the art of sampling

"It's the exact same song. He just rhymes over it."

This is a popular opinion when it comes to sampling. To an extent it's true. Some hip-hop songs don't even try to hide the fact that they're taking the catchiest part of a song and looping it. I don't know if anyone remembers P-Diddy back in the day when he was just a little Puff took the riff to Led Zeppelin's classic rock opus Kashmir, looped it and spit hot fire over the beat for the Godzilla soundtrack. It was pretty bad and the only reason the song was ever popular was probably because of the hook. But, we can't chastise an entire art-form for one of its less than adequate perpetrators no more than you can hate landscape painting for all those cheesy Thomas Kinkade paintings that your mom hangs in the bathroom.

What I disagree with most about the above statement is the word "just," as if rhyming, flowing and being a lyricist is such a trivial thing. The quote is real and is something I found under a youtube video for Herb Alperts forgotten classic Rise.



18 years later one of history's greatest MC's, Biggy Smalls, managed to just rhyme over a sample of the before mentioned song. Whether you think he was one of the greatest or not, the track Hypnotize does a pretty good job of finding the middle ground of sampling. It's not completely unreconizable from the original, but different enough to never be confused for the other. The lyrics are good, have a nice flow and do some interesting things rhythmically. To say there is no talent involved is pretty short-sighted. This song goes to show that even somewhere in P-Diddy's over-paid body existed talent when he was working with the right people and not doing his own shit.