Rather see the above links in your inbox or feed reader?
Subscribe to our Links for hand-picked items from around the web
The transformational qualities of sampling · by Sach O
Re-contextualizing music: More than meets the eye.
So there was a big stink last week over Timbaland ripping off/copying/digging in the crates of/ some amateur Finnish videogame music producer. For obvious reasons, I’m not the person who should be getting involved in anything that has to do with Timbo (so I won’t, mostly), but the back and forth talkback over at Bol and Noz’ spots caught my interest.
The two most extreme positions involve those protesting the muscle man for the unforgivable offense of looping some obscure shit and those who believe that it’s Timbaland’s God given right to rip off any 2-bit (or 8-bit) Finn he so desires. Neither of these attitudes make much sense to me. The first is usually championed by staunchly conservative guitar noodlers angered that da kids aren’t making music the same way they used to back in the day. They lobby heavy handed accusations of plagiarism despite the fact that half of their own repertoire is usually comprised of blues covers and songs by Brits who’ve ripped off blues covers. I’d point out the whole black-white racial aspect but you can figure that one out yourselves.
The second position should appeal to me in theory: after all, I’m against sample laws. That said, just because producers CAN loop or replay anything they please, it doesn’t mean that they should. Puff Daddy and Irv Gotti’s top 40 remakes were unbearably corny and uncreative any way you slice them. One could argue that the only difference between Puff’s approach and Marley Marl’s raiding of James Brown would be Marley’s better taste in source material: to which I’d reply that people with shitty or shallow taste shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of an MPC in the first place.
The main problem is that the rules to sampling were laid down by narrow minded judges rather than people with an understanding of music and art. I wouldn’t put it past Kevin Thomas Duffy to have judged the merits of sampling without the slightest understanding of how music evolved since the 1950’s. After all, the recording studio was originally conceived to accurately reproduce the live sound of an orchestra on record while today there are dozens upon dozens of ways to make an artistically valid record, many which don’t require live musicians. Those regulating how music is made are still living in the first half of the last century however and their worldview is ill equipped for these technological advances. One can almost understand why these poor bastards would think of sampling as high-tech theft of intellectual property: they probably have no idea what’s going on outside of a legal context in the first place.
So independent of the legal system which has proven ineffective in dealing with questions of artistic integrity and creative rights, how should artists go about sampling? Outside the now standard strategy of “doing what the fuck they want” and seeing if it comes out dope, I suggest making use of sampling’s transformational qualities. For all of the flack Hip Hop has taken from the mainstream media, no other art form has done so much with so little in the past 20 years. From parents’ record collections were born entire subgenres and eras in rap, twisted and permuted from their original sources. From early morning digging sessions were resurrected long forgotten gems and from bits of noise were created dope songs. The Rza flipping the classic soul of his childhood into some rugged beats? That’s ill. Pete Rock flipping those same soul songs and jazz loops into smoother shit for the more upwardly mobile Cl Smooth to get his mack on? Just as ill. Rick Rock turning a Corey Hart hit into some weird thizz-fueled cross between rave and rap? Damn, how’d he do that? Puff Daddy flipping Duran Duran or Crime Mob looping “What is Love” with minima changes? Uh…doesn’t work quite as well. Puff’s just banking on collective memory and Crime Mob haven’t done nearly enough to separate their cover from the original, unlike Rick Rock’s flip of a similarly corny track into a half satiric ode to a local fashion trend. The cleverness is in the flipping, the digging, the layering: the aspects of Hip Hop production that separate the rip-off artist from the producer making a post-modern statement. And it’s not a question of virtuosity or complexity; any Madlib fan can attest that a 5 second repeated loop and little else can become great found art in the right conditions. Those conditions just happen to preclude the recycling of the American Top 40 for purely nostalgic reasons. There has to be an extra added layer at this point.
With this said, is Timbaland in the right or the wrong for jacking the original composer? I don’t care to make a statement on that. On one hand, Noz is right that dude was digging in the digital crates. On the other, there’s something extra-corny about Finnish pop begetting American pop: the original source was bitch-made and without that transformative element it remains bitch-made. Either way, Nelly Furtado’s record was pretty retarded and I’d rather hear Premo work on Christina’s shit.
At least when he flipped some rare Scandinavian shit it came out dope. And different.
Comments for "The transformational qualities of sampling"
Well, clever producers have been getting around sampling laws for years by cutting up and flipping samples in clever ways. If you can’t be bothered to do that, you should pay out the original creator for your lack of creativity. Which is the issue with Timbo’s wholesale theft in this case, he didn’t just take it, he’s denying the guys who made it their due.
— R-Lex Jan 25, 02:28 AM
Bottom line, we got sample snitches out there. They need to stop.
— ardamus Jan 25, 03:21 AM
Or the law needs to be reformed to recognize that sampling is a collage art like any other, just not hung on a museum wall.
— DJ Flash Jan 25, 05:15 AM
“One could argue that the only difference between Puff’s approach and Marley Marl’s raiding of James Brown would be Marley’s better taste in source material: to which I’d reply that people with shitty or shallow taste shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of an MPC in the first place.”
If you read the last issue of Scratch magazine with Diddy on the cover, he says point blank that he’s never touched a drum machine and has no desire to do so. And he took the main producer credit for his first single with Mase “Can’t Nobody Hold me Down” not because he jacked “The Message” and that other reggae song for the hook (the name escapes me now); Diddy is listed as the producer because he added the sound effect of breaking glass at the beginning of the one Mase verse.
After I heard Just Blaze chop up “Super Freak” on his MySpace page early last year, it restored my faith in sample-driven hip hop. As long as you make the original into something new and different and not merely put drums under an 8 bar loop, I’m good.
Also, is there a lazier sampling technique that taking the chorus of a well known song, sampling it, and making it your chorus (Eminem’s “Toy Soldiers” comes to mind)?
— Rap Jack Bauer Jan 25, 10:31 AM
Rafi,
You need to enable something so that the by-line appears in the rss feed. This is key because I can’t take anything anybody who hates Timbo says seriously.
— Dids Jan 25, 11:22 AM
Rap Jack Bauer: Diddy, on the whole, wasn’t the world’s worst record producer despite his eventual tendency to loop really obvious shit. It’s well known that he wasn’t a beat maker, but he was excellent at crafting the sound and direction of records in a traditional sense. His work with Biggie, Mary and even Ma$e was a testament to that. He just got too greedy with those loops and once he found better ways to make money, he obviously stopped caring.
Dids: Don’t worry, we got you covered. We’ll be installing a script that’ll block my posts from appearing in the feed of anyone who hasn’t had sex in the past 12-36 months.
— Sach Jan 25, 11:34 AM
Actually, I wrote a detailed paper on this for my final research project in law school. I look at sampling both from a cultural and legal perspective, and argue that its value to our culture demands a liberal fair use doctrine be available in order to fulfill the constitutions purpose for copyright law.
Some of you might find it interesting. Oh Word guys: feel free to direct link to this if you want. I’m posting the url to a full version of the paper below. Peace! J.
http://www.jamieradford.com/blog/?p=59
— jamie radford Jan 25, 12:48 PM
Also—a quick note. There’s really been only one precedent-creating federal appeals court case in which sampling was held not to qualify for the “de minimus” defense to copyright law. “Fair use,” in which the transformativeness analysis is relevant, wasn’t addressed by that court. It’s in the 6th circuit, which includes Tennessee.
The legal uncertainties about sampling are what have people scared.
This is obviously different than the wholesale taking of songs and beats like Drama and Cannon were doing, which is probably not going to be saved by a fair use or de minimus defense.
— jamie radford Jan 25, 12:53 PM
Drama and Cannon didn’t take anything. The labels provided them with the material and apparently signed off on their musical venture.
— P-Matik Jan 25, 01:09 PM
BTW, Sach…you and Rafi are some tight a** writers. This was an excellent commentary.
— P-Matik Jan 25, 01:11 PM
Um… well I guess they could argue that at trial if they want. But if you’re right that the rights-owners signed off on all the material, this arrest would be one of the hugest boondoggles ever, as it would mean the feds confiscated 1000’s of legitimate, licensed compilations, without even checking with the rights’ owners first to see if the material was licensed. My gut tells me that’s not what happened. Maybe they should bust the makers of the “Now That’s What I Call Music” people!
— jamie radford Jan 25, 01:43 PM
damn I thought this jamie radford was hip hop for a second but then I read the comment about Drama and Cannon. First of all, all the original material i.e. new beats and rhymes is obtained by the them from either the artists or labels. Now with freestyles, the raps are obtained with permission the only thing is they aren’t obviously getting permission for the beats and thats the only thing the RIAA has on them I guess. Now I don’t know if that warrants what occured or not maybe you could fill us in on the legal aspects of that.
— what? what? what? Jan 25, 03:27 PM
I think this would help the discussion, from a retrospective post that I did on Jay Dee:
“Jay Made Samples “His”
There are two schools of thought on sampling:
The Puffy/Trackmasters/Madlib/Tribe/Just Blaze school of thought goes that you sample something outright, incorporate it into your production, and while still recognizable, it makes a “hot” song.
The Premier/Dre/Jay Dee/El-P/Hi-Tek/Timbaland school of thought is that you sample music then filter, adjust, replay (with live players), process with effects, chop, reverse, or etc…a sample, making it in most cases unrecognizable.
The bulk of Jay Dee’s production before 2000 was of the Premier/Dre/El-P/Hi-Tek/Timbaland techniques. This method of production involves using a fine-toothed comb when sampling, a great deal of experimentation, and is very time consuming. Jay Dee is known for combining multiple samples and creating a very seamless sound. It’s not a quality that’s appreciated by casual listeners but points to why so many artists admire Jay Dee’s work.
note:
[The different approaches to sampling isn’t a static and hard-lined division because both sides wander into each others’ techniques. In fact, Jay Dee’s later works (post Slum Village) were more of the Puffy/Trackmasters/Madlib/Tribe/Just Blaze approach; think “Jaylib” and “Donuts.”]”
— R Jan 25, 06:19 PM
re: primo the vic juris album in question was released domestically on muse. it’s not like dude was actually literally flipping scandanavian records.
— noz Jan 25, 09:19 PM
also that record isn’t particularly rare and it fucking sucks.
— noz Jan 25, 09:19 PM
Noz: I recall that there was a controversy surrounding the origin of that sample 7 or 8 years ago, but maybe it was a local thing. I swear I read about it in some beat magazine around that time though.
Duly noted on it sucking however. It proves the point that sampling can redeem awful material if used correctly.
Jamie Radford: I’ll read that paper over the weekend. I’m definitely interested in a (sympathetic) Lawyer’s perspective on the issue.
P-Matik: thanks, I appreciate the kind words.
R: I think that the two approaches hold true in theory, but in practice so many producers cross lines that its hard to reduce it down that binary as you mention yourself.
— Sach Jan 25, 10:07 PM
To the dude who said I wasn’t “hip-hop” for my comment about Cannon and Drama.
Dude… I’m just trying to shed some light on the basis for the charges against them. My point isn’t to endorse the laws under which they’re being prosecuted, but to add some legal knowledge to the discussion. But… you’re probably right that I’m not “hip-hop,” but I’d still bet my tracks against a lot of cats who say they are.
— Jamie Radford Jan 25, 10:29 PM
well the sample wasn’t “discovered” until a few years back, but that mostly had to do with it being an arbitrary excerpt of an irrelevant record.
trust that if vic juris had the internet in 1994 all his euro jazzscene dork buddies would be complaining about it on digg.
— noz Jan 25, 11:32 PM
Sacha – I’d just like to mention that the title of this post really looks like it’s used as a legal term of art, which is kind of hilarious. (Jamie Radford’s paper that he linked to has a pretty decent summary of relevant US copyright law application if you want a primer)
— David Jan 26, 05:55 AM
writing off a whole country’s music (Sweeden in this case) = bitchmade
implying that any non-rap album is bitchmade = bitchmade
Furtado’s “Loose” is an excellent pop album, which are very rare since the 80s pop golden era of Prince, Phil Collins, Hall & Oates, etc.
Maybe you should listen to the “Loose” album once. Timabaland & Furtado made a dope album here.
— NoMamesBuey Jan 26, 03:42 PM
You fail to see one thing: Timbo didn’t just “sample”, he took the original song and laid a beat on top of it, and the “Block Party” ringtone was done.
No matter how you slice and dice this, no matter how you ramble on about how sampling has made Hiphop great: That is just lame, especially if done as in this case without reimbursing the original author!
Sampling is taking something old and creating something new from it, which is okay in my book. But: Where’s the “new” in this?
— Arschkrapfen Jan 27, 10:33 AM
“Where’s the “new” in this?”
Umm…read the last paragraph of the post. I ask essentially the same question and I chastise Timbaland for the exact reason you stated.
Never thought anyone would accuse me of DEFENDING Timabaland. Boggles the mind.
— Sach Jan 27, 11:28 AM
Sweden is bitchmade
— Skylar Jan 28, 03:24 PM
Here’s some more information regarding Timbaland & the Finnish sample –
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2007/01/timbaland-vs-finland-vs-sidstation.html
Also for David (and everyone else) here’s a Malcom Gladwell lecture where he discusses the difference between transformative and incremental innovation:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/articles/060306onco_covers_gallery
— R Jan 28, 07:28 PM
Timbaland’s jacking truly was lame. Pathetic.
However, on a side note, when you judge the original song, remember that it was composed for a competition titled ‘Oldskool Music Compo’. Like the title suggests, you use pretty old and limited hardware and software to compose music. Still the result was good enough to be a pop hit, eh?
— Perttu Feb 1, 07:34 AM
Timbaland responds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATkHbfbQAc4
http://thethomascrownchronicles.blogspot.com/2007/02/timbaland-leaks-new-track.html
— viznut Feb 8, 10:16 AM