Blog: Sampling and Authorship

Sampling & Authorship

Sampling is one of the main foundations of old school and modern hip-hop. It has played a crucial role in the development of hip-hop through the ages. All hip-hop started from sampling. Dating back to the 1970’s, Deejays would gather records from various genres and began to “scratch them” on the turntables. This created a sort of disco, dance, and funky sound of music. Because the large migration from Jamaica and other Caribbean people to New York the beats were heavily influenced by their instruments and music. Typically samples came from Jazz and Soul music; two predominantly African-American oriented music. These genres majorly influenced the MC’s rapping content; the rap was up-tempo delivering a dancing atmosphere. DJ Kool Herc was one of the fist Deejays to hit the New York scene. He helped innovate the way people heard music generally relying on funk and soul tracks to entertain the crowd.

As time progressed, so did sampling. New artists started to surface. These new artists brought a different and more advanced technique of sampling. The progression of technology also assisted in the new sound. Hip-hop was still relatively young, although its popularity was growing at a rapid rate. New regions began to start rapping; this formed various styles within the genre. Afrika Bambaattaa introduced the integration of electro with hip-hop. He created a sound the followers of hip-hop have never heard before. The dynamics of hip-hop is what makes it so incredible. It incorporates so many different sounds of music, yet was able to maintain that distinct hip-hop feel to it that is undeniable.

Personally, I believe the use of sampling was revolutionized in the 90’s by Andre Young, also known as Dr. Dre. In 1992, he released his first solo debut album with “The Chronic”. Prior to the solo project, he had years of experience by his self and N.W.A of producing. His instrumentals were mostly sampled songs with a little of his own production and mastering. One of his most well-renowned songs of the album, “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang”, was sampled from the Leon Haywood song “I wanna do something freaky to you”. The sample is a soul-full and funky song that resonates quite well with the G-funk, west-coastish vibe of Dr. Dre’s music. The first link I post is the original song by Leon Haywood, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpL836gqYlI , the second link is the sampled track made by Dre himself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qkP8SvHvaU . Listen to both and hear the blatant similarities between the two. Dr. Dre’s fascinating use of sampling for all his projects is what makes his production so unique. His daring and innovative sound embodied a western (California region) culture that found its way all around hip-hop. However, Dr. Dre did not stop from the conventional sampling of funk and soul. He drifted into other genres in his second studio album “2001” sampling David McCallum who is classified as pop rock. It’s also interesting to note a sort of dependency on authorship based on location and type of beats. New instrumentals impacted the content of the authors, or rappers. Dr. Dre gave artists an opportunity to rap about their gangster lifestyle and made it sound compatible with the music Dr. Dre created. In the east, the instrumentals had drifted to a more Mafioso and boss like feeling that the rappers were really able to capture in their authorship.

Sampling did not stop innovating with Dr. Dre. New producers began to create their own legacy of music. One of my personal favorites, Kanye West, relied heavily on the use of sampling to orchestrate his music. West used a wide range of genres for his sampling. Usually he applied the soulful songs to his beat making, but would occasionally go another direction. For example, for his most recent and prominent solo album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” he sample the music of American folk indie bands, Rock bands and many more. Around this time, producers began expanding the boundaries in which sampled in. We started hearing them experiment with new genres of music that the hip-hop realm did not anticipate. For instance, Chiddy bang on his album “Peanut butter and Swelly” sampled Flux Pavilion. Flux Pavilion is an English dubstep producer. This was the first time hip-hop and its fan base heard the combination of rap and dubstep meshed into one track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcU60v-upIM this is the link to the Chiddy Bang song “I can’t stop” that samples Flux Pavilion. This sampling experimentation spread quickly through out the hip-hop scene. Soon Kanye West and Jay-Z, two of the biggest names in hip-hop began using dubstep on their collaborative album. Sampling is a vital component to any artists music, and not solely hip-hop. It used by several genres and artists. The history and evolution of sampling is nothing less the remarkable.