The mostly European, mostly 1990s electronic dance genre known as trance has been making quite a resurgence lately. On Kompakt, the German label best known for the more cerebral, less ecstatic genre of minimal techno, acts like Sweden's The Field and Brazil's Gui Boratto are making dreamy ambient dance music we've previously described as "nu-trance." In the UK, new-ravers Klaxons went so far as to record "It's Not Over Yet", a cover of a 1993 single by Paul Oakenfold-linked trance act Grace, for last year's Myths of the Near Future. The giddy Australian blokes of Muscles sure sounded tranced-out on E and "Born Slippy" in Guns Babe Lemonade songs like "Sweaty". And hell, weren't we just writing about "Slippy"-birthing trance gents Underworld, like, two days ago?

You could argue this trend has been most pronounced in hip-hop, where the European techno glitz of some of the sounds coming out of Florida led XXL to declare "trance-rap" a new genre almost a year ago. Timbaland's futuristic synths and Kanye West's Daft Punk-sampling have further opened up hip-hop to the sound of Berlin megaclubs. None of that, though, will prepare you for Wiz Khalifa's new single, "Say Yeah", which samples Alice DeeJay's 1999 trance-pop hit "Better Off Alone". We posted a track by the Pittsburgh-based rapper last week, and his swaggering flow is still commanding here. With other rappers these days rhyming over memorable if critically divisive samples from the likes of Journey or the Verve, this one was probably inevitable eventually, but I'm still surprised how good producer Johnny Juliano makes it sound. Even if I'm not yet nostalgic for nights at lame college parties hoping to bump into someone who might take the DeeJay song literally.

Stream:> Wiz Khalifa: "Say Yeah" (Quicktime) (Windows Media)
[Show and Prove is out now on Rostrum]