Sampling is and has for as long as I can remember been a contentious issue in the world of music, especially hip hop. For those that don’t know what sampling is, it’s basically where one artist takes a piece of music that was recorded (usually) by another artist and uses that piece (or sample) to create a new song. It was popularized by hip hop. One could even argue that if sampling didn’t exist then hip hop might not exist, because in its early stages hip hop was purely sample based. But I guess we’ll never know and there’s no point in dwelling on that. The fact is that sampling is here to stay; it’s popular in hip hop, dance/electronic music, R&B and various other genres.
The real question is whether it’s considered stealing or not and whether artists should be allowed to sample other artists. It depends on how you view it. Personally I don’t believe it’s wrong. I believe that everything has a starting point, and everyone is inspired by the things around them. Sometimes it just happens to be the song of another artist. I do believe though that the owner of the work that is being sampled ought to be compensated if the similarity of the original and the new work is very evident. If not, I don’t think it’s necessary. But I’m not a legal professional; there’s a whole industry built on copyright law so I’ll leave the legal stuff to them.
However, as an artist I have no issues sampling other people’s work and others sampling me, within the confines of fair use. I have sampled hundreds of songs in my time as a music producer and I do not plan on stopping. You can check out one such track where I sampled a piano melody, processed it and sampled vocals from various artists to create a brand new track, below.
What has brought up this interest is the fact that comedic genius Eddie Murphy is going to appear in a fake documentary which makes fun of artists who are disgruntled with sampling. Eddie will play a character named Murray Murray; a soul singer whose 1962 hit song has been sampled by a rapper, and he’s [Murray] now pissed and trying to take down hip hop for sampling.
It will most likely be quite funny but the subject matter is quite serious. Many artists have been taken to court for using this music making technique, while others have taken their fellow musicians to court for it. In some cases some songs have been sampled so many times and the original musicians haven’t received compensation of any kind, which is unfortunate. Popular examples in hip hop are Timbaland who was taken to court for sampling Acidjazzed Evening by Janne Suni. Another one being Kanye West who was sued for using samples from David Pryor’s track Bumpn Bus Stop in his hit song Gold Digger.
I hope Eddie’s show will show the ridiculousness of some of the sampling claims that artists sometimes make. It really is ridiculous at times. As for me I think sampling is a legitimate way to make music and I have no issues with it at all. Some of my favorite producers such as 9th Wonder, DJ Premier, Just Blaze, Timbaland, Nicolay and The Neptunes have all used sampling as a technique to create great music, and I’m all about great music.
