sample this

in my reminiscing about the halcyon days of rap and hip hop i put my rap playlist on the ipod and enjoyed the sounds of the late 80s and early 90s.

i think part of my enjoyment of the early days of this musical artform was the sampling; not so much the blatant ripoffs a la Puffy; but the snippets of tracks. i grew up with a diverse musical background with all manner of influences. my mother had music appreciation on Sundays after church and she`d unleash the Al Green, Bob Marley, Handel`s Messiah, Ace Cannon, Herb Albert, whatever she thought was appropriate. I also spent a lot of time at my aunt`s house and she had children in their late teens to early adulthood who shared their music as well. this sound musical background help me rediscover music i`d know and loved as an element in music i was just discovering.

i`ve always said i would give almost anything to go through Fatboy Slim`s record collection, his use of obscure samples is sublime. there also used to be a website that kept track of samples in popular hip hop but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

lately i`ve been enjoying the smash-ups. i`ve never been a big fan of either the Beatles or Jay-Z but i love Dangermouse`s Grey Album as well as the Kleptones` Queen/hip hop smash-up and the London bootmixed which is a remix of the Clash`s London Calling.