Reflection 1: Sampling and Intentions

On my Genius Hour topic, I'm presenting the question of why hip hop artists use song sampling, what is its purpose?

Hip hop is an open source text book, free for borrowing. Some sources say if you are repeating more than one bar it is considered, "aesthetic laziness." But I refuse to think so. This use of recycling of music is almost a type of tribute to past artists, using allusion and intertextuality to support to the artists' message.

For instance, what can we say when Jay Z, a Brooklyn rapper and more contemporary face of hip hop, quotes or samples (the late) Biggie Smalls? Another rapper from Brooklyn and a central figure of the East Coast hip hop scene, also ranked as the greatest rapper ever. He can be seen as paying tribute to his roots and also honouring a role model of music in his life.

Usages of sampling remind us listeners of the universality and diversity of not only hip hop music, but of music of all genres and we are reminded of the great musicians of our past, those who "did it first," and build on them. And, like education we take ideas of our past to come up with our own conclusions.

So far investigating this topic I am beginning to discover the intentions of artists. Coming from a visual arts background and mostly looking at visual artists, I want to apply that same knowledge to looking at artists of other disciplines and the conceptual meaning of their work.

At this point I want to continue to ask relevant and critical questions around the subject of what the artist is trying to convey, and why are they trying to convey that.

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Below is a Concept Organizer based off of the initial research I found. Joseph G Schloss wrote Making Beats: The Art of Sample Based HipHop Music. Schloss' writings are used in various articles to evaluate this topic.

References for Concept Organizer:

1. Chang, Vanessa. "The Records That Play: The Present Past in Sampling Process" in Popular Music. Vol 28, No. 2 (May 2009). Cambridge University Press. Accessed September 2015 http://www.jstor.org/stable/40541424.

2. Sewell, Amanda. "How Copyright Affected the Musical Style and Critical Reception of Sample-Based Hip-Hop" in Journal of Popular Music Studies. Vol 26, Issue 2/3 (June 2014). Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 2015).