fell asleep with A-Ha’s “Take On Me” playing on his 80 inch plasma and woke up with this album in his head. Realizing that his natural-born vocals couldn’t adequately convey what was burning inside of his soul (or some other part of his anatomy) he enlisted computerized help. Bundle this with some heartache over losing his mother (as he insisted in interviews, though I hear no evidence of such) and some anonymous love interest/supermodel that we’ve never heard of and you have the makings of The Miseducation of Kanye West.

The Secret: The title is actually a typo. The actual title is 80′s Heartbreak and that makes much more sense given the Don Johnson and Punky Brewster-era synthetic sonics that define this disc. It appears Ye’s white blazers and open shirts were not just a fashion statement, that is indeed his state of mind.

The Good: “Heartless.” This is pretty frickin’ dope. Not just because Kanye is rapping for most of it, the beat is simply superior to “Love Lockdown” and when he does use the auto-tune it is actually… in tune. This is a great post-argument-pre-break-up driving to the strip club for a revenge lap dance track. “I’m gonna take oooofff tonight…”

“Anyway” Melody is an inviting example of Reagan-era nostalgia done right. It also helps that he enlists actual back-up singers to fill out the hook and leans off the auto-tune a bit. Again, he’s rapping more but the balance works.

“Tell Everybody That You Know”  You can tell Kanye has been hanging a lot with DJ Toomp and its been rubbing off in a good way (pause).  It’s a good track with a catchy hook but Jeezy would have sounded better on this than “Amazin,” and Lil Wayne’s granola bar : “Girl you think your shit don’t stink but you’re mrs P-U…” pushes it closer to the laughable end of the spectrum.

The Bad: “Robocop.” This is a bad case of “I found this cool sound effect and I really wanna use it, but no theme makes sense.” It reminds me of a chopped & screwed version of that AT&T “zero bars” commercial where the guy is stuck in the hostile with Slad and Veter the Techno Twins and their boombox. Except it’s not funny.

“Love Lockdown” This leak version is clearly the unpolished demo because it’s even more off-key than the official joint. People like this because it reminds them of cheering on your best friend at the high school talent show. You admire their balls for getting on the stage regardless of how they sound and they autographed the homemade burn of their CD to make you feel special. The problem here is that Kanye has already forgotten the little people and the addition of R.Kelly just underlines why Ye shouldn’t be singing.

The In-Between: Kanye channels his inner N.E.R.D for a danceable “Coldest Winter” that would have better served Chris Brown or Omarion. Topically, Kanye taps into some pretty dead-on observations of relationships that few people like to express, it’s just hard to take him seriously sounding like a chipmunk drowning in a toilet bowl.

Verdict: Kanye West can’t deal with our acceptance. He likes being the underdog. When he first came on the scene he won us over and made us see him as a legit MC, not just a producer lip-synching in the mirror. But as he became successful (sales and critically) he just couldn’t chill. Being an asshole is way more fun and it’s hard to be that when people like you. So in the name of pushing the envelope he’s concocted this experiment. The irony is that Ye is doing just the opposite here. For the first time in his career Kanye is a follower and to call the disc derivative is being kind. There are definite bright spots but merely being different does not make you brave or innovative. Manson was different. (Marilyn or Charles…take your pick). Either way the results were mixed, just like this album.

Sentencing: Check out The Death of Auto-Tune on Rappersiknow.com.

To hear a stream of the complete 808′s & Heartbreak go to Kanye’s Myspace page!