I will never forget the first time I heard the song \u201cNew Slaves\u201d by Kanye West. The song contains a grimy-sounding, minimalist beat with angry and gritty lyrics about how systemic racism has evolved over time. My love for the song grew even more as I kept listening and heard Kanye transition these aggressive feelings into one of the most beautiful and surreal outros of all time. I was hooked and wanted to know how someone can take something that\u2019s dark and twist into this absolutely gorgeous outro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it turns out, I was listening to Kanye sample Hungarian band Omega with their 1969 song \u201cGy\u00f6ngyhaj\u00fa l\u00e1ny.\u201d This led me to do more research and look into sampling, and I quickly learned how much I loved it. For example, I was enthralled with how Frank Ocean took an unknown instrumental song, called \u201cRunning Around,\u201d and turned it into the thesis of his 2016 album, \u201cBlonde.\u201d Or how Kendrick Lamar paid tribute to Kanye West by sampling \u201cWe Major\u201d on his debut album, \u201cgood kid, m.A.A.d city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sampling isn\u2019t new either. The Sugarhill Gang sampled \u201cGood Times\u201d by Chic on their 1979 song \u201cRapper\u2019s Delight,\u201d which is often cited as the birth of rap and hip hop. It\u2019s not just rappers doing the sampling either as French electronic duo Daft Punk used Edwin Birdsong\u2019s 1979 song \u201cCola Bottle Baby\u201d to create one of the most popular beats of all time in their song \u201cHarder, Better, Faster, Stronger.\u201d The story even goes full circle as Kanye West sampled \u201cHarder, Better, Faster, Stronger\u201d to create his 2007 smash hit \u201cStronger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As much as I love sampling, it has received its fair share of sharp criticism with people citing it as stealing and unoriginal. Kanye West was sued for his use of Omega\u2019s song in \u201cNew Slaves.\u201d Eagles front man Don Henley called Frank Ocean \u201ctalentless\u201d after he sampled their popular song \u201cHotel California.\u201d I think a lot of this anger and criticism stems from misconception. While people view sampling as stealing, that\u2019s not the intent of artists when they do it. They are taking a piece of art and reimagining how it could sound within the context and emotion of their songs. The Beatles\u2019 popular song \u201cHere, There and Everywhere\u201d is a happy tune about love existing no matter how far apart, but Frank Ocean turned the song\u2019s mood around when he sampled it on his song \u201cWhite Ferrari,\u201d which is about the end of a relationship. Cartoons aren\u2019t normally scary, but MF DOOM sampled some of his favorite childhood cartoons on his 2004 album \u201cMM\u2026FOOD\u201d to create a scary narrative about a man named Doom taking over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think people\u2019s view on sampling should become more positive, and I hope in writing this I have inspired someone who\u2019s against it to give it a more open-minded view. I also hope older artists become more embracing of the popular technique. After all, Omega wouldn\u2019t have found a new fan in me if it weren\u2019t for Kanye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I will never forget the first time I heard the song \u201cNew Slaves\u201d by Kanye West. The song contains a grimy-sounding, minimalist beat with angry and gritty lyrics about how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":15036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}