The A.V. Club interviews Mr. Wunnerfulness himself–Prince Paul:
AVC: “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’” (from 1991’s De La Soul Is Dead for De La Soul)
PP: I remember the big deal about that was having Russell Simmons come in and do the vocal intro at the beginning of the song. Russell was my manager as a producer for a hot second, and he was also a manager for Stetsasonic. And I remember just how hard it was to even get him in a meeting. But after De La Soul did so well, it just took a phone call for him to come down to the studio. He was so eager and everybody wanted to be down so much, it just showed me the power of what a hit record can do for you. That, to me, was the shining moment of that song. It was fun making it. It was uptempo and everything else, and there are a lot of layers and samples. Once again, Pos had the main loop for the song, and it was just us kind of building around that loop, but it was like, “Wow, we got Russell on here.”
AVC: Was it your idea to have Russell on?
PP: I don’t remember whose idea it was, to be honest. I think it came from the guys. Who it came from, I don’t know, but I just remember that he was real happy to be there. I was like, “Wow,” because it was hard enough to get the guy in a meeting but he was on time and ready to record. So that was kind of nice.