Reflection 2: The Next Episode

My initial research on song sampling started off with investigating other sources and what they had to say about the topic. Through the Brock SuperSearch I was able to come across plenty of articles on the topic, as well in a google search there were many websites that came up that referenced songs that had been sampled. This gave me more of an understanding of my first step to investigation - What is song sampling? And what artists and songs use samples?

The questions I pose in my Project Proposal Pitch I find to be overlapping in the timeline. Last reflection I was able to find out a little bit more on the question, "Why do artists sample?" And used Jay Z's ode to Biggie as an example. But then I began thinking about all those artists who sample and have no connection to those they are sampling, so what could be their purpose? I made a few assumptions in my last post about what those purposes could be but I want to explore that further.

I began this week looking over articles again, but I realized that was not the right approach to begin for this week. I needed to see not what research was saying, but what the public was saying. So I went on to Youtube and came across [more gimmicky] videos on "Samples used by Rappers."

4:07 - 4:27 (The Next Episode/The Edge)

This lead me to find that one of the most iconic songs, "The Next Episode" by Dr. Dre had been sampled from a classical song in the 1967 by David McCallum titled, "The Edge." With this as my new path to research I came across the website/app WhoSampled, which allows public to see how far samples go. I was able to see that after Dr. Dre used this sample in 1999 (big jump from the original song in 1967) the song as been sampled 39 more times in the 2000's.

http://www.whosampled.com/Dr.-Dre/

This information is relevant to my Week 4 question that I've yet to investigate which is, "What makes one song more iconic than another?"

So far I am finding that my questions I wanted to explore in week one (who samples) extended into week two, which is "What is the purpose of sampling?" This week I had to revisit my week one question of who samples in order to gain more material for this week. And the new material I have found this week has given me prompts for questions I have posed in weeks 3 and 4.

I'm finding that the timeline gives structure to the order of what questions should be asked, but the way they are answered is not necessarily congruent with the timing. Learning is interweaving and making connections with the old and new information we discover. I have questions that are almost fully answered and questions I will have to keep on going back to and looking at in order to explore my Genius Hour topic further.