Just wanted to take a minute and thank some people....

pancakebunnny

needs more fartnoise
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 25
(NOTE: I posted this in the Lounge, too. I just realized it's probably more relevant here though... oops...)


Yo.

I want to take a moment to give a shout out to a group of people who often don’t get the respect they deserve. Big ups to all of the artists out there who've had their music sampled, stolen, borrowed, bitten, remixed, raped, and whatever else producers do to get the unique sound we call hip-hop. If it weren't for these original artists, hip-hop would have gone a totally different direction, and in my opinion, it wouldn't have the same appeal it currently has. Without the creative work of these original artists, hip-hop wouldn't have that goose bump-inducing, hair-raising, shiver-causing quality that defines it. The amount of work and talent that these original artists had to put in to create their art is massive, and often times it goes unappreciated, unacknowledged, or just plain overlooked. (That’s not to say that hip-hop producers don’t put in their share of work, mind you. Some producers innovate, some emulate, some imitate, and some just impersonate. It all depends on the perception and inspiration of the producer).

I guess by paying sampling-clearance fees and royalty rights, most producers feel that money is the equivalent of true appreciation and gratitude to these artists who went at it from scratch. I genuinely feel bad for the artists who got heavily sampled and didn’t get the appreciation they deserved for the artistic blood, sweat, and tears they put into their work. Many times I find myself looking at tracks that I’ve made as my babies, and I’m sure that musicians feel this way many times over. To have your child just taken like that, often without permission, and manipulated that way, without any credit to the parent, has to be disappointing and discouraging.

I’m just as guilty as most other producers for sampling material, and trying to conceal it as much as possible. I guess by sampling it, sometimes we feel that we had something to do with that track, or maybe in an adopted-kind of way that it’s now our baby.
Also, big ups to the producers who DO sample and give credit where credit is due, and also shout outs to the producers who do justice to the original songs by re-envisioning the original artistic objective, enhancing and innovating it, and adding to the collection of good music. More often, it’s easier to find a really good sample with all of the right musical elements, and being lazy with it, just adding new rhythm and percussion and thinking that that’s enough to constitute innovation.

One last shout out to the producers who don’t sample. That takes an entirely different artistic approach than sample-based production, and often times it just sucks. For the few out there who are really bringing something to the table by building from the foundation to the very last musical element and creating something memorable, thanks for adding something to the library.

To those that make beats without sampling and the end result is a synthetic cacophony of bells, clicks and whistles, don’t quit your day job. You’re probably doing more for the world by being a laborer or blue-collar worker or whatever it is you do to make ends meet. We NEED people to drive trucks, flip burgers and whatnot; America just couldn’t function without them. Plus, music is usually judged by what’s most popular. And since 95% of people are lame, have little musical appreciation or bad taste, what’s usually most popular is most likely garbage. So, by sticking to other things and using that creative energy to make popsicle-stick picture frames and origami, you’re actually contributing to art by not diluting the quality.

My whole point of this is to give respect to those artists who I can’t personally say thank you to. Every time I make a beat I think is really good, I get happy, but I also feel a little guilty for it. Thanks to people like Donald Byrd, Billy Paul, John Bonham, Teddy Pendergrass, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Michael Bolton, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Wendy Carlos (AKA Walter Carlos), Jimmy Hendrix, and countless other artists who inspire me, motivate me, or who provided me with good music to sample. Y’all gangsta for that.

Also, big ups to Fade for taking care of that prostitute for me back in ’03. THAT broad got it good. Sorry I couldn’t help you clean up the mess.

- Dantson

PS: I was kidding about Michael Bolton. He sucks ass.
 

Elementree

Musical Wizardry
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 8
Word Dantson,

I feel you dog, thats why I dont sample. I just cant take credit for other peoples shit really, you know. I really love sampled beats, but just as a musician, I could never make sampled beats because I dont like takin songs from artists who have worked hard on them. Why not try and just make a beat that sounds as hot with original composition. theres enough vst effects out there that you could compose a beatand make it sound gritty and sampled.
Word up Dantson, you my dog

Peace,
Elementree
 

pancakebunnny

needs more fartnoise
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 25
Elementree said:
Word Dantson,

I feel you dog, thats why I dont sample. I just cant take credit for other peoples shit really, you know. I really love sampled beats, but just as a musician, I could never make sampled beats because I dont like takin songs from artists who have worked hard on them. Why not try and just make a beat that sounds as hot with original composition. theres enough vst effects out there that you could compose a beatand make it sound gritty and sampled.
Word up Dantson, you my dog

Peace,
Elementree

I know where you're coming from, homie. That's why I feel like I'm innovating more than I'm creating. Although, they say no idea's original, and each new concept or creation or idea or theory is an amalgamation of other ideas or whatever... I dunno. I don't have that "God Complex" where a person feels pleased by creating what wasn't there before... I think I have a "Dr. Frankenstein Complex", where I get a rush by breathing life into old ideas and music and whatnot. I'll be the first to say that yes, I wish more than anything that I could make MUSIC, then from there bridge out to hip hop. Hell, if I were a musician, I'd most likely sample myself, under a different name. But, to me, sampling is like a whole different artform than just music... the rules and ideas and composition theories are all different, and when done correctly, it leads to some pretty interesting results.

Fo shizzle, Elementree, you my dog as well. "Grey Power!"




Aight, I'm going to sleep. Peace.
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Dantson said:
( If it weren't for these original artists, hip-hop would have gone a totally different direction, and in my opinion, it wouldn't have the same appeal it currently has.


You hit it on the head, the sad thing is whats really happening now as far as good originally composed and performed organized music such as bands that are making quality acoustic music that can be sampled......(Will there ever be another era of music made for sampling resources? we all know you can sample from an artist now but will there ever be another band and live musician revolution that a whole lot of serious music is made?....everyone and their mother samples and makes beats or tries to make hip hop actually I find that the kids that were doing drum and bass and trance music 5 or 6 years ago that snubbed hip hop have even hopped on the hip hop bandwagon producing nowadays its sort of a novelty and in thing to do more than the art it was say compared say 10 years ago.
 

Vince

2Cool2BeAHebrew
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 1
I'ma stay out of this one.
 

peter_neo

Member
ill o.g.
Nice speech. I see sampling as a token of utmost respect. People don't sample bad songs because they have bad sounds. I think that we all wanna be part of the classic music people have created and we are taking that past and reshaping it into something that fits our present. I compose as well as sample and I find sampling harder because of the numerous hours of digging. (Always fun tho.)

And the truth is nothing is original. All those famous composers took certain parts from each other and etc. Just appreaciate the beautiful music no matter how it is created.
 

Bloodybastid

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
^^ You're right about that


When I first started making beats I wanted to compose more, because I had all these crazy melodies in my head and stuff. I always thought that guys like Rza, DJ Muggs, Dre...I always thought that they composed a lot of their own stuff. I just couldn't understand how the whole process worked. I have to say that I was a little shocked when I found out that they really just looped a lot of their beats without adding much. But the end result is that they sounded hot, at the end of the day that was all that mattered.

But the thing is that I never knew how much FUN digging was. It's probably, for me, the most exciting part about making a beat. Finding some rare and obscure song that only me and like 2 other people knew about. It was great, and I was hooked immediately. I just never knew that there was so many types of good music that was out there. I was just obsessed with it. The best part about it is when you find a sample that another producer used, man it was like finding some hidden treasure, it's one of the best feelings ever. That's my take on it. I'm not saying one is better than the other because they both have their up side and down side.

But I just don't think I can still have fun and be enjoying what I do if I started composing every single note.
 

Bobby Ffitch

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
this seems to me to be a very appropiate and thoughtfull post, thanks for that.

sometimes i have a hard time justifying for myself what hiphop is, how it is created. however, my love for it is much stronger than my conscience it seems.

if were in the position of having music that others wanted to sample/elaborate/mangle, i believe that i would be happy to let others do their thing. but im not, and will never, be in the situation, and so it is not my place to make that decision. sometimes, people get so caught up in the legal issues, 'is it legal to sample this if hes dead','shes alive, how much do i have to pay' , that they forget about the moral issues.

if youve ever had to explain to someone in detail what it is you spend all your time doing, what rap music is all about, you realize somewhere in there that that are issues greater than worrying about whether youll get caught for not clearing a sample, or whether people can tell what you sampled.

that being said, i love hiphop. period. the good and the bad of it. and i think i always will.
 

Relic

Voice of Illmuzik Radio
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 83
I dont sample because Im cheap as hell and dont want to pay to clear them and the process is confusing.
Big ups to the guys here who do a great job with flippin samples and making a semi to all original compisition out of them.
Great speech.I just dont sample at this point, I would rather have people sample me one day.The sp I started with only has 10 sec sampling time so we had the fun of diggin through crates to find really short samples including drum sounds then creating somthing original.Now that we have gotten better gear we have remained with the original compisition theory.
Thanks for all that you guys do this is a great site.
EDIT
I'm with Colossus ,I fell in love with hiphop long ago and though the chicks may come and go(I tell em I was doing this before you and I'll be doing it after you) I have always been married to the music. I LOVE it.
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Hey but the inspiration of being a hip hop producer and sampler should also come from knowing your music history not just to make an impressive hip hop beat...that's just me but the whole part of digging sort of derived from people already knowing the music enjoying or being somewhat familiar with the albums, groups and records they sampled from not just finding a loop (hearing my folks play these albums, hearing them at family re-unions, hearing them on the quiet storm, hearing them at parties a lot of people just sample now having no connection to the music they sample they just looking for something to flip) in the case of Dre and RZA their goal wasnt to make hip hop beats 1 after the other like it was the in thing they had a purpose and the purpose really wasnt to see who could flip the sample it was to make a song that could go with the project they had an emcee ready for or paint a certain soundscape...I think that the focus of why producers make beats just as an instrumental is a different focus of what Dre and some of the earlier Groundbreaking mold making cats did back then.....like I said before its great to have all of this software and tools for everyone to make a song but we all know the history from back then only a few had access and could afford the tools of production thats why I think that when people today trivialize and poke at the legendary producer they are forgetting...these are the cats that conceptulaized and perfected the art everything that we do now and take for granted that they had to struggle with limited sample times, hardware limitations etc....all simplistic means compared to what we work with....but take a spin around Pete Rock site or even RZA and listen to some of the shit they are producing on the new gear...its still hotter than most of the amateur critics that sit back and take stabs at them but they havent sold 1 record yet.... so much respect goes out to the Samplists period because the art started from that and in its simplest form...digging.....much respect to the keyboard and composers (I do both LOL) ...we know that the debate has nothing to do with illmuzik that debate is just ....ummm hip hop....I can remember that debate from the 90's when I was producing when cats that just had an emcee saw people making beats with keyboards.....the purists of the craft shunned it.....but now its a part of it.....so there can be no really solid arguments to why one should use 1 or the other or one being better.....the end result of what pleases the ear and what is useful to the artist is what counts most....
 

pancakebunnny

needs more fartnoise
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 25
Word.


This thread isn't a debate about sampling versus composing. That's about as productive as arguing religion with an athiest or arguing Darwinism to the Pope. Nope, I'll save that debate for the noobs.


I just wanted to show respect to those that deserve it..
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Good Thread to recognize and show that Dantson, its so easy to forget the real artists/musicians that had the late night studio sessions and practices to get that music right...tons of hours of work...and then the engineers that worked with multi million dollar equipment to record these albums in their full analog warmth....all for us to slice and dice and turn into something nice.
 

Bloodybastid

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
bigdmakintrax said:
Hey but the inspiration of being a hip hop producer and sampler should also come from knowing your music history not just to make an impressive hip hop beat...that's just me but the whole part of digging sort of derived from people already knowing the music enjoying or being somewhat familiar with the albums, groups and records they sampled from not just finding a loop (hearing my folks play these albums, hearing them at family re-unions, hearing them on the quiet storm, hearing them at parties a lot of people just sample now having no connection to the music they sample they just looking for something to flip) in the case of Dre and RZA their goal wasnt to make hip hop beats 1 after the other like it was the in thing they had a purpose and the purpose really wasnt to see who could flip the sample it was to make a song that could go with the project they had an emcee ready for or paint a certain soundscape...I think that the focus of why producers make beats just as an instrumental is a different focus of what Dre and some of the earlier Groundbreaking mold making cats did back then.....like I said before its great to have all of this software and tools for everyone to make a song but we all know the history from back then only a few had access and could afford the tools of production thats why I think that when people today trivialize and poke at the legendary producer they are forgetting...these are the cats that conceptulaized and perfected the art everything that we do now and take for granted that they had to struggle with limited sample times, hardware limitations etc....all simplistic means compared to what we work with....but take a spin around Pete Rock site or even RZA and listen to some of the shit they are producing on the new gear...its still hotter than most of the amateur critics that sit back and take stabs at them but they havent sold 1 record yet.... so much respect goes out to the Samplists period because the art started from that and in its simplest form...digging.....much respect to the keyboard and composers (I do both LOL) ...we know that the debate has nothing to do with illmuzik that debate is just ....ummm hip hop....I can remember that debate from the 90's when I was producing when cats that just had an emcee saw people making beats with keyboards.....the purists of the craft shunned it.....but now its a part of it.....so there can be no really solid arguments to why one should use 1 or the other or one being better.....the end result of what pleases the ear and what is useful to the artist is what counts most....



That's interesting...I never really saw it like that. You're right, the beats on instrumental albums (DJ Shadow...) are a lot different than the beats on normal rap albums. But I still prefer the method of simple loops and drums, I'm just too damn used to that formula.
 
Top