Many years ago during the early ascendancy of Kanye West I read an interview with him where he was in a Chicago Indian restaurant and the interviewer said that Kanye got super inspired by a Bollywood song that was playing in the restaurant and that he jumped up and ran back to his studio because he had to work on a beat immediately. I have always assumed that the song he heard was “Aaj Ki Raat Koi Aane Ko Hain” composed by R. D. Burman and sung by Asha Bhosle from the 1973 film Anamika and that the beat he made became “Get Em High” with Talib Kweli and Common off his 2004 debut the College Dropout. He didn’t use a sample, but rather transposed and pitched up the main melody in his version. (Remember how much mileage he got out of pitching up old sampled vocals back in the day?)
As far as I can tell know one has ever written about this similarity before.
Original:
Kanye West’s version: