Who is sampled

The answer involves the invention of two new musical genres, a new piece of technology and a power blackout. Every day, fanatical music lovers identify hundreds of samples from songs old and new and add them wiki-style to the database of WhoSampled. Chris Read, the head of content there, vets each new entry with his team of moderators before it makes it onto the site.

Artists who have used the break include early hip-hop acts such as N. The first MCs — impresarios such as Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Bambaataa himself — had started spinning their favorite tracks at clubs and parties, inspiring their young followers with a treasure trove of danceable beats. These MCs were already highly competitive with one another; they hoarded their favorite albums and masked the identity of their favorite tracks much easier to do in the pre-Shazam days.

That competition was taken to another level after the NYC blackout of One that we did that I particularly enjoyed was with the Isaac Hayes catalog, because it is obviously very heavily sampled. It was like a mini site, which really delved into his history as an artist, where he came from, and all of his creative accomplishments.

But also showing how much his music influenced the current generation. Also, because WhoSampled is the leading destination for information about this stuff, we also want to bring a positive voice into the discussions around sampling. We have a project called Samplethon, which is essentially a hackathon for a music producer. Then they have a time window to make a track from those samples. One will be coming early next year.

The idea is to partner with a label that owns some really cool catalogs and clear it up front and make it available to producers, so they can sample it legally without any concerns about clearance and all that kind of stuff.

Then, we give them an opportunity for that music to be released on one of these labels. It feels like a collaboration between them and just encourages that positive dialogue between those two sides of this story.

Check out the WhoSampled Samplethon here. For the most part, yes. I sample and I guess my approach is to try and treat sampling like producing a band.

So, I like ideally to take drums from one place and take my keys, or whatever else it is, from another place and horns from another place and try and construct something new out of multiple parts and layers.

I like to do as much for the challenge and the creative processes, as anything else, to try and build things from the ground up. I mean, that has to be the one, I would say. I mean, the Amen Break is so completely integral to drum and bass and jungle. So, that is its defining thing for me. The laws around sampling are horribly out of step with the realities of how music is made. If you take a much broader view. The concept of borrowing ideas from the people that went before you and reworking them, or adding to them or changing them, has been part of the way music has evolved forever.

After however many years, someone added lyrics to it and then it became something else. Then, that was set to a new tune, or it became popular in a certain way. You see it in classical music all the time—people quoting phrases from other well known composers, as almost a little nod to them. Or maybe even just doing new arrangements of a piece of music that was written years before. All of these things are, in my mind at least, parallel to sampling. I have always loved researching my favorite hip hop songs to see what they sample, and your website is my favorite tool.

I loved doing it so much I made a radio show dissecting songs and playing their samples when I got to college. I called it WhoSampled. Found so much new stuff to play on my show. Thank you WhoSampled! Use it almost daily if not for sure a few times a week. I hope it can be resolved as I use this app more than any other and absolutely love it.

Thanks for the kind words! We're sorry to hear that you've been experiencing these issues. We aren't aware of any such widespread problem so can you please write to us via the Settings tab in the app so we can help you troubleshoot? Thanks, WhoSampled Support. This is the first and last app I have ever paid for and I clearly made a mistake doing it.

The app is exactly like their website which is FREE. Hi, we're sorry to hear that you're unhappy with your purchase. We try to make it very clear in the app's description that the music recognition functionality comes at an additional cost. We hope you will give the app another try and find it useful.