Stacks on stacks Samples on Samples

Copyright and contracts, “who owns what? Why does it matter? What do you need to look out for? What are your rights?” this week’s issue discussed was copyright and what I found most relevant to me was an article on how to legally clear samples. Coming from a Hip-hop and RnB background, these genres are heavily sample based and most of the groove is dictated by the sample from a record or another original track. Samples make their way around in most genres but hip-hop and RnB use samples as a strong foundation to create a new feel and mood for that particular song. As a young producer myself hoping to create amazing tracks like those created by Kanye West, DJ Premier, Noah ‘40’ Shebib, Dre, RZA, Havoc and many more, it’s hard to get into contact with the copyright owner to ask for permission and its no surprise because they don’t have time to deal with unsigned, indie producers.

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Established artists today are still getting in legal trouble because of not clearing samples correctly. On Drakes 2013 album “Nothing Was the Same”, the intro to “Pound Cake” was sampled off Jimmy Smith’s “Rap” from his 1982 jazz album. Smith died in 2005 but his estate sued Drake for not correctly clearing the sample. Below is the Drake track that he used the sample on and on the right is the original Jimmy Smith track.

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I can’t personally say that I’ve sampled from other tracks because I am still learning however this doesn’t mean I will never sample already created samples. 40 describes music as a “collective of inspirations, applied in a new way”. This is sampling and music in general. Even when making what we make think is an original chord progression or melody, somewhere along the line, someone else has probably already used that same progression because we are brought up and wired into thinking the we way we do which is in major and minor scales.

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As a studying producer that will mostly likely go onto becoming an indie producer, I will not have the luxury of using samples to set the groove for my tracks and I will have to do what most starting out producers had to do which is prove myself by making original tracks. Not only that but also creating a portfolio of my own sound to show my passion and interest in becoming a well known producer.