Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Let's give it up for the man,
Speaker 1: the myth legend super producer, mister Max Williams. Sunday Sunday Sunday.
Speaker 1: We're fresh off Monster Jam. This week we're talking all
Speaker 1: about the history of sampling, which, as my good pal
Speaker 1: Nol pointed out, is very near and dear to the
Speaker 1: three of us. They called me ben Noel. This is
Speaker 1: a part two, so I guess we should tell people
Speaker 1: or ask people to sample part one first.
Speaker 2: Huh, Yes, exactly, put it on your little sampler platter,
Speaker 2: skewer it with a with a tiny toothpick.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it's it's delicious flavor. Yes, so let's let's cut.
Speaker 1: Let's cut straight to hip hop. Sampling has become inherently
Speaker 1: associated with the world of hip hop, the world of dance.
Speaker 1: It starts even before hip hop was called hip hop.
Speaker 1: It it really starts in the seventies, but the affordability
Speaker 1: of these sampling machines in the eighties becomes the and
Speaker 1: I rarely use this phrase because I hate when corporate
Speaker 1: types do it. It becomes the inflection point. It is
Speaker 1: the inflection point. Indeed. Uh, but we're talking about folks.
Speaker 2: This is this is even separate from folks who are
Speaker 2: able to all of a sudden afford those samplers that
Speaker 2: we're talking about, the NPCs and sp twelve hundreds of
Speaker 2: the world, right that might still have only been you know,
Speaker 2: affordable as a relative term. No, it wasn't the price
Speaker 2: of a fair light or a frickin melotron. But these
Speaker 2: things we were still not, you know, affordable to just anybody.
Speaker 2: But what was available to just about anybody was a turntable. Yes,
Speaker 2: it was a household item right.
Speaker 1: Right, because a lot of people have record players, because
Speaker 1: people like music. So your parents, did you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Yea, yeah. So I want to shout out
Speaker 1: this really cool thing on Drunk History, which obviously is
Speaker 1: a show that we love. On this show, there is
Speaker 1: an interview or a story narrated by Questlove of the
Speaker 1: Roots and it's all about the invention of the scratch.
Speaker 1: Please do watch that. It's just a wonderful segment. The
Speaker 1: history spot on Questlove is a walking encyclopedia of all
Speaker 1: things hip hop. We'll talk about what you're what you've
Speaker 1: set up so beautifully for US records. There's a DJ,
Speaker 1: cool Herk. Cool Herk knows how to read a room,
Speaker 1: knows how to move a crowd. Cool Herk has one problem.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want the party to stop. So he says,
Speaker 1: I've got to figure out how to extend drum beats right,
Speaker 1: Uh in these records that I'm playing. Yeah. Functional, So
Speaker 1: he gets two records together, uh and the same months,
Speaker 1: and this the Merry Ground it's called Yeah, they're the same,
Speaker 1: they're identical records, and he mixes them together to make
Speaker 1: the drum breaks longer. And this is where we see
Speaker 1: the emergence of or one of the ingredients what you
Speaker 1: would call an MC today. MCS for the master's ceremony, right,
Speaker 1: like like in dance hall when people would make toast right,
Speaker 1: or there's a little bit of the old Grio storytelling
Speaker 1: involved there. This Yeah, this MC will come up and
Speaker 1: they're the hype person at the party. They're not the
Speaker 1: main event, the DJs the main event. They're the person
Speaker 1: who is like, oh right, everybody, you could have been
Speaker 1: anywhere tonight, but you're here. You know, we got DJ
Speaker 1: Coole hurt Uh. And there's this these intros because more
Speaker 1: ornates more elaborate, right, They become their own sort of instruments,
Speaker 1: and this is ultimately evolves into what you would call rapping.
Speaker 1: And producers love this, they love these block parties. But
Speaker 1: it's like an ice sculpture, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful in the moment. How do we capture this,
Speaker 1: how do we bring it out past? You know, for
Speaker 1: you when the cops shut us down, they start making
Speaker 1: these songs.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting that you point out the relationship between
Speaker 2: the MC and the DJ, because I think this is
Speaker 2: you know, if this is early seventies, this would have
Speaker 2: been happening kind of in parallel with disco. They would
Speaker 2: have been more in like, you know, more affluent neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: you know, and maybe like midtown, downtown New York, LA.
Speaker 2: You know, all of this kind of stuff. And these
Speaker 2: these parties that you're talking about were happening in the street,
Speaker 2: like these were these were block parties, These were you know,
Speaker 2: outdoor kind of very affairs. So there was this kind
Speaker 2: of parallel track. But all what it had in common
Speaker 2: was the star of the show was recorded music. Yes,
Speaker 2: it was sort of this era of like live music
Speaker 2: was almost.
Speaker 1: Waning a little bit not waning.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course there were big you know, rock
Speaker 2: shows and stadium shows, but you would go to those
Speaker 2: to see your favorite artists.
Speaker 1: You're going to these things to dance. So going back
Speaker 1: to this, the idea of hip hop sampling again, it
Speaker 1: reminds me of this. It's just wonderful quote I heard
Speaker 1: from a vegan Japanese chef who said that she found
Speaker 1: her creativity in constraints, right, and she said, actually makes
Speaker 1: me a much better chef because I have I have
Speaker 1: restricted sort of the palette with which I can paint.
Speaker 1: And hip hop sampling comes from these limitations. Like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, you know you are forced in by necessity, right,
Speaker 1: you were forced into creativity because you can't afford a
Speaker 1: formal music education.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You may not be able to pay the per hour
Speaker 1: rate for studio time. How you want to have a
Speaker 1: harp on your song, But do you know anyone who
Speaker 1: plays a harp? Do you know anyone who can afford
Speaker 1: a harp? Honestly, I don't know anyone who can play
Speaker 1: a harp. In twenty twenty three, I've met some people,
Speaker 1: but I don't have like a harp. Guy, I can text.
Speaker 1: I got a harp guy. Actually, it's just funny, man Like, just.
Speaker 2: Having a recording studio and working on different stuff, you
Speaker 2: end up finding people that play all kinds of different weirds.
Speaker 2: I'm not I just happen to know who plays the
Speaker 2: harp and dude, that's the thing though, to your point, Ben,
Speaker 2: that is such a niche specific discipline and to even
Speaker 2: own a harp, that is such a commitment. That is
Speaker 2: such a commitment to the one thing. Right with turntables,
Speaker 2: you could commit to everything because you can. You just
Speaker 2: buy the record and then you can like, you know,
Speaker 2: here's a little bit of this little bit of that
Speaker 2: mix it up.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have a heart.
Speaker 2: We don't even have no sax player or even a
Speaker 2: drummer because that method that you were talking about that
Speaker 2: DJ cool Hirk was doing to extend those beats. You
Speaker 2: just buy two copies of the same record, and then
Speaker 2: you can use what's called a mixer and a cross
Speaker 2: fader to juggle back and forth. When the break ends
Speaker 2: on the left side, left player, you turn it over
Speaker 2: started on the right side, and then you pick the
Speaker 2: needle back up put it on the beginning of the
Speaker 2: break again on the left side. When the right side's done,
Speaker 2: boom over to the right. You can make it completely seamless.
Speaker 2: And if you ever, I know you have been witnessed
Speaker 2: a DJ at the top of their game doing these
Speaker 2: kinds of manipulations.
Speaker 1: It is like magic. It's so incredible to behold. It's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And there's a whole that we could do
Speaker 1: a whole episode on DJ because there are you know,
Speaker 1: as with any art form, there are controversies, right, there
Speaker 1: are different schools of thought. We should also shout out
Speaker 1: a producer, Marley Marril. This guy chopped up drum kind
Speaker 1: of like a music concrete thing, chopped up drum breaks
Speaker 1: to make new drum patterns, like you were saying, finding
Speaker 1: new repetitions and cyclical intervals in this stuff. And then
Speaker 1: we know that DJs, to your point, the DJs from
Speaker 1: particularly the South Bronx were manipulating vinyl, right, they were
Speaker 1: sampling this stuff, but they were cooking live and I
Speaker 1: think that's really that's part of the art of DJing.
Speaker 1: And again, can't cannot emphasize I'm not a fan of
Speaker 1: over hyping stuff, so I don't say it lightly ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1: I cannot emphasize how cool. That quest love story from
Speaker 1: Drunk History is you really should watch it. If you
Speaker 1: don't like it, then I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 1: You might hate music.
Speaker 2: It's possible, but we still didn't exactly. This stuff wasn't
Speaker 2: mainstream yet. Now it was all happening in these blog parties,
Speaker 2: you know, because like I said, disco was mainstream, but
Speaker 2: they weren't sampling. Those records were made with live bands,
Speaker 2: those records, the recordings were made in the studios with
Speaker 2: five stands. Very expensive, right, and they sounded expensive, you know.
Speaker 2: But this stuff, this phenomenon was kind of happening under
Speaker 2: the radar, and they didn't really have kind of a
Speaker 2: flagship singular sound associated with them.
Speaker 1: Yet.
Speaker 2: That would change with the advent of the Sugar Hill
Speaker 2: Gang's rappers Delight, which you know, used some of these
Speaker 2: kinds of grooves and sounds and turntably, you know, manipulations
Speaker 2: and created a song that became really popular. That song
Speaker 2: and of itself is an episode because it actually there
Speaker 2: is an episode about that song on a show that
Speaker 2: I worked on called The Speed of Sound with Steve Greenberg,
Speaker 2: who kind of came up as a record executive through
Speaker 2: all these times that we're talking about, and the Sugar
Speaker 2: Hill Gang were kind of they weren't really very beloved
Speaker 2: in the up and coming hip hop community because it
Speaker 2: was kind of considered a little cliche, and and they
Speaker 2: were backed by like the Mob.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. So check that story out in and
Speaker 1: of itself.
Speaker 2: But now you kind of have these songs starting to
Speaker 2: really break through, you know, on the airwaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you really do see it like this. This
Speaker 1: gets the attention of the industry eventually, right, the powers
Speaker 1: that be in the world of music, the folks who
Speaker 1: own those studios, those elaborate, high end studios where mainstream
Speaker 1: music is produced, they start getting interested in this thing.
Speaker 1: And look, we also hip hop is awesome. All three
Speaker 1: of us think hip hop is awesome, and we are
Speaker 1: very careful to note that hip hop is not the
Speaker 1: only thing happening in this realm. If you go across
Speaker 1: the pond, you see folks like Pop Will Eat Itself,
Speaker 1: Cold Cut, the Art of Noise. These are sample These
Speaker 1: are rock, pop and dance music samples that they're using.
Speaker 1: And it might not sound like hip hop, but it
Speaker 1: has some of the same branches of the family tree
Speaker 1: or roots. That's how trees grow, trees grow from roots.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Noel, you know I'm leaning on a lot
Speaker 1: of your knowledge as a multi instrumentalist. I never missed
Speaker 1: the chance to brag about your talents there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: thank you. You know you're really good. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, when we're talking about sampling in the
Speaker 1: world of British music in the late eighties and early nineties,
Speaker 1: is this something that a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: US would recognize stuff like popoly to itself and so on.
Speaker 1: It depends.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the Art of Noise are a
Speaker 2: very influential kind of sample based group that could be
Speaker 2: considered sort of a proto industrial kind of group. So
Speaker 2: this is the kind of sampling where we're not necessarily
Speaker 2: talking about recognizable samples through other pieces of music. We're
Speaker 2: talking more about that sampling as an instrument unto itself.
Speaker 2: If you think about you know, Nine Inch Nails, for example,
Speaker 2: Pretty Hate Machines, the record that came out in the
Speaker 2: late eighties, the sampling on that album is mainly like
Speaker 2: the sounds of machinery and like you know, grinding gears
Speaker 2: and you know, weird textural kind of bits. So it's
Speaker 2: a way of using sampling or you know, manipulation of
Speaker 2: recorded material to add texture, to add vibe, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's not necessarily like to extend a drum break
Speaker 2: or to have some sort of loop that someone might
Speaker 2: recognize as sort of like a nod or an easter egg,
Speaker 2: like you said. And this is all in the UK
Speaker 2: where this stuff is blowing up. Pop will eat itself
Speaker 2: cold cut the art of noise. You know, as we know,
Speaker 2: the charts in the UK do not always the charts
Speaker 2: in the United States. There's a lot more kind of
Speaker 2: maybe off the beaten path sort of more unusual music
Speaker 2: that does chart very well in the UK in terms
Speaker 2: of dance music, in terms of like indie music, things
Speaker 2: like that that we maybe wouldn't It's a little different
Speaker 2: now being such a global world with the Internet and all.
Speaker 1: Of that stuff.
Speaker 2: But back in the eighties, before you had this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, you wouldn't have even known about a lot
Speaker 2: of these artists because unless you like, you know, were
Speaker 2: really tuned into what was going on there via like zines,
Speaker 2: which are you know, d DIY kind of printed music
Speaker 2: magazines or pop culture magazines. So but now you know,
Speaker 2: we live in this totally kind of global, less isolated,
Speaker 2: but also somehow more isolated world where you kind of
Speaker 2: know about what's going on depending on where your interests lie,
Speaker 2: you know, outside of the country that you might live in. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: This is a great paradox of our age, you know,
Speaker 2: and we're the average ridge music listeners always cognizant of
Speaker 2: where a sample came from the providence or whatever.
Speaker 1: Probably not, and you don't need to be to enjoy
Speaker 1: the music itself. We do know that as technology continued
Speaker 1: to develop, as these inventions, this musical equipment and gear
Speaker 1: became miniaturized, became more sophisticated and more user friendly. We go.
Speaker 1: It spread all around the world, and people were able
Speaker 1: to get increasingly precise with the samples they took. You
Speaker 1: might not have to just sample the entirety of the
Speaker 1: entirety of a song, right, take all the two to
Speaker 1: four bars of a loop. You could take individual parts
Speaker 1: from various songs. You can pick and choose. Now I
Speaker 1: just want you know, Now, I just want the sousaphone
Speaker 1: from here. Now I just want this one part of
Speaker 1: this vocal, and I want at a cappella. You can
Speaker 1: start doing that. And one great example of this and
Speaker 1: how it comes full circle is a nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: single from Lord Finesse called Hip to the Game, wherein
Speaker 1: he samples some vocals, some ad libs really from James
Speaker 1: Brown of Augusta Fame, some drums from band called Detroit Emeralds,
Speaker 1: and then some harmonies and some melodies from Oscar Peterson
Speaker 1: and then some additional percussion from Millie and Silly. It
Speaker 1: puts all this together and synthesizes something new. And now
Speaker 1: you know, we can also talk about I think something
Speaker 1: that you and I and our pal Jeff all love
Speaker 1: the band The Avalanches.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, it was only a matter of
Speaker 2: time The Avalanches since I left you. In addition to
Speaker 2: DJ Shadows introducing are two album that really took the
Speaker 2: art of sampling in a completely different direction. Because again,
Speaker 2: while there might be little snippets within these that you
Speaker 2: might recognize, kind of like if you were real jazz
Speaker 2: head back in the day and you knew that little
Speaker 2: little blip that the saxophonist was referencing, you know, from
Speaker 2: another performer, these guys DJ Shadow and The Avalanches are
Speaker 2: what you call create diggers. These are folks that find
Speaker 2: stuff from yesteryear. You know, very esoteric records that would
Speaker 2: not have been very popular, and they slice and dice
Speaker 2: them to create something entirely new, you know. Not to
Speaker 2: mention you mentioned the idea of having a cappella vocals.
Speaker 2: When sampling became kind of the order of the day,
Speaker 2: you would have forty five single versions of dance tracks
Speaker 2: that would have an instrumental version on the B side,
Speaker 2: or maybe an a cappella version on the B side.
Speaker 2: Because anyone that knows about manipulating music, you know, if
Speaker 2: you have a recording that is vocals and everything in there,
Speaker 2: short of finding a section of it that doesn't have
Speaker 2: the vocals, everything's locked together. You can't separate it. You
Speaker 2: could use some equalization and maybe cut some of the
Speaker 2: low frequencies and maybe emphasize the vocal, but you're not
Speaker 2: going to have a purely music free version unless an
Speaker 2: artist decides to release a a cappella version, and they
Speaker 2: would only do that with the knowledge that a DJ
Speaker 2: might use that and drop it on top of another break.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you that to me shows the
Speaker 1: collaborative nature here because think about it, you are a musician,
Speaker 1: You're creating stuff. This still happens with a lot of
Speaker 1: hip hop, a single comes out and you'll have the
Speaker 1: version that has the verses on it, the vocals, and
Speaker 1: then you'll have that instrumental version. Because this is true,
Speaker 1: it's meant for other up and coming and sees and
Speaker 1: producers to be able to digest that music, to make
Speaker 1: it their own in some way, and it spreads your
Speaker 1: original song as well. It can be when it works,
Speaker 1: it can be a win win, and you can make
Speaker 1: new music entirely from samples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like like I said, there are those two
Speaker 2: records that we're talking about since I left you and
Speaker 2: introducing those records are made almost entirely out of snippets
Speaker 2: of samples. But unless you were coming to it with
Speaker 2: a deep knowledge of you know, the source material, which
Speaker 2: is I mean we're talking hundreds and hundreds of samples.
Speaker 2: This is not music made to feel necessarily referential to
Speaker 2: a specific song. It's more using this stuff to create
Speaker 2: kind of a nostalgic pastiche that just sort of is
Speaker 2: meant to be sort of bathed in, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a sonic tapestry as opposed to like here's the you know,
Speaker 2: the eight bar drum break from Funky drummer, you know,
Speaker 2: by James Brown and if you if you happen to
Speaker 2: pick out little bits, that's part of the fun too.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are whole websites like WhoSampled dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm actually on.
Speaker 2: It's phenomenal where it'll actually go through and dissect the
Speaker 2: best of.
Speaker 1: Whom at whatever internet.
Speaker 2: You know, music sleuth stability, exactly what was used, and
Speaker 2: this stuff will be combined with synthesizers and you know,
Speaker 2: drum machine sounds. But typically you know these artists like
Speaker 2: DJ Shadow is a DJ, like he is a turntablist,
Speaker 2: and you will hear scratchy kind of you know, sounds
Speaker 2: like turntable manipulation, the avalanches they use you know, records
Speaker 2: and they are DJs, but they're not like super you know,
Speaker 2: proficiently scratchy, you know DJ turntableists. They're much more producers.
Speaker 2: So you start to get into like the sampling as paint,
Speaker 2: you know, the sampling as color, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also I like to from a creative perspective,
Speaker 1: I like to think of it as building a band
Speaker 1: in your head. You know, like these like Wallace Collection,
Speaker 1: who got sampled by Skinny on a beautiful day you guys,
Speaker 1: remember that song. That's that's a beautiful example. They they
Speaker 1: had no idea what would happened to the music they
Speaker 1: created when they were making it, and then Skinny comes
Speaker 1: along and says, hey, I wish this stuff all worked together.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty cool, and I think it's going
Speaker 1: to continue despite the controversies we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to continue because the technology continues
Speaker 1: to evolve as well, and tracks are merging seamlessly together.
Speaker 1: Like when it's It's almost like the idea that Chekhov
Speaker 1: has about being a good author. The author disappears right.
Speaker 1: The samples no longer sound like samples, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these things they just sound as though they are
Speaker 1: part of one amazingly created, eclectic, cohesive song, and anyone
Speaker 1: to our earlier point in Part one about democratization of
Speaker 1: technology and creativity, anyone with a digital audio workstation can
Speaker 1: edit and manipulate samples in their own songs today. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, one great example of sampling from our days
Speaker 1: in the trenches of podcasting is a little top secret
Speaker 1: project that we used to call the anti podcast This.
Speaker 1: I think the statute of limitations has passed, but good
Speaker 1: friend of the show, Tristan McNeil, and several of several
Speaker 1: of our producers in the family did this beautiful thing
Speaker 1: where they started taking out takes and bloopers from some
Speaker 1: of your favorite podcasters and making them into tracks. And
Speaker 1: Max were you involved with this?
Speaker 3: I was non involved with that. That was a little
Speaker 3: before my time at the company. But I have made
Speaker 3: one of the two of y'all on a recording of
Speaker 3: stuff that I want you to know. When y'all use
Speaker 3: the term that I had coin called girking, Yes, I've
Speaker 3: made the Girking that has not been released to the public.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is safe to release to the public.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think iHeart would love that out in you
Speaker 3: know the world.
Speaker 1: But yes, might be our might be for our Criterion
Speaker 1: collection right when when, Yeah, when Criteria moves into podcasting.
Speaker 1: So this is where we're at now. We're now going
Speaker 1: closer to the present day. It's not just for hip hop.
Speaker 1: You will hear this in electronic music, of course, like
Speaker 1: some of your favorite house, jungle, drum and based stuff
Speaker 1: also utilizes sampling to great effect. And we can still
Speaker 1: see that evolution happening in real time, the old school
Speaker 1: hip hop producers inspired people like Ya, inspired people like
Speaker 1: Timbaland and the Neptunes, all of whom have made wonderful tracks.
Speaker 1: Putting personalities aside, They've all made wonderful tracks at one
Speaker 1: point or another. And this sampling kind of it plays
Speaker 1: a big part in defining the era of hip hop
Speaker 1: at a given at a given time, right, and now
Speaker 1: it's even now it's even becoming I would say the
Speaker 1: interval between an original song and a sample is continuing
Speaker 1: to shrink. Like in hip hop, it's not uncommon for
Speaker 1: someone to say, like jay Z's ninety nine Problems right,
Speaker 1: produced with Rick Rubin. I believe jay Z's ninety nine
Speaker 1: Problems didn't come out all that long ago in the
Speaker 1: span of history. But now it's not uncommon to hear
Speaker 1: songs coming out today where an MC verbally checks it
Speaker 1: and they talk about their ninety nine problems.
Speaker 2: Right, or the hundredth problem, or it might be because yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's where the line between sampling and kind of
Speaker 2: interpolation because very interesting because it's all, you know, in
Speaker 2: a sense, a way of kind of check name checking
Speaker 2: or sound checking pop culture, you know, and then kind
Speaker 2: of tying your thing into a history, you know, and
Speaker 2: being part of this whole conversation, because I mean, music,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, is just another oral tradition, right.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent, which is why we shout out grio's
Speaker 1: when we talked about the early days of MC's. So
Speaker 1: this is something you have probably run into if you
Speaker 1: have ever worked in the field of audio, not even music. Okay,
Speaker 1: give you another little war story. Way back in the day,
Speaker 1: when podcasts had just become a real thing and we're
Speaker 1: no longer a twinkle in the eye of how stuff works,
Speaker 1: we were actually making podcasts, we were able to use
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff as references. You know, it hushed
Speaker 1: up the audio in the show. You may have longtime
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. You heard us possibly do taking a law
Speaker 1: and order sound cue for Casey on the Case one
Speaker 1: of our first references, which we loved so much, and
Speaker 1: in our business we were able to we were able
Speaker 1: to describe some of this stuff as fair use, right,
Speaker 1: educational value. But as podcasting became more and more of
Speaker 1: an industry and became more and more mainstreamed, the suits
Speaker 1: started to pay attention. You could no longer have nol
Speaker 1: and Max and Ben do a rendition of you know,
Speaker 1: bone Thugs and Harmony or something, just because we thought
Speaker 1: it was funny or we thought it was cool to
Speaker 1: throw to that because there's a copyright and sampling runs
Speaker 1: into copyright issues all the time. Your favorite hip hop artists,
Speaker 1: favorite hip hop songs or albums that have samples on them.
Speaker 1: It's someone's entire to figure out how to make it
Speaker 1: okay to put that on a track.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they call it clearing samples and the opposite of
Speaker 2: cleared samples or uncleared samples. And as we know, sometimes
Speaker 2: folks will roll the dice or at least you know
Speaker 2: more when it was maybe the wild West time, which
Speaker 2: lasted a pretty good long time from the beginning of sampling,
Speaker 2: like in the eighties to when folks started to realize
Speaker 2: if they paid closer attention they could maybe make a
Speaker 2: bug because this stuff started flying highly above the radar.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's you know, even with music licensing for podcasts.
Speaker 2: To your point, Ben, there's a whole company that you
Speaker 2: work with that we work with at iHeart to make
Speaker 2: sure that everyone's getting compensated and the use of the
Speaker 2: piece of music is agreed upon and that person has
Speaker 2: to find the holders of the copyright for two what
Speaker 2: they call sides of the of the piece of music.
Speaker 2: There's the composition copyright and then there's the actual recording
Speaker 2: right and you know, the composition is codified by you know,
Speaker 2: literal music notes on a page. If you register a
Speaker 2: copyright for a piece of music, you are submitting sheet music, right,
Speaker 2: and you're getting you know, like Lennon McCartney, whatever it
Speaker 2: might be. You know, however, you agree to divide up
Speaker 2: your royalties, you know, for songwriting credits.
Speaker 1: The recording is different than that.
Speaker 2: It is literally the copyrighted audio recording of that thing,
Speaker 2: you know, that specific version of that song. That's why
Speaker 2: you can it's a little easier to do a cover
Speaker 2: of a song because you only have to pay royalties
Speaker 2: for the composition side, and then you've made a whole
Speaker 2: new piece of music, you know, out of what would
Speaker 2: have been the recording side.
Speaker 1: And this stuff can get complicated when you're in the
Speaker 1: in the deep water, right when you're talking a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream music, because so many people have a part
Speaker 1: to play in the creatorholders, yes, stakeholders, and it is
Speaker 1: going to be more people than you expect. It is
Speaker 1: incredibly rare for there to be a mainstream artist that
Speaker 1: has written everything, performed everything, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: that has done everything by themselves. It's extraordinary, I would argue.
Speaker 1: So now that we're in the world of litigation of copyright,
Speaker 1: of law and order sampling, I think we can get
Speaker 1: away with that one. Yeah. Right, So you have to
Speaker 1: get permission, you have to pay these royalties or these fees.
Speaker 1: And the copyright holders who first started taking notice of this,
Speaker 1: they were aiming for folks like Public Enemy. Public Enemy
Speaker 1: used a lot of samples, and at first, in the
Speaker 1: early days of this, purchasing the rights to use a sample,
Speaker 1: it wasn't very expensive. You're still paying money, but it
Speaker 1: was like a new revenue stream for these copyright holders.
Speaker 1: And as people realized this was as they realized they
Speaker 1: had struck financial oil. Basically, the fees grew. Additional fees
Speaker 1: were added, things called rollover rates, and they started saying, okay,
Speaker 1: we will charge you not just a one time fee,
Speaker 1: but we'll charge you based on how many units, how
Speaker 1: many CDs you sold. Right, So now you're kind of
Speaker 1: incentivizing the creators not to sell as much of their song,
Speaker 1: which is weird. Well, you're basically getting points, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like that's what you would consider like when
Speaker 2: you do a negotiation for like a film, like as
Speaker 2: a high level actor, you negotiate for getting all I
Speaker 2: want an executive producer credit and I want X number
Speaker 2: of points you know, percentage points on the gross. So
Speaker 2: at this point you're giving away, you know, to these
Speaker 2: stakeholders a good bit of your profits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, they're eating your lunch, as the old school,
Speaker 1: as the old school madmen of the world would say.
Speaker 1: And look, everybody knows everybody on every side of the
Speaker 1: table here. They know that in general, these artists aren't
Speaker 1: sampling stuff to play it off as their own. Nobody
Speaker 1: is hearing the Funky Drummer riff and thinking, oh, this
Speaker 1: person made that up right. It's it is an homage.
Speaker 1: It is a sample. But intentions aside. The reality is
Speaker 1: from the copyright holder perspective, these folks are still making
Speaker 1: money off of stolen work. We're bringing up Funky Drummer
Speaker 1: again because Clyde Stubblefield, the original drummer there has, as
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, still not received compensation for his
Speaker 1: drumming or for how it's been sampled and it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing, though, Ben, that's part of that
Speaker 2: recording copyright. Right, Clyde stubble Field was paid as a
Speaker 2: session musician. He doesn't have points on the back end.
Speaker 2: He's a high copyright And that's the thing that's really interesting,
Speaker 2: and it goes back to our whole conversation about collaboration
Speaker 2: and about synthesis. You know, a band like James Brown band,
Speaker 2: you know he's got these season funk kind of jazz players.
Speaker 2: A lot of that stuff is improvised. It's not like
Speaker 2: James Brown told note for note Clyde Stubblefield exactly what
Speaker 2: to play on Funky Drummer. It's called Funky Drummer because
Speaker 2: Clyde's doublefield is the funky drummer and is incredible. And
Speaker 2: he was playing completely from the heart and from you know,
Speaker 2: his intellect as a musical you know mind. This thing
Speaker 2: that then caught so many ears. Wow, this is next level.
Speaker 2: We're gonna loop this for days. And that's why it
Speaker 2: is to this day, I think one of the most sampled,
Speaker 2: you know, pieces of drumming, you know, in the history
Speaker 2: of sampling. It's like the vill Helm scream of drum,
Speaker 2: it's like the will Helm and that guy probably isn't
Speaker 2: getting paid for that either. But my point is, no
Speaker 2: one's exactly ripping off Clyde Stubblefield. He didn't make this,
Speaker 2: isn't you know, But he didn't have the power to
Speaker 2: make that, you know, to push for that at the time,
Speaker 2: because he was a hired gun and only history has
Speaker 2: proven him to have been this high water mark moment.
Speaker 2: You know that he didn't even know he was creating
Speaker 2: so and we see other examples of that as well,
Speaker 2: like in a tribe called Quest samples take a Walk
Speaker 2: on the wild Side by Lou Reed and you know
Speaker 2: that iconico that slide base or whatever, that was a
Speaker 2: session musician as well, who made that up and probably
Speaker 2: was sort of given a guideline around what to play.
Speaker 2: But he's the one who did that, and he's not
Speaker 2: getting paid for that either. And in fact, I believe
Speaker 2: that Lou Reed, in his infinite you know, crotchetiness sued,
Speaker 2: you know, can you the tribe call Quest over?
Speaker 1: Can you kick it? Can we kick it?
Speaker 2: And I think he gets every bit of royalty for
Speaker 2: that song. And do you think the guy who played
Speaker 2: that bass slimee that they sampled gets a dime of that.
Speaker 1: No, No, I hope, I don't know. Things get sticky
Speaker 1: right when money is involved. And another famous or infamous
Speaker 1: example of copyright issues would be our Pow Danger Mouse.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, Danger Mouse created something called
Speaker 1: the Gray Album, which was a really well done mashup
Speaker 1: end to end stem distern mashup no skips the White
Speaker 1: album with jay Z jay Z's versus from the Black Album.
Speaker 1: It was really cool. A lot of people liked it,
Speaker 1: people who didn't like it. Em I the label that
Speaker 1: owns the Beatles recordings, and they make a ton of
Speaker 1: money off this, so of course they're protective of it.
Speaker 1: They slapped him with they slapped Danger Mouse with a
Speaker 1: C and D, a cease and desist order so he
Speaker 1: couldn't release the album in a way that made him money.
Speaker 1: But this is also the era of what's called peer
Speaker 1: to peer networks, tarrantine, LimeWire, yeah, whatever help you know,
Speaker 1: And this and that is where this record found its audience,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, and you would you would find
Speaker 1: mislabeled versions of it all the time back you know,
Speaker 1: in these days to kind of hide it from the
Speaker 1: suits or whatever.
Speaker 2: Because this was also in the days where you would
Speaker 2: have divisions of companies like EMI kind of scraping these
Speaker 2: torrent sites for pirated material, for stuff that was infringing
Speaker 2: on their copyright. And then they could, I think, subpoena
Speaker 2: your IP address from your Internet service provider and then
Speaker 2: they would serve you, the user, with a cease and desist.
Speaker 2: It was it was called something like the Web Sheriff.
Speaker 2: It was some I'm guessing bought based thing, but there
Speaker 2: had to be some human element too. And I remember
Speaker 2: this was back in the day too of like you know,
Speaker 2: people torrenting TV shows, you get them from HBO for example,
Speaker 2: for torrenting like the Sopranos or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you can't stop it.
Speaker 2: You make one person take it down, fifteen other people
Speaker 2: are gonna put it up. And that's how the gray
Speaker 2: Out album really kind of found this audience. And this
Speaker 2: is also right in the era of girl Talk. Like
Speaker 2: you mentioned girl Talk, The night Ripper of that record
Speaker 2: samples all kinds of stuff, and if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: none of that stuff is cleared. And while I don't
Speaker 2: think you can get like a physical copy of that record,
Speaker 2: it's you can stream it on YouTube all day and night.
Speaker 2: You know it's hit in this way that was part
Speaker 2: of a cultural explosion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and shout out to Jane McGrath over at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Jane is an old friend of mine. Jane
Speaker 1: wrote How Music Sampling Works, which is a great look
Speaker 1: at some of the modern problems. Here. One thing that's
Speaker 1: I think kind of controversial, at least to me, probably
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. The folks who are suing
Speaker 1: for damages in copyright cases around samples, Like you said older,
Speaker 1: they're often not the people who created the thing being sampled.
Speaker 1: They are companies that have acquired the rights to the music.
Speaker 1: So now you're in a weird situation where someone made something,
Speaker 1: they put it out in the world, and then a
Speaker 1: company somehow acquired the ownership of that. They never made
Speaker 1: the music, but they are suing other people who have
Speaker 1: attempted to use or somehow profit from that. That's why
Speaker 1: a lot of times you will see mixtapes released right
Speaker 1: or something something sent beneath the radar where someone can
Speaker 1: say I wasn't profiting off that, this is just a
Speaker 1: mix for me and my friends.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's the interesting thing too. Man and maybe
Speaker 2: you have a little more clarity or max around this.
Speaker 2: Is it only copyright infringement? Can they only go after
Speaker 2: you if you're profiting from it? Like what if you
Speaker 2: just put it out on like SoundCloud and stuff? Are
Speaker 2: there people? Because technically, you know, even if something isn't
Speaker 2: making you money directly, if it blows up, even if
Speaker 2: people are getting it for free, that is money in
Speaker 2: the bank in other ways.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, requisite disclaimer, we're not lawyers, but it seems
Speaker 1: to be the case that if someone's used in the
Speaker 1: aren't paying you and you find out about it, then
Speaker 1: you can sue for damages. And if they say I
Speaker 1: didn't make any money, then they'll tell you what the
Speaker 1: Sixth Circuit Court said to jay Z. They'll say, get
Speaker 1: a license or don't sample stuff. Oh and this this
Speaker 1: Bridgeport situation.
Speaker 2: One man company. That's what you might call like a
Speaker 2: copyright troll or a patent troll. You know, someone who
Speaker 2: goes and looks for things that maybe the copyright has
Speaker 2: expired on and acquires them and then is able to
Speaker 2: sue other artists for either sampling that material or perhaps
Speaker 2: ripping off a melody you know, we know, like with
Speaker 2: blurred lines for example, which wasn't a case of sampling
Speaker 2: that was the Robin Thick song. It wasn't a case
Speaker 2: of sample produced by Pharrell of the Neptunes, which maybe
Speaker 2: mentioned also a hugely influential producer in this world. It
Speaker 2: was so similar to a Marvin Gaye song. I believe
Speaker 2: it was Marvin gay that there. That was a big issue,
Speaker 2: and I think they ended up having to give a
Speaker 2: portion of the royalties, you know, to that organized whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, whoever governs Marvin Marvin Gay's estate copyright.
Speaker 1: GE's so weird, Like remember when John Fogerty got sued
Speaker 1: for sounding too much like himself. That's insane.
Speaker 2: I don't even fully I need maybe he need you
Speaker 2: to explain that to the group, because I don't think
Speaker 2: I fully understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Fogerty, you know, the lead singer and guitar
Speaker 1: player and songwriter of Creden's Clearwater Revival. He was sued
Speaker 1: for self plagiarism because the label that controlled Creden's Clearwater
Speaker 1: Revival said that a song he wrote later, not with
Speaker 1: the label, called The Old Man Down the Road sounded
Speaker 1: too much like a song Credence had made called Run
Speaker 1: Through the jungle Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it makes sense that that also, you know,
Speaker 2: it speaks to the complexity of having relationships with labels
Speaker 2: and the idea of them owning your music. We're talking
Speaker 2: about the artists now, not just other people trying to
Speaker 2: sample that music, where you can literally no longer own
Speaker 2: the creative work that you've made anymore, and to your point,
Speaker 2: be sued for doing something even that's in the vein
Speaker 2: of that. And we know that it's hard to you know,
Speaker 2: copyright the sound of a voice. But I think there
Speaker 2: was also a thing recently with a case of who's
Speaker 2: the Rick roll guy Rick Astley? I think someone Rick
Speaker 2: Astley sued somebody for doing like a sort of a
Speaker 2: jokey cover of never Going to Give You Up because
Speaker 2: he said it was like an impression and it sounded
Speaker 2: too much like him. But I don't know if that
Speaker 2: case is actually resolved yet, because that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1: The idea. You can you know, you can.
Speaker 2: Copyright a line of lyric, Perhaps you can copyright a
Speaker 2: combination of musical notes, you can copyright a recording, But
Speaker 2: can you copyright like the sound of someone's voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Another example outside of the world of music, just
Speaker 1: audio and copyrights and trademarks and stuff. The guy from
Speaker 1: wrestling who says let's get ready to rumble is notoriously litigious,
Speaker 1: like to the point where apparently his team has shut down.
Speaker 1: I haven't confirmed this, but I heard his team shut
Speaker 1: down like a high school production. Oh yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 3: And he's like got a monopoly on it for boxing,
Speaker 3: and it's what I believe his brother does UFC also,
Speaker 3: So it's just like this one family that controls all that.
Speaker 1: M yeah, you're right, boxing excuse me, not necessarily resting,
Speaker 1: but this so people can get into these lawsuits accidentally. Right,
Speaker 1: let's do one more sample. Can I just oh, can
Speaker 1: I just double back really quickly? The case with Rick Astley,
Speaker 1: by this is super relevant. Young Gravy was a rapper.
Speaker 1: He got the rights to do an interpolation, in other words,
Speaker 1: re recording the song never Gonna Give You Up. But
Speaker 1: you did that in order to avoid having to pay,
Speaker 1: you know, for the licensing of the actual sample. So
Speaker 1: they recorded it.
Speaker 2: But the lawsuit alleges from Astley that was filed in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Court claimed that while they did secure the
Speaker 2: rights to re record the melody and the lyrics, they
Speaker 2: recorded it too close to the original and infringed on
Speaker 2: their right of publicity by quote flagrantly impersonating Astley's voice.
Speaker 1: Right. And then here's another example to show all this
Speaker 1: is complex. This is the story of black Box. They
Speaker 1: sample the vote of someone named Loletta Holloway and they
Speaker 1: use this vocal in a song they may called Ride
Speaker 1: on Time. It's very obvious that they're using this Holloway
Speaker 1: sample from her song love Sensation, but they're creating a
Speaker 1: stutter with it. They're stuttering the vocal hook and they
Speaker 1: come out with a music video. The music video shows
Speaker 1: a model who is miming along to this altered hook.
Speaker 1: And even though black Box cleared the sample they had
Speaker 1: a licensing agreement with the label, they got a legal
Speaker 1: challenge from Holloway's lawyers because they didn't credit her vocal.
Speaker 1: They got the rights to it, but they didn't put
Speaker 1: her name in there. And so there are a lot
Speaker 1: of variables. There are a lot of not love that's term,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of stakeholders. And the best
Speaker 1: way to put it is air on the side of caution.
Speaker 1: All the legal precedents aside which are still being made.
Speaker 1: You could argue, if you publish music that takes somebody
Speaker 1: else's work samples it without permission, you could theoretically face
Speaker 1: a legal challenge, no matter how short the sample is,
Speaker 1: no matter how obscure. Basically, I think the rule of
Speaker 1: thumb is you're more likely to have lawyers at your
Speaker 1: door if you're using a very recognizable sample, and if
Speaker 1: you're making any significant amount of money. Well, and we've.
Speaker 2: Talked a little bit about fair use, the idea of
Speaker 2: fair use, and you know, there are certain factors like
Speaker 2: parody you know, for or like you know, satire, I
Speaker 2: guess is considered a factor of fair use that could
Speaker 2: be protected. Another one is the idea of making using
Speaker 2: the work in a way that is transformative, and that
Speaker 2: refers to adding something new, to give it a kind
Speaker 2: of a recontextualize, give it a different purpose, different character,
Speaker 2: or do not substitute for the original use of the work.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: While fair use is defense, it still means you got
Speaker 2: to go to court.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, also anybody associated with the legal world, any
Speaker 1: attorney who is a ridiculous historian. When you hear people
Speaker 1: who are not lawyers talking about fair use, I can
Speaker 1: only imagine that your your chest titans and your stomach drops.
Speaker 1: Because every time I've been talking about fair use with
Speaker 1: any sort of legal department, aw it, they all love
Speaker 1: it. It's not there. It's not their favorite string of words
Speaker 1: in English. So a lot of producers do get away
Speaker 1: with using unlicensed samples, right breakbeats, drum solos. There are
Speaker 1: also tons and tons of tracks that get lost in
Speaker 1: studio limbo. They never see the light of day. Fast
Speaker 1: forward several decades. Someone comes in and they say, oh wow,
Speaker 1: I really like this hook from this unreleased nineteen sixties thing, right,
Speaker 1: And they may not even know if it's cutting room
Speaker 1: floor stuff. They may not even know the original artist,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, I like this song. Imagine if
Speaker 1: it had a cool, you know, synth beat behind it. Now,
Speaker 1: you see, for for a little while there were CDs
Speaker 1: that were compilations of samples and you could just take
Speaker 1: this and do with it what you will. However, that
Speaker 1: was a pretty short lived halcyon era. Now we're talking
Speaker 1: about sample libraries, and we use these in the world
Speaker 1: of podcasting because we like it saves a lot of
Speaker 1: time and a lot of heartache to go into some
Speaker 1: kind of archive a collection of sound cues or honestly
Speaker 1: sound alike music. A lot of people use that, right,
Speaker 1: Uh did you see did you watch thirty Rock? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thirty Rock had this great this great bit. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the main part of an episode, but they had this
Speaker 1: great bit where they ran into legal issues trying to
Speaker 1: do a Joplin Yeah, Jedis Jorplin or Nick Jump jorb yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever they call it. Yeah. And this they have this
Speaker 1: hilarious depiction of the corporate side of this, wherein the
Speaker 1: person playing the character they cannot call Jaddis Joplin sings
Speaker 1: songs that have to be just different enough for them
Speaker 1: not to get sued.
Speaker 2: Well, And I think there was actually a real life
Speaker 2: example of that where Andre three thousand, no maybe he
Speaker 2: was gonna do I can't remember who ended up playing.
Speaker 2: There's Jimmy Hendrix biopic that has no Jimmy Hendrix music
Speaker 2: in it at all. And that's interesting, right, And Like,
Speaker 2: I'm actually working on a podcast about the Rolling Stones
Speaker 2: and about album Exile on Main Street and rather than
Speaker 2: you know, we could clear all the music, but it
Speaker 2: would be very expensive, and we're trying to tell a
Speaker 2: story in audio form. So I was actually lucky enough
Speaker 2: to work with a bunch of really great musicians and
Speaker 2: make it. I wouldn't call it sound alike music because
Speaker 2: it's not like this one is supposed to be a
Speaker 2: one to one for jumping Jack flash. It's more just
Speaker 2: vibey music in the you know, genre of the time,
Speaker 2: and like record it in a way that gives it
Speaker 2: that same feel, maybe similar instrumentation. But that's a lot
Speaker 2: of the kind of stuff you'll find on these libraries.
Speaker 2: And then you also will have sample libraries that are
Speaker 2: really high fidelity recordings of saying orchestra doing like oh
Speaker 2: stressful horror Q number three, right, and anyone can use
Speaker 2: it because it's cleared for that use. And usually when
Speaker 2: you sign up for one of these services there are
Speaker 2: terms of the use, and if you're not careful, you
Speaker 2: might notice that, oh, you can't actually use it in
Speaker 2: this setting. So always be careful if you're using stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And sometimes they're not cleared in perpetuity across
Speaker 2: all creation, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, Yeah, you have to read the fine print
Speaker 1: very carefully because the fine print is where the ugly
Speaker 1: things can be hidden, especially consequences. So these sample libraries
Speaker 1: are very very useful and efficacious because they have a license,
Speaker 1: and the license may be restricted to certain usages. It
Speaker 1: may have any number of constraints a time window, for instance,
Speaker 1: or saying that this can be used, but it cannot
Speaker 1: be used in the following ways. It just goes on.
Speaker 1: When it comes to sampling music laws, you have to
Speaker 1: know the lay of the land, and you have to
Speaker 1: assume that it's possible you could accidentally cross some kind
Speaker 1: of threshold trip a legal wire of some sort. And
Speaker 1: the one of the issues that a lot of copy
Speaker 1: left proponents have, if you're familiar with the copy left movement,
Speaker 1: one of the issues they have regarding copyright protection is
Speaker 1: that it increases the barriers for up and coming artists
Speaker 1: in the world of music. It can make things incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1: Like if you're a musician in the United States, at
Speaker 1: least from what I understand, music is automatically copyrighted from
Speaker 1: the get go. You have to when you when you
Speaker 1: commit it to some medium, right you have to So
Speaker 1: you have to always assume you need permission to use
Speaker 1: someone else's work in your stuff, even if it's a
Speaker 1: tiny thing, you know what I mean. I can't believe
Speaker 1: we got through I think we've done this on purpose,
Speaker 1: But I can't believe we got through uh a two
Speaker 1: part episode and didn't mention the debacle of vanilla ice.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, that's probably really familiar.
Speaker 2: But that whole clip of him defending that is part
Speaker 2: and parcel of like not just not getting it right. So, no,
Speaker 2: they left out a note. You know ours is is?
Speaker 2: It repeats the note, and I think the it's under
Speaker 2: pressure by Queen and David Bowie and this is baseline
Speaker 2: and in the real one they just repeat that. They
Speaker 2: don't do the pickup note and then the vanilla ice one.
Speaker 2: I guess they added the note. I'm a little unclear.
Speaker 2: It is the sample, right, Like, it's definitely a sample.
Speaker 2: It's not just them copying that baseline and playing it differently,
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 1: Ah, it doesn't really matter for the purpose of this argument.
Speaker 2: But he on behind the music or whatever they was,
Speaker 2: defends it by saying, no, no, see ours is different. Yeah,
Speaker 2: ay has one extra note and that's just kind of
Speaker 2: missing the point. But what ended up happening with that?
Speaker 2: Did he have to give up a massive portion of
Speaker 2: his royalties? I think so.
Speaker 1: Actually he agreed to a private settlement. They stayed out
Speaker 1: of court because he paid to have the rights to
Speaker 1: under pressure, and then he credited both Bowie and Queen
Speaker 1: on I Sized Baby, so the songwriting credit still goes
Speaker 1: to them. That you know, that's a all's well, that
Speaker 1: ends well sort of thing, and not all of these
Speaker 1: things end well. But be on the side of the air,
Speaker 1: on the side of caution as as a creator, as
Speaker 1: a musician, because even with the best of intentions right,
Speaker 1: even if you're most people doing this aren't out for
Speaker 1: a cash grab. When you're making music, you're just inspired
Speaker 1: by something you want to share and communicate that inspiration
Speaker 1: tis a noble thing, but you gotta be careful. Unlike
Speaker 1: music licensing, to do a cover right and sell a cover,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a sampling license. This means
Speaker 1: that the holder of the copyright doesn't have any obligation
Speaker 1: to grant you permission. The original rights holder can basically
Speaker 1: create their own playing field. They can decide the terms
Speaker 1: for clearing a sample. They can say no.
Speaker 2: Case in point to the settlement out of court with
Speaker 2: Bowie and Queen, they obviously were good sports about it
Speaker 2: relatively or that also was a little earlier on right
Speaker 2: and before maybe their lawyers would have been like, nah,
Speaker 2: we want to get points on this for like ever
Speaker 2: in all time. Apparently e ice Baby generates about half
Speaker 2: a million dollars a year, you know, in royalties.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: There are certain examples where artists who have been sampled
Speaker 2: and hasn't been cleared have pushed to the point of
Speaker 2: now they get every bit of that you know money.
Speaker 2: Ye like with the case of Walk on the wild
Speaker 2: Side by Lou Reed and a tribe called Quest.
Speaker 1: How about this one Old Crow Medicine show how they
Speaker 1: broke out with wagon Wheel that skyrocketed them to national
Speaker 1: and global acclaim. Now, of course, these guys Old Crow,
Speaker 1: they are a bunch of very talented musicians. They've had
Speaker 1: a lot of past members, but they're they're all really good. No,
Speaker 1: Trump's in the squad. Wagon Wheel is based on an
Speaker 1: unfinished Bob Dylan song, and they had to go back
Speaker 1: and work with Bob Dylan's team to make sure everything
Speaker 1: was right and not to sound too mafioso about it,
Speaker 1: to make sure everyone was made whole. Oh yeah, exactly now.
Speaker 2: And then that's you know, and that's not sampling, that's
Speaker 2: a cover or an interpolation. If you will because they
Speaker 2: kind of took it in a different direction because it
Speaker 2: was not a completed song. So it's hard to cover
Speaker 2: something that hasn't been fully you know. But as y'all
Speaker 2: can see, I mean, this whole world just has so
Speaker 2: many interesting ins and outs and we're not at the
Speaker 2: end of it by a long shot. Because now, if anything,
Speaker 2: the playing field is wide open, and that we have
Speaker 2: this wealth of records, you know, that you can get
Speaker 2: at thrift stores for no money, and interesting up andcoming artists,
Speaker 2: things like vapor Wave where people are sampling, like you know,
Speaker 2: literally there's a whole I just got this record from
Speaker 2: Poland by this artist called Macintosh. Plus I got it
Speaker 2: from Poland because it's a bootleg. You can't get this
Speaker 2: album in any sanctioned form because it's just full of
Speaker 2: uncleared samples, like you know, half speed kind of lounge
Speaker 2: music and you know, weird old like radio commercials and
Speaker 2: like that's the vapor wave things. So there are whole
Speaker 2: new musical cultures around uncleared samples. But it's all taken
Speaker 2: to the internet. Oh you know, yeah, it very much is.
Speaker 1: And here is where I think we we wrap our
Speaker 1: series for today, by which I mean we're both about
Speaker 1: to freestyle. I'm kiddet, we are going to We're gonna
Speaker 1: call it a day. This is such, This is such
Speaker 1: a journey, and it's one that continues, and we wanted
Speaker 1: to explore the origin of what we call sampling and
Speaker 1: music all the way to the modern day. Sampling will continue.
Speaker 1: Legislation is always outpaced by technology, and somewhere right now,
Speaker 1: as we record, there is a mad genius in a
Speaker 1: studio or maybe in their garage building the next breakthrough
Speaker 1: in the world of sampling, and I, for one can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear it.
Speaker 2: No, I can't either, And like you know, I am
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I am said mad genius or anything,
Speaker 2: but basically all the records that I have down in
Speaker 2: my studio are weird thrift store fines of like drum
Speaker 2: you know, drum circles and children's records with weird little
Speaker 2: melodies and stuff from the sixties. It's like political spoken
Speaker 2: word things or you know, congo bands or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of weird cre ristian records that were made
Speaker 2: probably in very limited runs by churches. They end up
Speaker 2: in these thrift stores around the South here. But to
Speaker 2: your point, Ben I love sampling this stuff for fun.
Speaker 2: I would be very careful if I was going to
Speaker 2: release it, because even if I think no one's even
Speaker 2: maybe alive associated with this weird religious record you know
Speaker 2: from the sixties, but who knows, maybe someone is and
Speaker 2: if the song became a hit, all of a sudden
Speaker 2: that person takes notice. The fact that they committed that
Speaker 2: thing to vinyl in the sixties is proof that they
Speaker 2: own the copyright.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so be careful out there, folks. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear the next generation of sampling, the next generation
Speaker 1: of music concrete, big, big thanks to super producer mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Huge thanks to research associate Jeff Bartlett, who
Speaker 1: really whit hard in the paint on this one. And
Speaker 1: thanks to let's see who would be the most likely
Speaker 1: to sue us for copyright in frenchman Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, well I'm not. I ain't scared. Let's in
Speaker 2: a fringe away on mister Strickland man. This is a
Speaker 2: fantastic conversation, Ben, and thanks Max for always being with
Speaker 2: us as our super producer, you know, on the ones
Speaker 2: and twos, as Ben would say, and now we know
Speaker 2: where that actually we didn't really explain the one on
Speaker 2: the one being the left turn table, two being the
Speaker 2: right turn table.
Speaker 1: There you go, There you go, folks, We'll see you
Speaker 1: next time.
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