Reflection 4: He Can't Stop- Why Can't Kanye West Stop Sampling?

Going off from some of my final thoughts from my last blog posts there was one specific question I wanted to look into:

"What is the method to the madness? (What purpose does an artist, such as Kanye West sample so much?)"

I already touched on this question before using Jay Z and Biggie as examples. But I was more curious as to why an artist, specifically Kanye West samples a large amount of artists throughout his career he has virtually no relation to.

The following sources I explored to see a history of Kanye's sampled songs:
http://www.whosampled.com/Kanye-West/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/20/6048381/kanye-west-samples-listenable-history

I explored the comment sections to see what others' thoughts were and some of them looked like this:

This comes back to the notion that those who song sample are lazy artists cheating at music making. But I think that is idea is a sorry excuse for those to press hate against an artist that they just flat out do not like. It is a very surface level reaction to jump to the conclusion that artists are not original when they sample. 

Some comments, on the other hand, looked like this:

I want to highlight what the comment above says about originality, that everything we say or do is influenced by something else. Is that not what knowledge and learning is? We constantly take ideas from the past and adapt, change, and feed off them in order to progress and evolve.

When I think about Kanye West and his sample history, I think about him as an artist who is fluent in his musical history. It is not the lack of musical knowledge which is why West samples as much as he does. But rather he uses his large, expansive array of musical knowledge and history to creatively adapt and build upon his predecessors.

One observation I made while I was searching samples in Kanye West songs was that a majority of the artists he chooses to sample are of people of colour. Yes, he has sampled from artists such as Elton John, Bette Midler, Bon Iver, but there is a much larger range of artists of colour such as Etta James, Ray Charles, Chaka Khan, Curtis Mayfield, Ottis Redding, Lauren Hyll, Nina Simone, Donal Leace, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, and the list goes on.

It is no doubt that West has been known for his political outbursts at award ceremonies (Taylor Swift 2009 VMAs, Beck 2015 Grammys) noting the equality of award shows when it comes to people of colour and having their work recognized. He has advocated for this issue in past speeches such as his acceptance of the he Visionary Award for The BET Honors 2015, and also incorporated it into his speech for the 2015 MTV VMA Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. He has made it known that the issue of race and recognition of artists is important to him. I would like to argue that his use of sampling is a way to tribute and give recognition to what people of colour have done for music. West has no problem lending his voice for artists and providing a platform to do so. His use of sampling, in my opinion, seems related to this issue of race and recognition.

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Genius Hour Wrap Up:

I thought Genius Hour was a creative way to approach problem based learning and using self directed learning to accomplish their goals. 

I would use this in a classroom, I know in my block the class I am in will be working on public speeches. I am thinking of ways to incorporate Genius Hour as a way they can explore their topic and at the end use their speech to consolidate their research. 

I feel as though I did complete my goal, my research always lead into new questions or related back to old questions. I feel as a whole all the information I found supported the whole scope of what I wanted to know. Doing Genius Hour, I was able to experience that learning is not linear, I jumped from questions and revisited questions and reevaluated my answers a lot. Exploring multimedia information always introduced new ways of viewing the topic and lead to new paths that I did not think about or plan to explore in the first place, but became necessary in the process. I am excited to incorporate Genius Hour in my placement.

Reflection 3: Creative Borrowing

This week I chose to do some investigation on the laws of copyright, how artists are allowed to sample, and if culture looks at this as stealing, borrowing, or appropriation. Although I still have some further questions on why artists sample, I thought it would be beneficial to get some context on the logistics of sampling.

In 1991 there was a huge shift in how artists sampled. This was the year that the first in court lawsuit regarding sample-based hip hop between Grand Upright Music LTD versus Warner Brothers Records and the outcome forever changed how artists and their record labels approach sample-based hip hop. Now there was a fear of copyright infringement laws and artists had to shift their practices to adapt and modify their musical language for a reduced availability of of samples. (Sewell)

Copyright law for artistic and creative processes should not be minimized, but there is also the notion that, "sampling, in many cases, should be treated as a form of protected speech immune to persecution of copyright infringement." Amanda Sewell also brings up the discussion on, "how musicians are able to maintain a sense of their earlier musical styles even when their primary creative tools-- that is, samples-- were severely restricted." (Sewell)

It seems that in these discussions there is no demeaning nature to copyright laws but rather a wanting for change. Sampling is a creative tool that artists use in their practice, and when we are restricting their tools we limit their creativity. There is a need for copyright to protect the original artists, while also lending the exception for creative borrowing. 

Sewell, in her article, interviews hip hop producers about the ways in which they avoid costly sample licensing fees:

This week there is a part of me that is getting tired of the research, although I am enjoying everything I am learning on my topic. I chose a topic and how to approach it similar to essay writing and I almost wish I chose a Genius Hour topic that was more on "doing" than researching, especially since Genius Hour is something cumulative over weeks. With that being said, I am still glad that I finally am able to take time to look at a this topic that I have been curious about for a long time but never really had a reason to investigate. It is really refreshing to be able to listen to music as a part of the research and I have a lot of fun finding out songs that have been sampled and making those connections between the histories (this is the part of "doing" that I enjoy the most), and I was able to do a lot of that in weeks 1 and 2. 

I loved making my movie trailer because it was a chance to put my creativity to use (and because I was also able to listen to Gold Digger around 50+ times in a row). Making my trailer inspired some new trains of thought that will help me on where to go next week, which is What makes one song more iconic than another?

• How does visual culture play a part in this [music videos]
• The amount of sampling in Kanye West songs and how their popularity rivals their predecessors
• "What is the method to the madness?" (With what purpose does an artist, such as Kanye West, sample so much and with various types of music?)
• What does this tell us about our culture?

References: 

1. Sewell, Amanda. "How Copyright Affected The Musical Style And Critical Reception Of Sample-Based Hip-Hop." Journal Of Popular Music Studies 2-3 (2014): 295. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Not A Box

 

This is my Not A Box. My box transformed into the draw bridge of a princess castle. When I was younger I had a pink and purple castle that I always played with, along with other Disney princess toys and I used to come up with stories around them. Fairy tales and characters like Cinderella and Rapunzel were my favourite and so this is my nostalgic castle. 

To me creativity is one of the most important things that we as teachers can implement in our classrooms. We should constantly be challenging our students to be as innovative and expressive as they can be. We should teach students to express themselves in any and all ways possible. By pushing creative driven lessons and activities students will be able to apply their knowledge even further and have an exploratory experience. Creativity stretches the mind to consider all possibilities, investigate all options, be able to visualize, write, and speak our minds and allows us to be more empathetic human beings.