I always said that lawyers ruined the soundscape for Hip-Hop music. The concepts that the Bomb Squad created would never have been possible in the current attorney pwned music business. Don’t take my words for it tho’.
Peep this documentary called ‘Copyright Criminals’…
Now I see why the mixtape game is so prevalent now. Who could afford to clear a sample?
How to Make a Documentary About Sampling–Legally
via Future of Music Coalition
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I don’t know man . . . depends on how you look at it.
If you work some serious hours burning the midnight candle trying to find the right sequence of chords to make that great song you’ve been dreaming of creating all your life and you finally make, you have a decent hit record. You’re on tour, performing for your fans and dealing with label bullshit and who knows what else . . . but you’re doing it for your art, you love it.
10 years later, somebody simply takes your hard work-more or less in its entirety (see: Hammer’s Can’t Touch This), basically gives you no credit whatsoever and sells millions of records worldwide . . . I would be pissed.
OR . . .
Imagine you create a hip hop record about social protest and trying to create awareness to make your community a better place. Then 3 – 5 years later, another rapper uses your voice to teach and highlight selling crack to your community, you would be kind of pissed. See: P.E. Shut ‘Em Down and Biggie’s 10 Crack Commandments.
* I believe Chuck D successfully sued the corporation behind the track not the producer DJ Premiere or Biggie.
RZA gets at people who uses his material with the quickness.
^^Word. It’s a slippery slope.
But, back in the days, when cats started approaching the older generations about their samples [ll] & them dudes responded with snobby attitudes, like Hip Hop was sonic herpes, I saw where the downward spiral would end up. & here we are: renegede music.
I think @ some point, there was a business-minded way that rap music could have legally used samples that would have worked out in a lucrative way for all parties involved. Once the lawyers started started intervening, that shit became way too polit(r)ic(k)al.
we sampled beats you sue and try to fight us/
man…you’d still be home with arthritis/
if we didn’t revive and bring back alive/
old beats that we appreciated you wouldn’t survive/
Big Daddy Kane is the ILLEST….fuck a pac..biggie and all that other bullshit..I’m listening to young gifted and black right now..and kane rips the shit into shreds…..
===============
great song..but I think that like Vee said….musicians arrangers spend blood sweat and tears creating this music..and in the early days with no laws on the books ,artists just jacked your records with no money to you………….that’s stealing.
that’s why rap so was profitable back in the day (to companies)…no session musicians..no prolonged studio time ….
wonder if chuck d is gonna get at luda for using “how low can you go” the way he did…..
It’s definitely a slippery slope, but I find it really odd that rappers with the means to create their own music — AND AVOID THOSE LEGAL FEES — haven’t really taken the time to do so.
Rappers basically have created an entire industry-within-the industry just because of sampling issues and siphoning a lot of (financial) resources and time away from their project. For me one of the biggest cons against over-sampling is the time it takes to clear a freaking track. You often hear how projects are put on hold because some samples are not cleared.
Instead of layering samples-on-top-of-samples like the bomb-squad and a number of other guys, I’m surprised that there has not been more Laffy-Taffy styled hit records. Program a simple drum pattern, add a quick effect and call it a day. I understand why Pharrell often scales back his productions like Russell Simmons used to do when he was actually involved in producing records. How difficult can it be to pay and hire a keyboardist like Naughty-by-Nature did with Dave Bellochio.
For the emcees that don’t have the means . . . yeah rock that renegade music. Everybody else should truly try to take their craft to another level musically.
VEe & get-
I totally agree with what you guys are saying. That was the issue with rap producers for awhile: make your own music. You take a dude like DJ Quik, who most times produced outside projects under his legal name, David Blake, 99% is original composition. It’s definitely possible to avoid the “industry within an industry” ethos, but that just uncovers another problem…(Most) rappers don’t respect the artform of Hip Hop music to even consider taking it seriously. It’s a hustle, hence the fly-by-night rappers who are just in it for the dough. I’ll use the same Primo example: he had perfected sampling/scratching/sequencing/layering samples in his music so much so that it “became” his. There’s definitely an art to being able to do what Primo did/does, but everyone’s not on it like that.
& If someone take a smidgeon of my hardwork for their quick buck, without reciprocity, I’d be pissed too. We all would. There’s ways (legally) to go about it, indeed, but I think by the time cats figured it out (mid/early 90s), the well had run dry. Labels, musicians, composers weren’t trying to hear that reparation talk after they’d been plundered & not compensated.
Like I said, a slippery slope. Easily avoidable, though, with an attitude of independence. Make your own music, & it’s not even an issue.
^^Also, while I don’t down the “mixtape” phenomenon, but at some point, I get tired of dudes rapping over songs I’d stopped listening to. It gets redundant. If “you” don’t take your music seriously enough to put forth the investment to reap the benefits) i.e. the level of production-musically & lyrically), why the hell should I?
^Tony,
I’ll be the last cat to say that I’m checking out the latest new mixtape that came out yesterday, last week or last month but from what I understand there are a number of cats that really taking the time to put out songs with original production or overall completely different musical ideas.
Another note, there’s one thing that aformentioned rappers can not fake. Yes, they don’t take their music seriously but as fans we can clearly see the difference between guys like B.o.B, Kanye West, Andre 3000, and well . . . other dudes who ain’t trying to hear that lyrical-musical thing, they just want to the crowd to dance and get paid. -yeah no doubt.
VEe-
Definitely…
That’s why I say the whole record sales “recession” may be a blessing in disguise to the true artists, who will persevere with their craft (& get compensated regardless of retail markets) & the fans who get tired of mediocre saturation.
I wonder, how many uncleared sample songs does Premier have? That’s a worthy mixtape to listen to.
“Who could afford to clear a sample?”
^ greedy clowns need to lower their rates and let that dust collecting music breathe a little.
Guess it’s safe to say there’s hardly any band classes in schools these days.
But you guys are right. If Joell Ortiz wanted to put that “Classics” mixtape in stores, the artists would probably love the fact that he refreshed their music (II) but the lawyers would wonder-twin power into a form of a thirsty vulture.