Opinion

De minimis — which is short for the Latin maxim de minimis non curat lex: “the law cares not for small things” or “the law does not concern itself with trifles” — is a legal doctrine that refers to trivial matters that are not worthy of…

There are a number of beatmakers (some of them very notable) who view e-digging as some sort of bad or inferior process. Inasmuch as e-digging is, fundamentally, a means for searching for and finding new music, I don’t see how anyone can…

Every musician, every artist, working from within a specific tradition or medium makes the decision whether or not to stick to or scale away from the fundamental techniques and philosophies of that tradition or medium. In this way,…

“The Framers of the Constitution were excellent social psychologists.” Their premier foresight was about the balance of power, the establishing of checks and balances, so that democracy could prevail and a monarchy could never take hold.…

With regards to sampling, the Constitution already protects our right to the freedom of speech. The public is also shielded from what is legally known as prior restraint. According to the definition by Cornell Law School’s Legal Institute,…

After reading this article "The Dangers of Lazy Sampling for Producers" by Sample Hunt, I was compelled to write a corrective. You see, Sample Hunt uses the moniker “lazy sampling” to essentially describe any sampling that’s not intricate.…

The following is an excerpt from 'The Art of Sampling: The Sampling Tradition of Hip Hop/Rap Music and Copyright Law, 3rd Edition' by Amir Said. When the music industry first took notice of sampling, their burning question had to…

Both Michelangelo and Mozart are recognized today as geniuses, just as they were recognized as geniuses in their own the time. One parallel among these two geniuses is how self-aware they were about the “work” that went into the “mastery”…

“𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐑𝐚𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 ‘𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐈 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬,’ 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 ‘𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬’” (Variety) If you’ve ever worked in any industry, then you did business in the *music industry*, you know it’s one of the worst…

When I first heard the Talking Heads classic “Once In A Lifetime” (1981), I immediately knew that it would have a profound effect on me musically (and culturally). Although at that time I’d only had some minimal familiarity with African…