It Takes A Nation of Samples

AJ Vogt
Mar 20, 2016
2 min read

Sampling is not uncommon to any genre of music, but in Hip Hop sampling is huge. Artists are often using small pieces of one song or another to create new beats.

Public Enemy used samples often, but even more interesting were how many times they were sampled, which was over 2,000 times. Their song "Night of the Living Baseheads" was sampled by The Black Eyed Peas and even Janet Jackson, both pop artists, and obviously not speaking about the same issues that Public Enemy was. Another one of Public Enemy's records, "Bring the Noise" was sampled many times by many artists, including big name rappers like Kayne West, Ludacris and Eminem.

Public Enemy was not the only popular rap group that was sampled often. Salt N Pepa, one of the first female rap groups were also sampled quite a bit. Their hit song, "Push It" was sampled over 70 times by artists including the Gorillaz and Pitbull, who again is far from a rap artist. Public Enemy even sampled one of Salt N Pepas records. Not only was there crossover with sampling, it was happening inside and outside of the same genre.

Run DMC, another popular rap group around the same time as Public Enemy and Salt N Pepa was sampled over 1600 times. Their record "Peter Piper" was sampled 187 times by artists including Missy Elliot, 50 Cent, Beastie Boys and DJ Khaled. Probably the most famous is "Work It" by Missy Elliot.

As one can see, samples are used by artists of all genres, and thus the issue emerges of meaning. Every time an artist is sampled, their original meaning is skewed, or completely changed to fit a new meaning of a different artist. This can sometimes be difficult to deal with when taking a sample of rap music and altering the meaning of lyrics to fit into popular music.

Check out the "Peter Piper" video, and then Missy Elliot's "Work It" (which happens to be one of my favorite songs) and see if you can spot the sample.