Sampling has always been at the core of hip–hop. DJ Kool Herc knew it when he threw the first ever hip–hop party in 1973. Back then, sampling was already about who could find the most unique records and mix together the newest sounds. But by the ’80s and ’90s, production was a whole different game. Wu–Tang Clan started sampling kung–fu films, MF DOOM sampled Marvel villains, and Eric B. and Rakim put out “Seven Minutes of Madness,” one of the craziest sampling compositions ever released.
Their biggest enemy, though? Copyright infringement.
In 1989, The Turtles, an American psychedelic rock band, sued De La Soul for using an unlicensed sample of theirs on their album 3 Feet High and Rising, claiming that “sampling was just a longer term for theft.” The lawsuit came out to $2.5 million and set a legal precedent for the future of the genre—sampling wasn’t cheap, and if you didn’t get everything cleared before release, you were in for it.
This lawsuit threw a wrench into the gears of many artists who couldn’t afford to make the music they wanted. The “hip–hop is for everyone” feeling that the 1977 New York City Blackout created when residents in the Bronx looted stores for music equipment was no longer a pillar of the hip–hop community. And so, in a nostalgic look back to when music was truly for everyone, I’d like to explore some of the greatest hip–hop songs (featuring badass samples) of all time.
“Paid in Full (Seven Minutes of Madness — The Coldcut Remix)” — Eric B. and Rakim (1987)
Almost unanimously recognized as one of the most influential hip–hop duos ever, Eric B. and Rakim’s 1987 release of their first album Paid in Full—labeled as the greatest hip–hop album of all time by MTV in 2006—was world–changing.
The duo formed in 1985 when Eric B. switched from trumpet to turntables and scored a job as a mobile DJ for radio station WBLS, meeting teenage MC Rakim in the process. With the help of DJ Marley Marl, they came out with a ten–track masterpiece that plays like the opening credits to the golden age of hip–hop.
Even though the duo didn’t pay them to do it, English dance music group Coldcut remixed the title track “Paid In Full” into “Seven Minutes of Madness,” making the cut as the backing track for the official music video and taking the song to sampling heights never seen before.
“Seven Minutes of Madness” is a selective remix, or one that adds and subtracts material from the original piece, bringing in the melodies of Israeli icon Ofra Haza’s “Im Nin’Alu” and British actor Geoffrey Sumner’s vocal sample “This is a journey into sound!” to create what Rakim called the best remix he’d ever heard.
The song is both a dance floor and sonic experience, using vocal samples from another song on the album—”I Know You Got Soul“—to “Pump up the volume!” Coldcut mixed everything from spoken word to jingles into the already incredible four minutes of sound. Eric B. provided the iconic base for the track with a drum sample from The Soul Searchers’ “Ashley’s Roachclip“—which Coldcut’s Jonathan More had previously found synced perfectly with Haza’s “Im Nin’Alu” in a lowered pitch—and a bassline from Dennis Edwards’ “Don’t Look Any Further.” With Coldcut’s additive sampling of James Brown, Don Pardo, The Peech Boys, The Salsoul Orchestra and more, the song pushed boundaries of what sampling could do. It wasn’t “theft” like The Turtles said, it was art—even if Eric B. was unimpressed.
“Can I Kick It?” — A Tribe Called Quest (1990)
Queens locals and hip–hop legends A Tribe Called Quest—made up of producer Q–Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White—pioneered the alternative hip–hop scene with their unique addition of jazz and eclectic sampling skills.
“Can I Kick It?” is one of their signature songs, and is the third track off their 1990 debut album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. The song is laid–back and funky, sampling its baseline from rock musician Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” Despite being one of the most famous hip–hop songs of all time, Reed got all the royalties for the track. Sampling wasn’t something to make money off of at this point, but it was key to ATCQ’s individualistic spirit.
The drums and goofy organ vamping came from Dr. Lonnie Smith’s “Spinning Wheel,” something only a bunch of nerds from St. Albans had the magic touch to turn into a masterclass record. Q–Tip sampled all sorts of other songs for the track, taking from Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band to put their groovy chant–along together.
Beyond their lyricism, their production was beyond artistic, leading them to become founding members of hip–hop collective Native Tongues. Other members included De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Jungle Brothers, and Monie Love. The collective’s music was abstract and Afrocentric, creating one of the very first alternative hip–hop movements and inspiring future music icons like OutKast and Kanye West.
At the heart of all their fame and glory, though, was a geeky love for old records and individualism that no one could ever take away from them.
“Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” — Wu–Tang Clan (1993)
ATCQ weren’t the only nerds in 90s hip–hop. Wu–Tang Clan, kung–fu fanatics and legendary musicians, took nerdy production to the next level with their constant blend of beats and swords.
The group is made up of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, U–God, Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, and Cappadonna—almost all of whom got their names from the very kung–fu films they were sampling. RZA masterminded their unique production, being the first to sample audio from a film.
Their debut album Enter the Wu–Tang (36 Chambers) set the stage for what Wu–Tang was to become with its Shaolin and Wu–Tang (1983) theme. They made it clear that the philosophy of the kung–fu films they grew up on—especially when it came to fighting for those around them—was a key part of their artistry.
Shaolin and Wu–Tang are sampled in just about every song off Enter the Wu–Tang, but “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’,” the sixth track off the album, samples and takes inspiration from two other kung–fu staples: Five Deadly Venoms and The Mystery of Chessboxing. The track opens with the iconic line: “A game of chess is like a sword fight, you must think before you move,” taking listeners directly into a kung–fu fight of lyricism and boom–bap. RZA mixed the song with the help of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, breaking away from the jazz–based movement that Native Tongues had created and opening up the sampling catalogue to a way more diverse range of sound.
RZA’s production was revolutionary, bringing in these stories from his youth for the rest of Wu–Tang to fill in the gaps with their own lives. He didn’t sample just to make a good beat but to create a larger philosophical message about how he and the rest of the group saw the world. This message was so essential to RZA that he wrote two books on their musical and spiritual enlightenment, The Wu–Tang Manual and The Tao of Wu, talking about everything from Buddhism to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom that guided his artistic life. For Wu–Tang, hip–hop was the best medium to share this, and if they had to sample a couple of old kung–fu flicks to get their message across, they were more than equipped to do so.
Sampling made the golden age of hip–hop what it was. It brought forth new forms of creativity that no one had ever seen before, let alone heard. Producers like Eric B., Coldcut, Q–Tip, and RZA understood that looking toward the past was the new way to move forward, and the masterpieces they created are sonic proof of that.
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