In a previous post I alluded to my position as a hip-hop head. Yup. I love rap musics. I also make rap musics, but I’m not at the point where I’m ready to reveal my rap identity to you…
A wise man I associate with proclaims, “Rap is the king of musics!” This utterance usually comes out after some alcohol has influenced brain activity, but there’s a ton of merit behind this saying. Rap music combines pre-existing elements of our musical culture-scape and reforumulates them, often breathing life into pieces of history that have been long forgotten about. “Rap is the king of musics” because it combines all genres of music, allowing them to happily co-mingle in countless ways. No other genre exists that blatantly fuses elements of rock, jazz, funk, folk, and so on. Thus, “rap is the king of musics.”
Sampling is a beautiful thing – I get chills when I hear the way that a little piece of an old song gets flipped into a hip-hop beat. As a beat-maker myself, I fully understand the work that goes into this form of music-making, despite the viewpoint that sampling is “lazy.” Try digging through crates and crates of records, listening to all of the records you selected, and picking out bits and pieces of sound to create your own piece of music. It’s tedious as hell and requires a trained ear if you ever want to make something that sounds half decent. It’s a craft that takes years of dedication if you don’t want to suck. Not exactly lazy if you ask me.
My friend posted this video on his Facebook wall and I needed to share it with you. The premise is simple. The filmaker gives a few producers $5 – they have to use that on records and flip sample from those records into a new song. I love this concept, and this video gives you a pretty good feel of what it’s like to create sample-based music. From sifting through records at the store, to listening to the records, to chopping up the record, to coming up with patterns – it’s all showcased in this video.
If you’ve got 30 minutes to spare, watch this. I loved it and I think it’s a video that’s accessible for everybody, whether or not you’re a beat-head.
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