In the last segment, we established that producers who sample are justified in sampling as long they can manipulate the sample into something different. Now the question is, are producers really doing that? Are they being thorough about it?
In an interview, DJ 'Scribe,' founder of the DJ Collective, and the I Love Vinyl New York dance party tradition, tells journalist William "Upski" Wimsatt (Bomb the Suburbs) what he enjoys about being a hip-hop producer:
"...the creative part of hip-hop production is to take music from different genres...and fuse them into a new piece of music, a new whole - something distinct from the sum of its parts - something with a soul all on its own." (Wimsatt, 2001)
As a pianist, composer, and up-and-coming hip-hop artist, I've become increasingly concerned about how hip-hop producers seem to ignore the idea of their music being 'distinct from the sum of its parts;' that samples are not being chopped, mixed, rearranged, and experimented with enough to sound like a truly new song. I just feel that stretching one's creative boundaries through sampling is more than just adding a new drum beat or changing the key of the sample. A lot of samples today can be easily recognized from the original song with a little digital crate digging. The internet makes it easy to track down the source of a sample. (i.e.: YouTube)
A lot of hip-hop heads (myself included) are still wishing and reminiscing about how great hip-hop was in the 90's, both from a lyrical and musical standpoint (I touched on this issue in my post about why hip-hop is not dead). Strangely enough, many examples that I have found of easily recognizable samples were from 90's hip hop albums.* That doesn't go to say that hip-hop songs of today don't have the same problem, but it suggests that the music people are craving may NOT be as inventive as we believe it to be.
What can be most conflicting about this issue for me is that many examples that I can think of are some really nice-sounding beats; the music from the original song sounds so good that it almost makes me want to forget that the sample has not been manipulated very much.
*I have many specific examples in mind, but I think this is one of those times in which it would be better for you to find examples on your own; many of you probably already have certain cases in mind.
A lot of hip-hop heads (myself included) are still wishing and reminiscing about how great hip-hop was in the 90's, both from a lyrical and musical standpoint (I touched on this issue in my post about why hip-hop is not dead). Strangely enough, many examples that I have found of easily recognizable samples were from 90's hip hop albums.* That doesn't go to say that hip-hop songs of today don't have the same problem, but it suggests that the music people are craving may NOT be as inventive as we believe it to be.
What can be most conflicting about this issue for me is that many examples that I can think of are some really nice-sounding beats; the music from the original song sounds so good that it almost makes me want to forget that the sample has not been manipulated very much.
*I have many specific examples in mind, but I think this is one of those times in which it would be better for you to find examples on your own; many of you probably already have certain cases in mind.
Have we been doing enough to push our own musical creativity in hip-hop?
YOU to be the judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment