Hip Hop Research Paper

Jared Wong
Professor Appert
Music 1701
Essay 2
11 November 2014
Citation, Sampling, and the Development of Academia and Hip-Hop How does sharing benefit society? The sharing of ideas is what allows a culture’s collective body of knowledge to continue expanding, and all creators benefit from this expansion. Academics constantly analyze and borrow from each other’s works as they develop new theses and perform new research, and the world of hip-hop is no different from the world of academia in this sense. In hip-hop, sharing takes the form of sampling – artists sharing musical themes and using each other’s works to create new ones. Hip-hop sampling provides artists with a “jumping-off point” from which they can develop new musical ideas.
In his book Making Beats, Joe Schloss builds on existing arguments presented by other scholars and academics and uses them to construct and support his own original argument about sampling. Similarly, in a song such as Eminem’s “Berzerk,” Eminem uses source material to construct his own song with its own unique sound and atmosphere. Although “Berzerk” prominently features a melody from Billy Squier’s “The Stroke”, Eminem utilized this existing tune in a modern way and wove it together with original rhythms and lyrics to create something different (Eminem 2011; Squier, 1984). Eminem’s song, like Schloss’s argument, is new and original; both, however, would not exist without the help of some form of borrowing. In both instances, the source material provided the support and structure necessary for Schloss and Eminem to construct new works. Sharing ideas creates a sort of workspace with material for people to develop new ideas, and this promotes the expansion of any
Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling,” which samples Avicii’s “Levels,” which in turn samples Etta James’s “Something’s Got a Hold On Me,” is an example of how two additional, original works, can be made from a certain starting point (Flo Rida 2011; Avicii 2011; James 1962). In “Good Feeling,” Flo Rida followed the procedures necessary for legally using the samples, and was able to create one of 2011’s most popular songs. Despite the fact that it reused old material, the song still achieved commercial success because it was able to utilize this material in a way which agreed with modern music sensibilities. Most importantly, Flo Rida never experienced any legal hassles from the original artists of the samples, because he had properly credited them for the work. Good, proper sampling allows new generations of artists to use a larger body of existing musical work as raw fuel for the creation of new