Friday, February 6, 1998
Sampling gets bad rap
HIPHOP: Hip-hop draws on rich musical history as legitimate art
form
By Jesus Valadez and
Ben Gebhardt
We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to write a Viewpoint
article defending hip-hop and rap music against its attackers and
common misconceptions. We felt that this was a golden opportunity.
Most people know that if you’re going to write an article for the
Viewpoint section of the Daily Bruin, you should have either done
your homework or be very good at covering up the fact that you
didn’t. It is obvious that Mr. Pong has neglected both in his
Viewpoint article "’Poetry’ lacks originality, spirituality
necessary to excite souls".
As an intro to our criticism of Mr. Pong’s article, we would
like to include a short history of sampling and hip-hop music and
hopefully clear up some misconceptions. Hip-hop started with the DJ
during the mid- to late-70s. Youths from New York’s poorer
communities who couldn’t afford bands for their parties started
playing records instead. DJs began buying two copies of the same
record and going back and forth with funky breakdowns from the
records they were spinning, hence the term "breaks."
These DJs were, in effect, sampling the portion of the record
they liked and repeating it over and over; thus hip-hop music was
born. While some early groups had live bands, the same DJ mentality
went into producing early hip-hop music.
In the early ’80s, technology became more accessible to these
hip-hop producers via drum machines and early samplers. Hip-hop
music thrives on originality; samples used by groups were guarded
by secrecy.
Gangster rap music came about and soon afterwards hip-hop became
mainstream. Now hip-hop is finally reaching the upper level of the
music spectrum: pop music. The industry generally regards an album
that sells more than two million copies "pop." For the first time
since hip-hop’s birth over 20 years ago, we are seeing a
proliferation of multi-platinum rap groups: the Fugees have sold
seven million copies, Tupac has four million, Puffy has 3.6
million, and B.I.G. has 3.2 million. Even rock groups that have
heavy hip-hop influence are selling like crazy; for instance
Sublime sold 2.7 million.
Needless to say originality has suffered. Now rap groups search
for the most recognizable sample they can find because it will
sell. This phenomenon has polarized the hip-hop community into
groups that either want to be pop stars like Puffy or the Fugees,
or want respect within the hip- hop community like Mos Def (of
course there are exceptions). Increasingly, artists who choose
respect have been releasing material on independent record labels.
Even some famous hip-hop acts are feeling the need to "represent,"
notably Q-tip from A Tribe Called Quest, who recently released two
songs on an independent label under a new alias, "The Lone
Ranger."
We’ll sum up our little intro by stating that hip-hop refers to
the culture (breakdancing, graffiti art, rapping and DJ-ing), and
rap refers to just the musical aspect and usually denotes those
artists who are trying to be "pop." There is a difference between
these two terms, and that difference is directly related to this
polarization in the community of rap music.
First things first: Mr. Pong’s opinion that rap is not music can
be debunked with his own definition of music: "Music, since its
evolution as a form of communication and organization, has become a
form of entertainment by all definition. Therefore it is meant to
be fun." For some reason, Mr. Pong believes that rap music is not a
form of communication, organization or entertainment. He also seems
to believe that rap music is not meant to be fun. On the contrary,
nothing could be further from the truth. Even by Mr. Pong’s
definition rap music is poetry, a form of communication. Rap music
is also highly organized with complex song structures including
choruses, verses, breakdowns and solos. Finally, rap music is very
much a form of entertainment and is meant to be fun. Mr. Pong needs
to reexamine his view of rap music or change his definition of
music.
Secondly, Mr. Pong suffers from a distorted view of what popular
music is. A great number of musicians (ourselves included) believe
that the radio is the last place to look for talent, originality,
creativity and spirituality. Even the Speaks Out in the Viewpoint
section of Friday’s Daily Bruin showed that students share the same
sentiments. Mr. Pong unfortunately looks no further than commercial
radio for talent and originality.
We also find it interesting that Mr. Pong chose to attack (of
all songs) "I’ll Be Missing You" to prove his point about rap music
containing no spirituality. Puff Daddy’s song dealt with the loss
of a friend and how he found the will to move on. Ironically, the
Police song it sampled, "Every Breath You Take," was about a man
stalking a woman – how spiritual is that?
Third, sampling can be a very creative art form. As Mr. Pong
states: "It takes virtually no skill to sample. Anyone with half a
mind and the right equipment could have come up with Puff Daddy’s
rip-off of "Every Breath You Take." We agree with this statement
but industry insiders and fellow producers have never regarded
Puffy’s production style as innovative. There is an abundance of
"good" sampled music out there (not all necessarily rap). Most of
this music samples other music that is not readily recognizable or
is cleverly reconstructed so that it sounds nothing like the
original.
Some of the past two years’ biggest hits were albums that solely
or heavily relied upon samples, i.e. Beck’s "Odelay" won a Grammy
for Album of the Year. Hip-hop producers established sampling as an
art form during the past two decades with albums such as
GangStarr’s "Daily Operation," and De La Soul’s "De La Soul is
Dead". I am saddened that in this day and age when so much modern
rock music is so heavily influenced by hip-hop that a "musician"
such as Mr. Pong has trouble understanding the validity of sampling
and rap music as an art form.
Finally, most established musicians would agree that music is
learned by listening to other people’s work and trying to recreate
it. Most would also agree that when learning a particular
instrument, you have to start by playing familiar music, be it
"Chopsticks" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Mr. Pong states: "Like
most pianists (no offense), I had no understanding of music
whatsoever. Sure, I could read music and play it, but that was all.
At the time I didn’t even realize that music came from the soul and
the ear, not a chart of chord progressions." Mr. Pong almost seems
to be attacking pianists here. I would argue that a good musician
has to have his soul and ear in tune with music and has to have
mastered his chord progressions as well.
Music is the expression of a person’s spirit and emotion, but
like all art forms it needs some organized medium in order for
other people to interpret it. Whether you teach yourself guitar,
take piano lessons or scratch records, you’ll have to learn how to
put your soul into the music and use the theory you know to make
that music.
We felt compelled to write this article because so many people
like to take pot-shots at rap music when very few of them know the
real story. Hip- hop and rap music are very complex entities and we
take it personally when people try to oversimplify them in order to
criticize it. We feel it’s because people don’t do their homework,
and therefore don’t understand what they’re talking about. We
believe there is much validity in Mr. Pong’s article and that his
heart was in the right place, however, a few blanket statements
that he made as a result of his ignorance disturbed us. Puffy is
turning rap into pop music and we don’t find too much originality
in his work, but to take that and say, "rap is not music" is
ridiculous. If you hate rap music or have just started listening to
it, don’t be quick to judge it by the stuff you hear on the radio
or MTV. Please do your homework on the hip-hop culture that started
it all.