That Sounds Familiar
Is music sampling fair?
By Emma Goshin, Culture Staff Writer
As my mom and I drove to the grocery store, I carefully selected songs to play. “Don’t Wanna Fall In Love” by KYLE began, and as I sang along, my mom joined in. Shocked about how she recognized this 2015 hit, I asked her how she knew the lyrics. After a quick laugh, she explained that my generation had stolen the lyrics from hers. Following a search through Spotify, I realized my mom was right. “Don’t Wanna Fall In Love” by KYLE is a remixed sample of “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love” by Jane Child from 1989 (TER Staff, 2014).
This was not an isolated occurrence. I cannot count the number of times this same scenario has played out between my mom and me. Music sampling happens when one artist reuses a piece of another artist’s work (Cornell, 2016). It can be as simple as a copy and paste of lyrics or a beat, but other times, the sampling artist will change up elements of the segment they are sampling.
Sampling is ubiquitous in the music industry. There are tons of popular songs that many people do not know. For example, Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart, is sampled from Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Live Together” (Faull, 2015).
One of the first examples of sampling appeared in “Collage #1 (“Blue Suede”)” by James Tenney, which pulls from Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes” (TER Staff, 2014). Early sampling surfaced as experimentation in music—speed changes, reversing tunes, tape head echo and filtering were used to manipulate sound and remake it into a newer song.
The growth of hip-hop caused sampling to go mainstream. DJ Kool Herc, named one of the “Founding Fathers of Hip Hop” noticed that audiences responded well to his drum breaks, where a drum and percussion section would play in the middle of a song (TER Staff, 2014). As a result, he isolated the drum break and queued it on two of the same records on two turntables and alternated it. This was an early remixing of an already existing song in hip hop.
As technology has become more advanced, sampling has become easier. Artists can literally copy and paste the exact section of music that they want to manipulate (Steinski Gives A Sampling History Lesson, 2008).
This brings up the important issue of copyright infringement and other rules that govern music sampling. In order to legally use a sample from an existing song, artists must obtain sample clearance, which includes a license for usage of the master recording and one for the usage of the underlying composition (Robley, 2019). The owners of these materials do not have to grant permission and can establish guidelines surrounding the usage of their music. The original artist, label company or songwriter may charge fees for use of their music, and may also request a percentage of revenue generated by the song.
However, when an artist does not get adequate permission to sample another song, they can be hit with a legal battle. Vanilla Ice’s No. 1 hit “Ice Ice Baby” propelled him to fame (Vondran, 2021). The beat samples from Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” While Vanilla Ice found huge success in the industry due to the explosion of his song, he was forced to settle the matter out of court and credit Queen and Bowie as co-writers of “Ice Ice Baby.” Later, he paid $4 million to acquire the publishing rights, a choice he believed was a better option than continuing to pay royalties to Queen and Bowie.
While some view music sampling as an homage to artists, others view it as a robbery of sounds that are already taken. Many people say that the reuse of music is unoriginal. However, sampling music actually involves coming up with new ways to manipulate existing sound, and that makes it an important art form.
Though sometimes music sampling without proper permission causes complications, when artists do pay tribute to songs through the manipulation of existing sounds, sampling is an incredible thing. It allows generations to come together. My mom and I don’t often find common ground in music taste, but due to sampling, we find ourselves singing the same lyrics or dancing to the same tune.
Reusing sounds and lyrics is a way for artists to play around with sound production and manipulation. As long as respect is given to the artist who first created the sound and sample clearance is obtained, music sampling is a powerful tool that allows musicians to bring different types of people together.
Sources:
Cornell, K. (2016, August 9). Music sampling: Breaking down the basics - tunecore. tuneCORE.
To The beat: Tracing the origins of sampling in music. Kadenze Blog. (2018, November 14).
TER Staff. (2014, September 25). Kyle – "Don't wanna fall in love". The Early Registration.
(2008, October 22). Steinski Gives A Sampling History Lesson. NPR.
Robley, C. (2019, July 10). How to Legally Clear Samples to Copyrighted Music. DIYMusician.
Faull, C. (2015, December 13). Timmy Thomas Is Glad Drake Sampled His Song on “Hotline Bling” Complex.
Vondran, S. (2021, June 19). Five Important Music Infringement Cases Dealing With Mixing/Sampling Vondran Legal.