The Art of Sampling
Have you ever been listening to a song that you really like and realized that you have heard that sound and/or lyrics in another piece? Well ladies and gentleman this is referred to as the art of sampling.
Sampling is when an artist takes a portion of another artist’s song, and uses it for there own piece. When an artist samples music, if they want to sell the piece, they need to obtain the rights to the sample from the creator. Make sure that when using a sample, it is not going to come at you with a lawsuit. Many artists easily obtain the legal rights to a sample buy obtaining permission from the creator. What does this mean? If you heard my song and liked part of it, you would contact me and I would give you the green light to use my sample.
Sampling originated in the 1960’s when electronic music was just rising in popularity. People would take vinyl recordings (or tapes) and make their own loops with them. Early electronic music started by using this technique. However, in the 1970’s, Hip-Hop adopted this methodology and quickly, almost every hip-hop beat consisted of a sample. For example, Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ contained samples of Chic’s ‘Good Times’, Love De-Luxe’s ‘Here comes that sound again’, and Spoonie Gee’s ‘Spoonin’ Rap’. Further more, ‘Spoonin’ Rap’ contained a sample from Patty Duke’s ‘Cloud One’. So as you can see, the cycle goes on and on.
Sampling was not a problem until record companies realized that they could make big money off suing people for using unlicensed samples. For instance Beyoncé was just sued by a Hungarian folk singer for sampling her voice in Yoncés big hit “Drunk in Love.” It is unknown if this will actually hold up in court, because of all the details involved. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. There is no doubt that underground artists chasing after the spotlight might sue a big star for something that isn’t actually true. However, sometimes these cases are in fact legit.
Sampling is not just restricted to music. Other
sources include things like TV shows, movies, speeches etc. Artists get sued for this type of sampling as well. A good example of this is Drake’s song ‘Pound Cake’ which features Jay Z. At the very beginning of the record there is a sample of Jimmy Smith doing a spoken word, titled ‘Jimmy Smith Rap’. Smith claims that Drake never got permission to use the sample and sued him for over $300,000. These type of things happen all the time so who knows if this case ever saw the light of day in court.
Sampling is an art form that will probably never die. The more people continue to sample, the more developed this art form gets. Studying samples that songs use is very important. Get to know the history of your favorite song, know where the artist got the idea from, and analyze what he or she did to switch the idea up and make it their own. Don’t be a lazy listener. Get active with your music.
Sources:
http://pitchfork.com/news/54809-drake-sued-over-spoken-word-sample-on-pound-cakeparis-morton-music/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_surrounding_music_sampling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music)
