Hip-hop at its best is about truth-telling. It doesn’t get any realer than “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” by Pete Rock and CL Smooth.
Filed in Emotion, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged cl smooth, digging the crates, hip-hop, jazz, jefferson airplane, pete rock, Sampling, saxophone, slick rick, tony scott
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While I was researching the Spoonie G meme, I noticed that Brand Nubian uses a lot of remarkably creative samples. It inspired me to do a sample map of their classic first album, One For All. Click to see it bigger. Hear all the tracks sampled on One For All, via Kevin Nottingham’s awesome blog.
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged aretha franklin, billy joel, bjork, brand nubian, digging the crates, edie brickell, hip-hop, new edition, nineties, Sampling
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I’ve been hearing this line in a lot of hip-hop songs: “One for the treble, two for the time” or “One for the treble, two for the bass” or some variation. I wanted to find out what everybody’s quoting. After some internet detective work, here’s what I’ve got. The phrase is a play on the [...]
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged aceyalone, brand nubian, common, davy dmx, digging the crates, dj khaled, eighties, elvis presley, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, kurtis blow, mos def, sergio mendes, seventies, snoop dogg, spoonie g
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Sunday, February 21, 2010
The best tool for understanding where music comes from is evolutionary biology. Songs don’t spontaneously spring into being any more than animals or plants do. They evolve, descending from reshuffled pieces of existing songs, the way our genes are shuffled together from our parents’ genes. The same way that all life has a single common [...]
Filed in Composition, Evolution, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged cassettes, dna, Evolution, family, genealogy, midi, Music Theory, originality, sample maps, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting
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My friend Adam, a non-musician but devoted music fan, asked me why sampling is good. He’s used to hearing me defend sampling from the accusation that it’s bad, but he’d never heard a positive argument for it. In case you’ve ever asked the same question, here’s my answer.
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged beyonce, brian eno, chi-lites, copyright, disney, Evolution, fan art, fans, funky drummer, grateful dead, intellectual property, janet jackson, joni mitchell, kickstarter, lil wayne, manu dibango, michael jackson, midi, monkeysphere, Music, public domain, remixes, Sampling, songwriting, swv
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This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Music Business, Politics, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged a tribe called quest, audio editing, beastie boys, biz markie, clyde stubblefield, computers, copyright, dance, dj, eighties, george clinton, hip-hop, Improvisation, james brown, jeff chang, looping, mashups, michael jackson, Music, pro tools, public enemy, Recording, remixes, rock, Sampling
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DJ Kool Herc describes “Apache” by The Incredible Bongo Band as the national anthem of hip-hop. “Apache” includes a famous drum and percussion break that has reliably put bodies on the dance floor through hip-hop’s prehistory:
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged apache, breakdancing, copyright, dance, digging the crates, dna, double dee and steinski, drum n bass, drumming, Evolution, funk, goldie, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, history, kool herc, mashups, missy elliot, nas, pop, questlove, roots, Sampling, seventies
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The most sampled recording in history is (probably) the Funky Drummer loop from James Brown’s song “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two.” Here I go deeper into how this sample can be reworked into new music. DJs call this practice chopping a sample. It’s much easier to chop samples with computers than with hardware [...]
Filed in Composition, Music, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged dna, electronica, Evolution, funk, funky drummer, hip-hop, james brown, midi, mutation, recursion, recycle, remixes, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting, visualization
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Sample-based music isn’t stealing. It’s valuable and important. It shows the way toward a future for recorded music that’s more in continuity with music’s past. Recordings are cool and everything, but they encourage passivity. If I buy a recording, I can listen to it or dance to it, both fine activities, but what if I [...]
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Politics, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged amazing grace, blues, copyright, folk, google, Improvisation, Internet, jazz, kanye west, learning, Music, Music Theory, opensource, remixes, Sampling, transcribing
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Couple of exciting memetic hybrids circulating around the web right now. First, here’s a techno track using samples of Pixar’s Up, which is one of the best and saddest movies ever. Thanks Mike for alerting me to the remix’s existence. Remixing songs is all well and good, but remixing movies, that’s where it’s at.
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged america, animation, audio editing, chris isaak, dj earworm, electronica, kevin kelly, lady gaga, movies, pixar, pop, remixes, revival revival, Sampling, up, video editing
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