Wednesday 6 February 2008

Sampling: the Art of Appropriation and Theft

"In truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are and can be, very few ideas if any which are in an abstract sense, strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art borrows, and must necessilly borrow, and use much which was well known and used before"
Emerson Vs Davis , 8 F. Cas 615, 619 (no. 4,436) (CCD Mass. 1845)


Sampling more than any other modern compositional form or device has become a deeply contested issue. Perhaps this is because at its heart it raises (perhaps deliberately) many questions that have as much to do with copyright law and art theory as they do music. Many people believe the use of samples as a sole ingredient for the creation of music to be cheating, theft and have called into question the legality of using sections of recorded music often without the express consent of the copyright owner. The question however is to what extent should art appropriate and innovate? Art has always been a reflection of the world and by extension a reflection of the creativity of others. It is self-evidently impossible to attempt to take a picture or indeed paint a picture of Venice without including the many architectural monuments designed by others. Art, be it music, sculpture or film has always been the intended restructuring and appropriation of natural and synthetic elements. How is sampling any different?

Perhaps the biggest difference is the technical process. Where most other art forms are influenced by abstract ideas, unavoidable osmosis, social and cultural trends, often difficult to pin down, sampling just takes directly from an already existing piece of music. Sampling involves the cutting up and reprocessing of an artist's work. Often such is the treatment of the samples that its near impossible to recognize. However it does raise the question how much is too much?

Another important argument could well be that sampling and the subsequent influence it has had on music since the 1980's is fundamentally regressive. It has been noted that most of the samples used on dance and hip-hop records originate from the 1970's and early 1980's, the most famous example being Vanilla Ice's use of the bassline from Queen's Under Pressure in the song Ice Ice Baby. Surely such a post-modern approach to writing music is symptomatic of a lack of creative progress. Influential artist DJ Shadow acknowledges the limitations of sample based music but also how these limitations help the creative process:

"Producers like Organized Noize mix samples and live instruments really well, but for me, it almost feels like a cop-out, because i'm a collage artist, it's like 'Damn, if only I could find this one part', well maybe if I had
someone paint it and then put it out ...Sometimes I wish I could have somebody come in and do what I want him to do on a bass line. It would be so easy. But what I do just keeps things more challenging I guess"

Whilst Hip-Hop and dance artists claim that sampling is a legitimate creative form that involves skill and discipline, what is most interesting about sampling is the samples selected by the artists. Public Enemy's Fight The Power contains an array of samples cleverly appropriated from other Black artists such James Brown and Bob Marley. In this case the choice of samples are not merely just aesthetic, but convey a political message about the cultural and creative impact of African-American culture. In many ways sampling in the 1980's allowed for a re-evaluation of popular music. Much of which would have been lost if it wasn't for the almost archaeological approach DJ's during this period took towards the obscure and unusual. As Adam Yauch from The Beastie Boys explains:

"Again, it's a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. We might take a tiny little insignificant sound from a record and then slow it way down and put it deep in the mix with, like, 30 other sounds on top of it. It's not even a recognizable sample at that point. Which is a lot different than taking a huge, obvious piece from some hit song that everyone knows and saying whatever you want to on top of that loop."

One of the most famous legal cases concerning sampled material was that of 'Folsom v. Marsh' in which Hip-Hop act 2 Live Crew were sued for unfair use of Roy Orbison's famous 'Oh Pretty Woman' bassline. Interestingly the Supreme Court believed that the United States consititution supported the fair use of appropriated elements of music. In what is perhaps the most considered approach to the sampling issue the Supreme Court ruled:

"Look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work."

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