Source Material As A Black Cultural Space: The Link Between Continuum Record Collections and the Advent of The Sampling Tradition of Hip Hop/Rap Music
Digging in the crates at home was its own Black cultural space — How the collective psyche of Black record collections helped lay the foundation for hip hop's sampling tradition.
Marley Marl, the father of hip hop/rap’s music modern beatmaking tradition and the man who spearheaded hip hop/rap music’s major sampling era, remembers his early source materialfor sampling this way:
[T]he reason I even used, went back to the break-beats was because I remembered… When I went back and started making records, after what I realized with sampling what I could do! They made me go back to my brother and them records. I started digging in my brother and them crates.[1]
What stands out about Marley Marl’s account that he “remembered” and went “back” to his brothers’ records for source material is not that it represents a unique occurrence, but rather that it represents the typical scenario for all of the early Black American pioneers of hip hop/rap’s sampling tradition. Marley’s account speaks to the fact that, before “digging in the crates” inside of used record stores became a staple of the sampling tradition of hip hop/ rap music, the first “digging” occurred at home because the source material was already there.
Part of the reason why James Brown records became a popular source among sample-based hip hop/rap musicians isn’t merely because of their drums, but simply because James Brown records were a constant stronghold in the record collections of many Black Americans of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Soon after Marley Marl first began sampling James Brown records, others followed; and they were aided by the fact that they already had the very same James Brown records at home.
This digging in the crates at home was its own Black cultural space. If you had the records, if you lived with the records in other Black American cultural spaces, you knew the source as soon as you heard the sample. This level of familiarity — and subsequently the kind of sampling that it leads to — simply did not exist for those outside of this Black American cultural space.
Revered lyricist Rakim has also testified to this Black cultural space and the advantage that it gave pioneering sample-based hip hop/rap artists:
[T]he beats were probably what first caught my attention. I already knew a lot of the original tracks that the beats came from, because my moms and pops had a real deep record collection, but hearing those breaks spun… But now you had a way to make music without a four-, five-, or ten-piece orchestra backing you up. If you knew how to spin, cut, and sample, it was all right there.”[2]
DJ Toomp, one of the pioneers of trap music and a founding figure in Atlanta’s hip hop/rap sound, paints an even vivid picture of what it was like to be immersed in the music that would become the primary source material for the early sampling pioneers in hip hop/rap music:
It was just a natural thing. Like I can almost paint the picture, man. Just imagine 1975. Between ‘73 and ’76, or just the whole ‘70s and ‘80s era, mostly ‘70s. Man, we were the type of family, you know, me, my mom and dad and my sister, we’d jump in the car on a Saturday night or a Friday night and go to this big record store, Peaches Records and Tapes, they used to stay open real, real late. Man, whatever record I’d been listening to on the radio, they’d buy me a 45, and whatever my sister had been loving, she’d get her a set of 45s. My dad would get his albums, Earth Wind & Fire and all that, and my mom would get her Minnie Ripperton. So if you got a family of four people in the ‘70s going to the record store on the weekends, just kicking it. And I used to— My sister had a little record player in her room and my mom and dad had theirs, so me and my sister had to take turns. But then when mom and dad get tired of playing records, we go down there and play on the big speakers, you know what I’m sayin’…So we’d go down there and play it on the big speakers. And I used to just listen to records until I’d fall out on the floor. My sister would still be going through hers. So it’s like the love for music, man, was just ALWAYS in the household. On a Sunday, when we cleaned up, we might let a Heat Wave album play all the way through, or Earth, Wind & Fire. Temptations. Christmas time, we’d play that famous Temptations album, just let it play.[3]
One of the reasons that the sampling tradition of hip hop/rap music exploded in the way that it did is precisely because the chief architects of the art form already had the source material at home. Having literally lived with this music, they knew exactly where to look; and they knew the rhythms, melodies, and feels of this music by heart: It was all recall and rediscovery! And as competition among these chief architects took hold, they — notably Marley Marl, Easy Mo Bee, DJ Premier, RZA, Large Professor, Pete Rock, and Q-Tip — attacked every stitch of the records that they already had, either in their own household or secondary households, like their uncles’, cousins’, and grand parents’ homes. This was another pre-existing Black American cultural space that was not experienced by white pioneers of sampling, like Arthur Baker, Rick Rubin, or even Paul C.
As household record collections became exhausted, “digging in the crates” became a primary practice for finding new source material for all sample-based beatmakers. In other words, as the hip hop/rap and beatmaking traditions expanded in the United States, so did cultural diversity among its regular practitioners. Within the hip hop/rap community, especially the sub-community of beatmaking, the interconnections between Blacks and whites increased, resulting in broad, tight-knit multicultural networks where many cues, meanings, social and creative priorities of Black American culture were picked up by whites. For many whites, this cultural exchange was encouraging, as they were able to successfully tap into the same canon of Black American creativity that their Black contemporaries were able to. But for some whites, particularly those well-grounded in their own personal cultural memories — memories that prioritized different aesthetic and creative principles as well as different interpretations of originality and metrics of excellence — this cultural exchange was less motivating.
Over the years, I’ve found that people raised within or more familiar with the Black American cultural space that I described earlier are generally less hostile towards the art of sampling. On the other hand, in various conversations that I’ve had on and off the record with white recording engineers, musicians, other creative professionals, and acquaintances, I’ve found a number of them to be condescending, and sometimes quite hostile, towards sampling as an art form. This is certainly not to say that there aren’t any Blacks who aren’t hostile towards sampling, or that there aren’t any whites who look very favorably upon sampling. After all, perceptions of sampling have as much to do with race as they do with concepts of originality, authorship, and creativity; and there’s also the issue of class among traditional musicians and electronic-based musicians. Still, race and cultural background are serious factors that can’t be ignored if we’re interested in discussing the misconceptions and negative perceptions of the art of sampling in an honest manner. (In Chapter 15, I provide a detailed examination of the role that race plays in music, copyright law, and attitudes towards the art of sampling.)
Lastly, although hip hop/rap music is squarely a part of mainstream American culture, with participants representing a number of different races and ethnic groups, it is still largely a Black music form driven predominantly by Blacks. As such, this provokes a racial bias against hip hop/rap music itself, especially by some critics of the art of sampling.
Continuum Record Collections As A Black Cultural Space: A Distinct Dimension
Recalling his time with Wu-Tang Clan on their first tour bus in 1993, Raekwon had this to say about the Clan listening to music together:
“Best of all, we shared the music we loved and discovered that we all loved the same shit. This was music we’d heard as kids, all the great soul music that brought back memories…. it was nothing but oldies and classics on the stereo: Marvin Gaye, the Jacksons, the Stylistics, the Delfonics. All of us would reminisce and share stories, then we’d play a show at night and party after.” [emphasis mine][4]
Even when going to record shops and digging for records (samples) became en vogue and an activity more broadly experienced by white sample-based beatmakers (producers), the continuum of Black record collections, the special connection to Black record collections, was something that set Black sample-based beatmakers (producers) apart. This connection was never (could never be) the same for those who didn’t grow up with the music in the same way that Black people did. Engaging with the music you grew up with provokes a number of nuanced effects that are associated with and triggered by personal memories. These effects — collectively a heightened sensibility for everything from sound frequencies to lyrics — influence what you sample and how you sample and arrange it.
Every Black beatmaker (producer) in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, just like Raekwon, had heard the music they sampled all of their lives. At times it may have been different songs, but it was the same feeling, the same themes, the same sonic vibes, the same frequencies, the same memories. This music guided and shaped us; and from our collective memories, it forged a collective psyche. Turning to this music, as source material to sample, meant reconnecting with our collective cultural history. In many ways, beatmakers (producers) like Marley Marl, DJ Premier, RZA, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, and J Dilla, already knew how to sample precisely because they knew what they were sampling. They understood how the arrangements worked and what powered the grooves; the intricacies of the intros, breaks, and bridges; the improvised sounds within unique grooves. And above all, these beatmakers (producers) shared a sense of rhythm with this music.
By contrast, with no such record collection at home to dig in and live with, with no such connection to offer the same kind of guidance, it’s impossible to duplicate the impact of growing up in this Black cultural space. Fortunately, however, what is possible is to study the music of this Black cultural space. There’s no substitute for an experience that existed before one’s time. No one can go back and relive the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. But if you want to have even the slightest chance of getting a feel for the music, you have to study the rhythm from where it came. In other words, having the knowledge of an era means that one can still study the era and learn from it. And equipped with this knowledge, any sample-based beatmaker (producer) can make beats with the same soulful feeling.
To be good at sampling in hip hop/rap’s sampling tradition, you have to know and have a feel for the core music that sampling was built upon. Knowing this music guides you in your approach insampling any form of music. This is a central principle that many sample-based beatmakers (producers) fail to absorb. Focusing too much on the functionality of beat machines and technical processes, they miss the essence of connecting with the music. As a result, their beats sound technically correct but lack feeling. And further with regards to feeling, you have to study the feeling of the music of the musicians that you admire. This means tracking their creative pathways. You want to be like the greats, you need to understand what the greats were doing. Not in the sense of romanticized theories, but in the sense of how they all approached the music in a collectively similar fashion and why. Again, music and race are never neutral. Being honest about this fact helps us to learn. Turning to empirical evidence, if we’re honest about the dominance of Black beatmakers (producers) in this space, we can recognize the most well known white sample-based beatmakers(producers) in hip hop/rap music. In no specific order, the names that should come to mind include: Double Dee and Steinski, Paul C., Rick Rubin, The Dust Brothers, DJ Shadow, RJD2, DJ Muggs, Alchemist, Jake One, Marco Polo, Statik Selektah, Paul Dukes, Daringer, Stu Banger, and Nicholas Craven.
Now, think more specifically about an all-time list of hip hop/rap sample-based beatmakers (producers). Let’s say, top 10. Or top 50. From that list, objectively speaking based on catalog and impact, where would these aforementioned names be reasonably placed? An equally revealing question would be, what were the kinds of samples that they typically used and what was the sound and feel of their beats; are there any collective patterns that we can observe? For example, when we think of the names like Marley Marl, DJ Premier, RZA, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Large Professor, Prince Paul, Buckwild, Havoc, Kanye West, Just Blaze, The Heatmakerz, etc., we can observe at least one collective pattern: An overall soulful sound and feel, even when the source material is not soul or funk. I believe the correlation is obvious. Reared in the same cultural space, raised on the same music, it’s no coincidence that their music shares this large collective feel and pattern.
By contrast the aforementioned white sample-based hip hop/rap beatmakers (producers) didn’t grow up in the same Black cultural spaces that I’ve described. So it’s understandable that the correlation doesn’t naturally apply to them. Still, when we compare the catalogs of Rick Rubin and Double Dee and Steinkski with the catalogs of Paul C. and DJ Shadow, we do see a contrast. Rubin was rock-‘n’-roll or sparse drum-machine-sounds based; Rick Rubin wasn’t soulful or funky. Double Dee and Steinksik were experimental, not soulful or funky. Paul C., however, was soulful and funky! DJ Shadow was funky! DJ Muggs? Soulful! Alchemist? Soulful! Jake One? Soulful! Statik Selektah? Soulful! Marco Polo? Soulful! Daringer? Soulful! Nicholas Craven? Soulful! The difference with the latter group of nine names is that it’s obviously clear that they all have a feel for the core music that sampling was built upon.
Notes:
1. Author interview with Marley Marl, first published in The BeatTips Manual, 6th Edition (2015), (Superchamp Books, New York).
2. John O’connor, “An Interview with Rakim,” The Believer (April 1, 2020) https://www. thebeliever.net/an-interview-with-rakim/.
3. Author interview with DJ Toomp, first published in The BeatTips Manual, 6th Edition (2015), (Superchamp Books, New York).
4. Raekwon, From Staircase to Stage: The Story of Raekwon and the Wu-Tang Clan, (Gallery Books, New York 2021) Amazon Kindle version, 166.
