Sonic Alchemy: An Overview of Sampling

Few experiences can match the thrill of recognizing a sample in a song. Hearing Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky” as a twelve-year-old after growing up with Curtis Mayfield’s “Move on Up” was probably the closest I’ll ever get to discovering a new continent. According to Wikipedia, the definition of sampling is “the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording,” but it represents so much more than that. Sampling is a collage of memories, recycled to create something new for another generation or audience. Listeners can uncover bits and pieces from the past in every corner of their playlist, unlocking the rich history of any genre present in the mix.

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Sampling, in its earliest form, began in the jazz realm of the 1920s, where jazz artists would perform parts of another musician’s song live to pay homage to their talents. This developed into the technique we know it as today through the 1940s Musique Concrète movement in France, where real-world sounds were manipulated on tape and incorporated into new music. From there, it developed into machines in the 1950s and 1960s called the Chamberlin and Mellotron keyboards. While the Chamberlin contained pre-recorded instrumental loops for sampling, the Mellotron used analog tape to sample new sounds and play the recordings at different pitches. These machines acted as the prototypes to the 1970s digital samplers, which gradually developed into more cost-effective models for hip-hop producers in the 1980s. Before samplers were integrated in the genre, DJs would alter drum beats from soul, funk, and jazz so people could dance for longer. Early producers like Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and Marley Marl helped to define the sound of hip-hop with the use of samples, which paved the way for legendary producers such as J Dilla, Madlib, RZA, and more.

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One of the most common methods used for sampling is looping, where a clip from the original song plays a key role in the new instrumental mix. Often, the sampled melody will form the instrumental’s backbone, such as in the reuse of the ascending and descending basslines of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” Prominent vocal melodies can also be used, such as with the ecstatic and powerful vocals of Diana Ross on “I’m Coming Out” repurposed on The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo Money Mo Problems,” or the robotic chants from Daft Punk’s “Technologic” in Busta Rhymes’ “Touch It.” Sometimes, producers will change the pitch of a sample, such as with West's “chipmunk soul” style. Despite his recent controversies, the pitched-up sample of Chaka Khan’s commanding, soulful vocals in “Through the Fire” sampled on “Through the Wire” will always remain transformative for my music taste. Producers pull from the past to create a curated mood for their instrumentals, ranging from the laid-back “Can I Kick It,” to the euphoric “Mo Money Mo Problems.”

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Alternatively, sometimes producers will chop up original songs until they become unrecognizable, creating completely new instrumentals from the canvas. Timbaland, one of the most inventive producers of the last 30 years, is a master of this technique, implementing samples from across genres in his instrumentals. One of my favorite instrumentals by him is his sample of the luscious strings in Björk’s “Joga” in Missy Elliott’s effortlessly cool “Hit ‘Em with da Hee,” reinventing the song entirely. Another Timbaland instrumental features one of the most insane flips I’ve heard, using the angelic, pitched-down vocals from “Life and Soul” by The Sundays to create the iconic croaky instrumental of “Pony” by Ginuwane. Despite the latter going triple platinum in my car, I would’ve never even conceived that The Sundays had a hand in creating the track’s backbone if I hadn’t checked the credits. In recent years, JPEGMAFIA has emerged as an extremely inventive producer in the genre of experimental rap, warping a little-known pop track called “Cool Like Ice Hot Like Fire” by Taste of Dream into the harsh, repetitive two-note instrumental of “Baby I’m Bleeding.”

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While this article has mainly focused on the reworking of older, well-known songs into new instrumentals, “crate-digging” is also a large part of the culture of sampling. Little-known records at the back of the $1 bin are gold mines for producers, who can create instrumentals without worrying about the costs of legally clearing them. The most sampled song in history is “Amen Brother” by The Winstons, which started off as a B-side to one of their forgotten singles and turned into one of the most iconic drum breaks of all time. The break has been used across countless genres and songs, with some of its most prominent uses being in “Firestarter” by The Prodigy, “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A, “Eyeless” by Slipknot, and even in the theme of Futurama.

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Personally, my favorite approach to sampling comes when producers layer samples on top of each other to create a collage of sounds, inventing their own instrumental from multiple sources. Once again, West utilizes this to create his unique soundscapes, such as in “POWER,” where he uses clips from “21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson, “Afromerica” by Continent Number 6, and “It’s Your Thing” by Cold Grits to create its grandiose composition. Another fun example includes “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani, creating a stomp-clap anthem out of the bassline of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust," the vocal elements of “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith, and B.I.G.'s "Nasty Boy."

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Sampling is mostly associated with hip-hop production, but the technique stretches across pop to R&B to electronic music, as seen by “Hollaback Girl.” Tom Tom Club’s funky and iconic synth melody in “Genius of Love” is given a new life in the instrumental of “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, recontextualizing the original’s slightly nonsensical lyrics into an ecstatic profession of love. Sometimes, the use of samples can even help to define and popularize an emerging genre. The edgy, sarcastic vocals and haunting riff from Siouxsie and the Banshee's “Happy House” was slowed to match the dreary tone of “House of Balloons” by The Weeknd, with the latter interpolating the former in the lyrics of the chorus. The Weeknd’s use of gothic rock and dream pop in his instrumentals, ranging from Cocteau Twins to Beach House, helped to define his moody sound, catapulting dark alternative R&B into the mainstream. Crossovers between genres become commonplace in the world of sampling, with The Clash's punk classic “Straight to Hell” reaching pop audiences in M.I.A.’s breezy “Paper Planes,” and Breakwater’s hard rock guitar riff on “Release the Beast” breaking into the world of electronica through a feature on Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock.”

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At its core, sampling breaks down and renews old sounds so they can take on a new meaning, creating the future from the past. We live amongst the death of originality in the music landscape, and what we, as listeners, perceive as innovative and unique almost always draws on previous musical ideas and concepts. Sampling embraces this instead of rejecting the truth, deriving its own innovation from its forefathers to bridge genres and eras together for a new audience. If an impressionable preteen like myself could appreciate Curtis Mayfield through a fascination with “Late Registration,” who’s to say a kid now can’t appreciate Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By” through Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red?"

- Efrata