A challenge to the hip hop community

Walk away from the sampler. If you think that sampling is cool let me ask you this question How would you feel if you heard your voice saying your lyrics on somebody elses song and they didn't ask you?

If ASCAP, BMI, and the RIAA went after hip hop the same way they went after Illegal File Sharing the hip hop community would be sunk.

Fact 80% of hip hop is built around sampled material. Out of that only 20% of all samples are cleared. Out of that only 10% of uncleared samples are procecuted.

The arguement that you are doing the artist you sample a favor by sampling holds no water. If you sample a popular song you are only using that song recognition to advance your song. If you sample an obscure song you generally don't give a shout out to the original artist and if you do it falls on deaf ears. I've had to explain who P-Funk is by singing hooks from Dr.Dre and Snoop Dog tunes.

Even Dre is using a live rythm section in the studio because he got tired of wanting to sample shit and getting beat to the punch. If you listen back to all of the shit being sampled now all of it was played by live musicians. Man even old school hip hop. All of that shit like "The Message" or "Rappers Delight" or "White Lines" all of them had the rappers out in the studio live room with a full band cutting live and the energy was great.

If you don't know where to meet musicians it's easy. Man alot of great soul and funk guys are coming out of the church. Go to a rock club or a funk club or a latin club. Shit if you're in the SF Bay Area I'll drop some Bass on your track. I work on a sliding scale, and I know the Funk.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

If I was an artist and I heard someone sampling my shit, I'd feel hella flattered.

 

What if they didn't PAY YOU for it? What if it was on a song about Gassing Ragheads? Or sending illegal immigrants back to Mexico in a box? Granted I'm making an extreme example.

Fuck flattery. I live in a $500 a month studio apartment with my fiancee. I intern in a recording studio and see how much time goes into recording, mixing and mastering a song. Almost a full day goes into editing. At about $500 a day that is $2000 worth of work. If you are just sampling shit 15 minutes. With a standard record contract the only two ways an artist makes money is through Merchandise and Royalties. From a buisness perspective the one artist in history with the best Royalty rate was Michael Jackson who made $1 an album.

So long story short if I heard my shit on somebody elses record without getting paid or even asked I would feel like I got fucked hard in the ass by Ron Jeremey with no lube.

Peace OUt,
Rev J

 

I wouldnt be pissed if someone else used my original track. I would, like TopNotch said, be flattered. Cuz out of all the samples a DJ can pick, if he picks mine, ya i'll feel flattered. but i'm talkin hip-hop like a DJ aspect, not like a rapper artist aspect. In the rapper aspect, originality would be a must for me. But music has gone into that sampling thing, and the skill at work is HOW you sample or remix it. The more original the better though for me, like for example Lose Control by Missy Elliot has a sample from Cybotron's and Hot Streak's music, but what she puts into it, works really well.

 

That's cool but flattery don't pay the bills. Missy Elliot probably has enough people clearing rights to samples and paying the right people to use them. Alot of people don't. I've overheard producers talking in the studio while listening to some underground hip hop artist saying "Didn't you produce the tune they sampled for this?" The other producer "Yeah I did." "How much did you make?" "$2000 for the original session.""What about for this track?""I didn't know it existed."

The Producer doesn't live in a mansion he lives in a $2000 a month apartment in the Western Addition in SF. A gang neighborhood. And this cheap motherfucker who sampled his track wouldn't fork over the money for the work he stole. Shit I've heard of motherfuckers dangled out of windows for less.

I can appreciate the remix but damn it really kind of homogenizes music. If somebody in the Hip Hop community put together a band brought them into a studio cut a track with them live and didn't use any autotune on the vocals it would sound so different than anything that is coming out that it would grab attention. Real bass and drums can bang and groove harder than a bunch of machines (listen to James Brown or P-Funk) and can change shit up in real time. When an artist freestyles than the band can freestyle with him. Listen to the Studio Version of "Mama Said Knock You Out," by LL Cool J. Which in and of itself was a departure for LL. Then listen to the version he did for MTV's Hip Hop Unplugged that had a real band behind him. It's the same song with a different energy that got bumped up 3 levels because he wasn't depending on the samples and backing tracks he was usually using.

Can you do the same thing? The soundtrack to the movie Judgement Night had Rappers collaborating with Alternative and Heavy Metal bands and only had one sample on the whole album.

To reiterate a comment that I made earlier as to how flattered I would be hearing my work on somebody elses track is content. As a white person I would be flat out ripshit if somebody used one of my bass lines and put a Farrakhan/Elijah Mohammed inspired tirade about how White People are evil and that Jews are responsible for all of the wickedness in the world. Out of all the music in the world they could've picked they had to pick mine. BTW I would be just as ripshit if somebody used my music to deliver a Tom Metzger inspired tirade about how Blacks are evil and Jews are responsible for all of the wickedness in the world (same arguement).

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

Artists on major labels cannot sample songs and not give credit these days, they would get sued. The only hip hop artists that your argument applies to would be the lesser-known underground type. If it's "stealing", I don't care, and I doubt that they do either. Sampling is part of the music.

With all due respect, you strike me as someone who doesn't listen to or know much about hip hop.

 

Fact of the matter is I've read about enough court cases and known enough people getting fucked by this being the standard which that segment of the industry works. What I'm saying is challenge yourself. Learn about writing music. and think about how you would feel about sombody else making any money off of your work and not getting your share. I work in a studio and I see Underground Rappers come and go some are good some are bad.

There are computer programs that analyze and compare designs, data, music, etc. to protect against copyright infringement I've had friends run 20 rap songs into the program and only came up with 1% difference between them.

Now if you think it's OK to steal this shit may the people you rip off prosecute. Arter a couple hundred thousand in legal bills you'll wish you settled for giving the motherfucker his 10% on the front end.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

By that logic Chuck D shouldn't have sued St. Ides Malt Liquor for sampling one of his trademark "Come On"'s for their radio spots even though he is an outspoken critic of how malt liquor companys market to inner city blacks. God that is really flattering. At least he isn't the sellout bitch Flavor Flav has turned into.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

I am in a live Hip Hop band and we write about 95% of what we perform. The point that you are making about their being a lot of gratification to creating your own songs from scratch is a point well taken. There is a lot of joy to be had there that people are just leaving on the table.

As someone who listens to a lot of hip hop though I will say there can be some incredible artistry in sampling too. There usually isn't. Most sampling that I hear is just crap produced by people who --though trying hard-- don't know any better. But even the person you just mentioned, Chuck D, rode the beats of the Bomb Squad who build their soundscapes on samples.

The reality of the situation is that major recording artists have to and do clear their samples. All of the small time rappers trying to make it big don't have the means to and don't generate the revenue to clear samples and won't be prosecuted. Further, creative and fresh music will often rise to the top and lazy unimaginitive music will go mostly nowhere. But, there will always be exceptions to even this and so there will always be completely untalented crap that will get played on the radio a bajillion times that will hurt most old school music lovers' feelings.

It all just is what it is.

 

Green, I dig what you're saying. It does feel great to collaborate and lay it down. To me alot of what the Bomb Squad did for PE is like Stockhausen or Varese with a beat. I've read interviews with Hank Shoklee talking about using different samplers with different bit rates to get varying sample qualitys and it sounds interesting.

I also know that Del the Funky Homosapien from Heiroglyphics has been learning about composition, arranging and music theory so that he doesn't have to rely on samples. That said his last album had to be pulled after a week because it went out without all of the samples being cleared (I know his producer/engineer). So he wrote music and went back into the studio and recorded parts to replace the samples.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

So, I think I hear you saying that producers should learn how to make a complete composition without samples and record some live bands and such and then if they do sampling they will at least know a lot more about what they are doing?


This is my band's music by the way if I may:
http://www.myspace.com/bloodthirstyvegans
Very little sampling, a little interpolation every now and then.

 

Exactly. Or just forgo the sampling. Generally speaking the royalty rates are negotiable but generally it costs about $0.35 to clear a sample and an agreed upon percentage afterwards. To hire a band to record the part you want to sample it only costs about $0.10 to use the music and an agreed upon percentage afterwards. That is IF the artist clears the sample.

This is the reason you rarely ever hear an original artist's track in commercials. For example there is a commercial for the Cadillac Voyager that uses a woman singing "Under the Milky Way Tonight" by The Church. They only had to clear the song with the copyright holder to use it. Where as if they used the original track they would've had to clear it with The Record Company, The Artist, and The Copyright Holder.

But as far as clearing and paying for samples. There are lawyers for the arts groups that will do it for a sliding scale. And it's only $0.35 a sample. That isn't even a postage stamp. If you register with ASCAP or BMI they will take care of getting you your cut and getting the original artist their cut. If you can't clear a sample then you should have another option available to you to put in it's place.

I've heard some great Hip Hop done without samples. Grand Master Flash's "The Message" (which later became Ice Cube's "Check Yourself"). I've heard some samples overused as a motherfucker (If I hear one more track built around the theme from "Night Rider" I may fucking scream). But I honestly think that the whole genre could evolve more if you did away with the samples. None of the guys you are sampling used samples so why should you?

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

walk away from the sampler!??? Ha!

I wish dilla was alive and reading this with me. We would both have a hearty chuckle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68_Io-RPDXE&feature=youtube_gdata"]YouTube- The Best Of J Dilla's Donuts.

 

I agree. Especially if they remixed my song and made it a huge success. I'd feel that I gave them that inspiration to do something that I couldn't.

 

And if they didn't pay you?

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

Pay for what man?

If I drew a drawing of a stick figure with huge nuts and you saw it, got inspired, and decided to draw a stick figure with huge nuts and hands.....what would you pay me for??? Inspiration??? Haha your funny man.


Got that money on ya mind.

 

It's called "Intellectual property"...

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW – COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT –
ANY DIGITAL SAMPLE OF MUSIC TAKEN FROM A SOUND RECORDING IS
PROHIBITED UNDER THE FEDERAL COPYRIGHT STATUTE, 17 U.S.C. § 114.



Of course if you liken music to the value of a stickman drawing then I guess
it aint worth much to you...

 

This shit's a buisiness. Look man if i put in the time and money to write it, teach it to the band, book studio time, hire another engineer to assist, record, edit, mix, master, if I'm signed to a label get fucked in the ass by them over sales, if i'm putting it out myself get a pressing and distribution deal you bet your sweet ass I got money on my mind motherfucker cause all that work aint cheap. Then some motherfucker uses what just took me about 2 months to set up pops it in the sampler, does 15 minutes worth of work to loop it doesn't ask me "Hey man can I use a bit of your song" and can't even spend 35 cents and give my ass a cut on the back. Motherfuckers pull guns on each other for less. I ain't a gun pulling motherfucker but yeah I'd be a little pissed off. And if you did all that work you'd be a little pissed off too.

It's not like I drew a stick figure. Between cutting basics, overdubs, editing and mixing that is 3 days of work at $500 a day for the studio time and $150 an hour for an engineer. And you fucked someone who's work you admire. Ain't that a kick in the balls.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

Yeah you'd have money on ya mind when someone sicked their lawyer on you for copyright infringement. If you drew a picture of a stick figure and I took it away from you and drew hands on it then sold it for $100,000 and didn't give you shit after you did most of the work you'd be pissed. That is what sampling is. If I got that picture copyrighted before I got payed for it then there would be nothing you could do.

And trust me after the first lawsuit that is filed that goes into public record every entertainment attourney in the buisiness will be listening to your work to see if you sampled their clients music. And they will come after you. Now I'm just assuming that you are only using one sample per song (highly unlikely). Now going on that assumption saying there are 12 songs on your album. Easily count on about 200 grand per sample taken for legal costs that's about 2.4 million.

Now let's say that you hire some musicians (we're easy to find), and cut an album old school. No samples, live musicians etc. You get your lyrics copywritten, the music you're writing copywritten, and the recording itself copywritten. Assuming that you're acting as your own label and putting that shit out yourself you don't owe anybody shit. No lawyers are going to shake you down etc. And if someone rips you off you can sick the lawyers on them.

In 1991 Chuck D from Public Enemy sued St. Ides Malt Liquor for $5 million for sampling his voice for one of their radio ads without his permission. He was especially pissed off since he wrote the song "A Million Bottle Bags" about how malt liquor is marketed to inner city youth. I guess he should've been "Hella Flattered" or something. Not sueing them because he "Inspired" them to use his voice from his copywritten recording.

Dude if you have no clue about copyright law and you are a performer then you deserve to get fucked like a bitch.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

I though it was making music.

all that shit you talked about kinda takes allthe fun out of it. I get everything your saying, but I dunno man, we just got different viewpoints on the subject. And I'm completely fine with that.