Music Sampling Playlist

I been wanting to do another playlist post for a while. I was planning on doing a Christmas mix, but I didn't sit down and write a post before Christmas. Instead I'm going to do a list based on sampling.

Recently I've started paying a lot more attention to sampling in music recently, mostly because I've been getting into the soul and funk music from the 60's and 70's that gets most widely sampled. Sampling has become an ubiquitous part of our pop music/culture. Based on what I've learned--mostly from Wikipedia--the origin of sampling in American musical culture was the invention of breakbeats by DJ Kool Herc. Sampling certainly existed since at least as early as the 1960's, but it was Kool Herc's method of extending beats from funk and soul tracks that developed into hip-hop in the late 1970's. This made hip-hop the first musical genre to which sampling was an intrinsic part. And you know, at least generally, what happened after that.

So I've been collecting a playlist of some originals and songs that sample them. You might wonder, as I did, If there is a site that catalogs the use of samples in music. That site is whosampled.com. They have a large user generated database of samples, which helped me find a few of these.


Kicking off the list is not one of the earliest samples used, but what has become with near certainty—seeing how it spawned entire genres of music—the most sampled track of all time:

The Winstons - "Amen Brother"

The primary part sampled from the song is the 4-bar drum break at 1:26, which has been sampled so much that it is known as the "Amen Break." If you've got some time, listen to this guy talking about the history of the Amen break. Despite his deadpan, This-American-Life delivery, it's pretty interesting.

There are a lot of songs that feature the beat as their backbone, one of the most prominent early examples:

N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton

Another funk song that is a seminal piece of hip-hop is:

The Incredible Bongo Band - "Apache"

This version of the song was used early on by DJ Kool Herc as a break, and has been referred to as "the national anthem" of hip-hop/the Bronx. The distinctive bongo beat has been sampled by a lot of hip-hop's biggest acts, but the most recognizable use is probably:

The Sugarhill Gang - "Apache"

Which doesn't actually sample the song but uses a live band to cover it. The Sugarhill Gang's version has in turn been sampled several times.

Continuing the topic of drum breaks, we arrive at "The Godfather" himself with:

James Brown - "Funky Drummer"

Brown is undoubtedly the most widely sampled artist in hip-hop music, and the drum solo by Clyde Stubblefield at 5:35 his single biggest contribution. A couple prominent examples are:

Public Enemy - "Fight The Power"

In which you can even hear Brown's grunt preserved, and

LL Cool J - "The Boomin' System"

Where the beat is basically just the drums from "Funky Drummer" along with the guitar riff from

James Brown - "The Payback"

Which you should recognize from some other pop/hip-hop songs.

The rest of the list are just some samples where I like either the original, the use of the sample, the new song, or all of them.

First, I felt I needed to include some Isley Brothers who have managed to get sampled a few times in their 5+ decade career. Many of their songs make sufficient hip-hop beats on their own, requiring just a simple loop. Two examples:

The Isley Brothers - "Footsteps in the Dark"

Probably more recognizable today as:

Ice Cube - "It Was a Good Day"

And:

The Isley Brothers - "Between the Sheets"

Which you most likely heard first as:

Notorious B.I.G. - "Big Poppa"

Next, George Clinton / Parliament / Funkadelic, another oft sampled group of artists. We can hit up all three recording names using one song.

Snoop Dogg - "Who Am I (What's My Name)?"

Snoop Dogg's first single, which features samples either directly or through interpolation from:

Parliament - "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)", (vocal sample)
Parliament - "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" (vocal interpolation)
Funkadelic - "(Not Just) Knee Deep" (bassline interpolation)
George Clinton - "Atomic Dog" (vocal interpolation and sample)

I really liked this next one when I noticed it. The original song is

Isaac Hayes - "Walk on By"

While I'm not a huge fan of most of his solo work, I do love what Hayes did with "Walk on By," particularly the dirty guitar vamp at 0:42 and throughout. Although it's lost a bit of it's edge, it's still instantly recognizable in

2Pac - "Me Against the World"

Everything mentioned so far was released (well) before the year 2000. This is in part because samples have become less prominent in hip-hop music, probably mostly due to expensive royalties. However, it's obviously still around, and if anything more diverse than ever. So the one post-2000 song on my list comes from Kanye, who is one of the more sample-heavy artists around today. There were lots of choices, but I decided to include

Kanye West - "Touch the Sky"

Because its a classical use of a sample of a funk groove that I like a lot:

Curtis Mayfield - "Move on Up"

And finally, as alluded to previously, sampling has become prominent in many other forms of commercial music. Especially in electronic music, and with acts like DJ Shadow and followers like Girl Talk. But the last track on my list would probably be best classified as alternative rock and comes again from before the new millennium:

Beck - "Devil's Haircut"

Beck's releases have been somewhat eclectic, and his music has actually done a lot of sampling throughout his career. His album Odelay especially makes good use of samples. "Devil's Haircut" is sort of like a mash-up between two songs by the Irish rock band Them (Van Morrison). It features a drum loop from

Them - "Out of Sight"

(A cover of James Brown). And the main hook is replayed by Beck in a different key, but is clearly taken from

Them - "I Can Only Give You Everything"

I've collected more, and I could go on, but I think I've already done so for long enough. These are just a few pretty well known songs, which feature fairly basic uses of sampling. But the point is that a lot of the music that our generation enjoys today is built using the music that previous generations enjoyed.

Of course, this presents legal issues. I definitely believe that artists' intellectual property needs to be vigorously protected, and thus copyrights are both necessary and beneficial. I do think the artistic* quality of music would suffer if the artists' proprietary claims over it weren't seriously defended. However, I think it's also clear that new artists have been able to create radically new and innovative pieces through the sampling of other artists' works—even if this playlist doesn't provide the best illustrations of this. Therefore, having a robust public domain is equally important to fostering creative new music. The recent legal trend, however, has been to extend copyright at the expense of the public domain. Most recently, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the terms of copyrights another 20 years, most works from after 1923 from entering the public domain as they would have. (Fun fact: 1923 is also the year in which the Walt Disney company was founded, what are the odds?). And, I wouldn't be surprised if we started hearing about another copyright extension act in 2018.

*I feel I use the term art somewhat loosely when describing commercial music—I think it's best described as "folk art," but certainly not "high art." It is a business, and the primary purpose, beyond making money, is to entertain, make you want to dance, or elicit some sort of emotional response. But it can have a great deal of cultural and artistic value as well.

I don't think that anyone would argue that extending copyrights well beyond the life of the authors of their works is really doing anything to promote artistic progress. There are economic arguments which are fine, but if we consider just the cultural impact, it would be a whole lot better if copyrights were more like patents, and maybe even if they could expire before the death of their owners. But corporations, as a structural rule, have a lot harder time understanding cultural progress than they do scientific progress.

Rant over. Hope you at least enjoy the music. (I'll be finding links for the rest of the songs when I get a chance).