Hey ho!
What’s crackin everyone? Been a h0t minute since, but gonna crack on lil thoughts…
For those who don’t know, tha term “sampling” is when a music producer finds an already made music track and takes it, flips and cracks it into a new song – almost like a remix in some ways, but creating a completely unique and new song. A pretty tight example is Run-DMC’s “Peter Piper” (1986), which sampled them instrumentals from Bob James’ “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” (1975), who covered Paul Simon’s “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” (1973).
But when brothas and sistas find samples, there be the term “digging“. Now digging is when you be searchin for them music tracks to use for sampling. And when you discover yoself a real dope sample, then it almost feels like holding onto treasure (cuz you spent hours “digging” for it, get it?).
Howeva, in this day and age, people been sharing what samples have been used in them songs ~ almost like givin away the treasure them music producers dug up! But now we find ourselves sharing… and EDUCATING people on what samples have been used… almost like we paying our respects and giving props to the original sampled tracks – cuz witout them, many songs that sample older tracks would not have been created (a.k.a. many Hip-Hop tracks throughout them history and time).
I see them internet has made it all easy for ya’ll to crack on old school tracks to sample. BUT, not all them music tracks are online… some might have not been uploaded and sitting, undiscovered in tha back corner of a record/music shop, collectin dust… there may be some dope samples never touched before!
I’m not sayin everythang must be sampled, but that comment is directed more towards music producers who mainly use samplin to create their content. In this sense, while many producers be takin samples online, they have been many songs that use the same sample over and over and over and over again (not to say that this has not happened in the past, before the internet… one example is how joints from Bob James have been sampled over and over again).
I, Crandall, myself aint no music producer, but if I ever were, I would love to dive into the art of samplin! At the same time, I would keep my mouth shut on what I sampled until someone finds out what track I cracked on… I mean, aint that exciting, like the mystery and complexity of a sample. If I flipped a sample super well, to the point where I create a completely new and unique tune, and where them sample is no longer easily identifiable… then wouldn’t that give so much value to those who discovers what sample I used (instead of easily giving away and sharing them sample)?
Anywho, much respect to producers who sample an original sound and flips it so uniquely into a new track.
As tha sista, Zora Neale Hurston, once said about them definition of originality in her speech Characteristics of Negro Expression, 1934:
“What we really mean by originality is the modification of ideas.”
What do ya’ll think…?
-Crandall
