Despite having created one of the most important musical cultures of the last sixty years, producers who use digital sampling have historically struggled to be taken seriously as artists. Although there has been an increasing amount of academic works written on the hip-hop instrumental, there has been a failure to find a standard method of analysis in which to properly dissect and discuss this form. Within this essay, I will be examining the existing modes of analysis used, including the technical, musicological, textual, and ethnographic, in an attempt to identify a universally employable analytical framework. By critiquing these existing methods, this essay will highlight the complex and malleable nature of sample-based hip-hop, and how it resists traditional analysis.
Sample-based compositions have been an integral part of hip-hop since its genesis in the late 1970’s, and became increasingly important within the “golden-age” of hip-hop in the 1990s. For this initial period of hip-hop’s history, the instrumental (the beat) and the vocals (the rap) were considered inseparable, and the majority of academic work focused either on the relationship between the two, or entirely on the spoken element. However, since the 1990’s there have been a multitude of artists and albums that have proven that the hip-hop instrumental has value in its own right. Endtroducing (DJ Shadow, 1996), Deadringer (RDJ2, 2002), and Donuts (Dilla, 2006) all enjoy critical acclaim. This same period also saw the advent of auteur producers, such as J Dilla and Madlib, each of whom have achieved equal critical success with their standalone instrumental works, as much as they have with their collaborations with rappers.
Due to the growing acceptance of beatmaking and digital sampling as an artform, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of work that takes the subject as its main focus. As Mike D’errico writes in his essay Off the grid: instrumental hip-hop and experimentalism
As artists and audiences continue to embrace beat-making as the so-called “fifth element” of hip-hop culture, scholars must continue to examine the sometimes elusive elements behind the beat that work to define and shape it. (D’errico, 2015)
‘Elusive’ is a fitting description, as despite approaches from numerous analytical frameworks, there has been a failure to establish an appropriate mode of analysis that can be applied when discussing beat-making and sampling. This isn’t for want of trying, however the transient nature of hip-hop culture, alongside the non-traditional musical practise of sampling, present issues when utilising traditional analytical models.
Throughout this essay, I will be outlining and examining the existing frameworks that are currently used when approaching sampled-based hip-hop instrumentals, in order to identify the main issues when utilising each analytical approach, and whether a standard analytical model can be established.
These current frameworks of analysis can be roughly divided into four areas, each of which will be a focal chapter of my study:
For my study, I will be looking at various published works that employ the above methodologies, and referencing these against the work of notable hip-hop producers. The focus here will be on the artistic and technical issues that apply to discussing sample-based music, rather than the legality and copyright issues involved when sampling different intellectual properties.
When approaching hip-hop instrumentals from a technical standpoint, there are a litany of factors that need to be considered, with the foremost of these being how to address the practice of sampling and borrowing that hip-hop adopts. Ultimately a non-traditional perspective needs to be applied, and there are several works that attempt to create analytical frameworks in which this area can be discussed and examined.
In her Ph.D dissertation A Typology of Sampling in Hip-Hop, Amanda Sewell posits
There are three main types of samples: structural samples, surface samples, and lyric samples. Each of these types has a distinct function in a sample-based track: structural samples create the rhythmic foundation, surface samples overlay or decorate the foundation, and lyric samples provide words or phrases of text. (Sewell, 2013)
Alongside the three functions, Sewell also notes the existence of “aggregate samples” (Sewell, 2013), that serve as more than one type within the typology.
This typology is a “a tool for talking about sample-based hip-hop” (Sewell, 2013), and as a viewpoint, focuses on how the sample itself exists in the composition, and how it functions. Using this typology allows the analyst to refer to elements of an instrumental to discuss them in more depth, and bring into focus the use of intertextuality, as well as opening up wider interpretations for discussion.
This methodology is helpful when approaching instrumentals with multiple samples, or ‘sound collage’, which were especially common during the golden age of hip-hop (the case studies Sewell uses to showcase this technique are Fear of a Black Planet (Public Enemy, 1990), and Paul’s Boutique (Beastie Boys, 1989)). This typology has also been used to break down more modern compositions, such as by Zachary Diaz to dissect the 8 samples used in Workinonit (Dilla, 2006), in his essay Analysis of Sampling Techniques by J Dilla in Donuts (Diaz, 2018). However, the wider trends of beatmaking since the end of the golden age have indicated a moving away from this multi-layered approach, with producers such as The Purist and Daringer favouring stripped back approaches.
Another form of sampling terminology coined by Zachary Diaz (which he expanded on from ideas in John Oswald’s 1985 essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as Compositional Prerogative), is the idea of samples falling into the roles of “Plunderphonic Expectation”, “Plunderphonic Fulfillment,” and “Plunderphonic Transformation”. These are characterised by the“presentation of a sample in its original form, the rearranged or “chopped” version of the sample, and the resulting effects of the lyrics or melody and its rearrangement, respectively“ (Diaz, 2018). The method, as outlined by Diaz, can be utilized to show how a sample has been transformed from its original form into something new entirely, and how this transformation process can be conveyed to the audience through the use of Plunderphonic Expectation and Plunderphonic Fulfillment. However, both this mode and Sewell’s typology are not universally applicable, and do not factor in some instances of digital sampling. Take, for example, the beat Styrax Gum (MF DOOM, 2003). This song consists of a single structural sample, with no other layers, and consists of a looped sample of Galt MacDermot’s Princess Gika (MacDermot, 1969), the section of which appears about 0.48 seconds into the original. While there is a difference between the original sample and the beat, there is not an instance of plunderphonic expectation or fulfillment, though the sample itself has been transformed. This transformation has been achieved by speeding up the original sample, which has created a momentum that results in it feeling both emotional and urgent. This is an example of transformation being accomplished by the manipulation of the sample through dynamic processing, time-stretching and/or digital effects, rather than through the act of chopping and rearranging the sample into new melodic, rhythmic and harmonic compositions..
It is this focus away from the sample itself and how the sample has been processed which is at the front of the analytical works of Michael D’Errico. D’Errico writes on how these processes are used to create what Adam Krims termed “the Hip-Hop Sublime”, which is defined “as an aural effect of beatmaking invoked through “layers marked by clashing timbral qualities” (Krims, 2000 as cited in D’errico, 2015).
While Krims’s analysis focuses on the sample-layering techniques of “golden age” producers as a way of articulating a destabilizing sonic effect in which “massive, virtually immobile and incompatible layers of sound are selectively and dramatically brought into conflict with each other” at the level of tonality, exploitation of side-chain compression expands this notion by introducing extreme contrasts of frequency, amplitude, and rhythmic dissonance. (D’Errico, 2015)
This is supported by a case study of The Payback (Madlib, 2006), where side chain compression is used to destabilize the sound, but within the context of a loop “becomes transitional material, enhancing the effect of the anacrusis and solidifying the stability of the beat” (D’Errico, 2015). This use of a processing technique to manipulate and enhance the groove of a beat, whilst also forefronting the technique itself is what Anne Danielson refers to as “the exaggerated rhythmic expressivity of the machine” (Danielson, 2010 as cited in D’Errico, 2015)
It is this expressivity of the machine that I find an interesting concept to hold on to. There has been a consistent link between the producer and the equipment that they employ throughout Hip-Hop’s history. D’Errico writes in his essay Behind the Beat: Technical and Practical Aspects of Instrumental Hip-Hop Composition
For the arbiters of hip-hop authenticity, everything from what type of turntable, drum machine, or sampler is used, to the type of sounds that are chosen for sampling and the general affect or “feel” of the beat serve to mark one’s style as unique. (D’Errico, 2011)
A focus on the technology itself has always been present throughout hip-hop. Producers of the golden era movement who used the “Akai MPC and E-Mu SP-1200 to create instrumental mixtapes with gritty, lo-fi audio qualities (12-bit sample resolution, as opposed to 16-bit CD quality audio)” (D’Errico, 2015), were forced into this method of production through necessity and lack of technological advancements.
Post-golden era producers went on to openly reject technological advancements, with Madlib stating
I don’t have no computers, I don’t have any big setups people have. I just have a 303 sampler, or SP 12, or whatever I use, and just records. That’s all I need. I mean, I buy new things like an MPC, but it’s still basically the same. I’ll be having no computer setup or 24 tracks and none of that Pro Tools. (Madlib Interview | Stones Throw Records, 2004 cited in D’Errico, 2015).
The wider availability of DAWs (digital audio workstations) in the 2000s was rejected by Madlib, J Dilla and their peers so that they could “exploit the unique textures that the digital effects on the SP-303 could produce” (Diaz, 2018).
However, over the last decade there has been a change, and emerging producers “have challenged this aesthetic emphasis on technological limitations, embracing emerging digital tools” (Diaz, 2015). The vanguard of this are the practitioners of the LA Beat Scene, and integral artists such as Flying Lotus. However, despite this rejection of traditional beat making tools in favour of embracing the technology of the future, these producers still put a major focus on putting the actual processing techniques, such as massive compression, to the forefront of their beats. Hip-hop has always had authenticity of it’s practices as a focal point, and this new wave of producers can be seen as being authentically inauthentic.
This highlights that although the technology, methods and content used in sample-based hip-hop are constantly changing, with both adherence to and rejection of tradition shaping the sampling landscape, there is still often a constant found throughout - the foregrounding of techniques. Whether it be samples or use of certain technologies; the embracing of the limitations of hardware, or utilising the endless possibilities of software, these are always pushed forward to the audience, rather than hidden away. It is a defiant “look at me!” A hyper textual signalling. An embracing of the elements that are usually hidden in other genres of music.
Overall we can see that although the aforementioned techniques are helpful for highlighting and discussing techniques and phenomena in the type of instrumental they are relevant to, they provide a limited analytical perspective. This is due to the ever-evolving nature of what a hip-hop beat can be, and the practices employed by those creating them. It should also be noted that although these methods may give effective tools for discussion, they need to be used in parallel with other modes of analysis in order to explore anything deeper than the surface level practicalities of a hip-hop beat.
In his essay The Musical Analysis of Hip-Hop, Kyle Adams writes
Hip-Hop resists traditional modes of musical analysis more than almost any other genre. The techniques developed for the analysis of Western art music, even when they can provide accurate descriptions of some of hip-hop’s surface phenomena, often leave the analyst without a deeper sense of how hip-hop operates and why it seems to communicate so effectively with such a broad audience. (Adams, 2015)
Addressing some of the key issues with observing hip-hop through the lens of musicology, Adams alludes to an element that exists within the genre that transcends traditional modes of analysis. Adams’ essay focuses predominantly on Western music theory, and how hip-hop can not be appropriately analysed by the technical tools that this mode affords. Here he outlines practical issues, such as that the tools are built around music that is goal orientated, whereas hip-hop is cyclical, meaning it is built around a 2 or 4 bar loop.
Despite the awareness of the difficulty in analysing hip-hop from a musicological standpoint, Adams, like many musicologists before him, still uses this lens as his primary tool, trying to rearrange and reinterpret the framework so that it can be used. A primary example of this, and the first music-theoretical work (and still arguably the most influential) on hip-hop is Adam Krims’ Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (2000), who reimagined the music theory as music poetics. However like most analytical works, this focuses on the rapper and lyrics, with the beat as a side thought.
Schloss posits that whilst Krim “has moved the analysis away from specific notes and toward larger gestures, he has retained the rest of these conventions” (Schloss, 2004). The conventions here being that of the conceptual framework of western European art music, or Music Theory, as it is commonly referred to in the west. It is that framing of the analysis of European art music as Music Theory that we find some further issues when using it as a tool of hip-hop analysis.
Music Theory can be seen as a racial ideology in which the views and ideas of white persons are viewed to be more significant than the views or ideas of non-whites - (Ewell in Neely, 2020)
Whilst discussing rap music in a 2019 episode of his podcast, political commentator Ben Shapiro stated
In my view, and in the view of my music theorist father who went to music school, there are three elements to music, there is harmony, there is melody and there is rhythm. Rap only fulfils one of these, the rhythm section. There’s not a lot of melody and there’s not a lot of harmony. And thus, effectively, it is basically spoken rhythm. It’s not actually a form of music. (Daily Wire, 2019)
Although this sweeping and misinformed statement was targeted at the spoken element of hip-hop this is an opinion that is also applied to the instrumental, and points to the wider issue of trying to analyse hip-hop from a musicological perspective. If we look at Shapiro’s emphasis on his “music theorist father who went to music school”, this implies that his father has an authority on all music. This supports Philip Ewell’s argument that there “exists a “white racial frame” in music theory that is structural and institutionalized” (Ewell, 2020). It is in regard to Ewell’s work that we can clearly see that western music theory is not the main lens in which we should be looking at hip-hop, or arguably any music outside white European music of the 18th Century.
However, this is not to say that it is just the application of a western theory that is the issue. Analysis has been made utilising the more suitable musical theories of African music (such as Cheryl Keyes’ At the Crossroads: Rap Music and Its African Nexus), but as Joseph Schloss writes, these works are “primarily of academics trained in western musicology”, and that “This approach requires that one operate, to some degree, within the conceptual framework of European art music: pitches and rhythms should be transcribed, individual instruments are to be separated in score form, and linear development is implicit, even when explicitly rejected” (Schloss, 2004).
Schloss argues here that musicology is a pitfall when trying to analyse something that doesn’t quite fit, and it starts to merge with Ewell’s idea of a white racial frame that exists within music theory (and indeed sections of society itself). Furthermore, it is difficult to explore race without also drawing on class issues, and it is here that Schloss makes another argument against a musicological analysis of hip-hop
I am not saying that these transcriptions are inaccurate, or even that the elements that they foreground are insignificant, only that they represent a particular perspective, which is, as I said, that of their intended audience: musicologists. (Schloss, 2004).
It is the underlying issues of this that I find most interesting. Although there is some virtue in transcribing and analysing hip-hop in this manner, it is a form that only captures one perspective, and that this perspective is a privileged one that is often mostly afforded to the white and middle class. As a genre that was born from deprived African-American communities, it not only makes sense that it rejects analysis born from the opposite, but that the cultural and social issues that make the analysis problematic are the same issues in that the music itself is born from and retaliates against.
Textual Analysis of Sampling in Hip-Hop - Why?
In his 1995 book Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism, Russell Potter describes hip-hop as being both political and postmodern
How exactly hip-hop culture can be seen as postmodern has everything to do with this same peculiar splitting of time. In one sense, African Americans have good reason not to give too much credence to "progressive" time, since for four hundred years most of the economic "progress" in the United States has disproportionately benefited its white citizens. (Potter, 1995)
Potter posits that America’s history of plantocracy, and the following despair and struggle of African Americans into modern times is fundamental to the context and subtext of hip-hop. Along with this postmodern and political reading, Potter identifies sampling as a form of Signifyin(g), “a concept theorized by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in African American literary studies, and adapted to Black musics by Samuel A. Floyd Jr.” (Williams, 2015).
The concept of Signifyin(g) can be paraphrased as “repetition with a difference; the same and yet not the same” (Potter, 1995). This is elaborated on by Justin A. Williams in his 2015 essay Intertextuality, sampling, and copyright. Williams asserts that musical forms can Signify what came before them - “the sampling of classic breakbeats, to use but one example, is certainly a foundational instance of musical Signifyin(g) in hip-hop, musically troping on and responding to what has come before” (Williams, 2015). In this context sampling does not just reuse a sound, it continues and builds upon its contextual meaning.
Williams links the concept of Signifyin(g) to Bakhtin’s theory of Dialogism. Dialogism is the process in which meaning is evolved out of interactions among the author, the worth, and the listener, as well as how these elements are affected by the social and political context in which they are placed. This in turn is linked to the multivocality of texts - how different groups will have different associations of the same text based on their pasts and the meanings they attach. The combination of these three forming “important academic frameworks in which to understand hip-hop’s borrowing practices” (Williams, 2015).
The lens of postmodernism and intertextuality provides us with a seemingly endless source of analysis and discussion in regards to sampling practices, and the material which is being sampled. When analysing from the angle of Reader-response Theory, the abundance of meaning in texts comes from the audience and how they interpret it. This adds an additional layer of complexity when looking at sample-based music, as the producer can also be considered the audience. The producers are listening and taking meaning from the song they are sampling, and then interpreting and presenting this to another audience, thus multiplying the different avenues in which meaning can be extracted. This conveyance of meaning has been interpreted as being a direct objective of the sample-based producer, as Andy Cush writes in his review of Soul Ancestors (Madlib, 2021)
Some producers specialize in manipulating their samples until they are unrecognizable; for Madlib, the hearing itself—the noticing—is as important as whatever happens after that. (Cush, 2021)
An interesting case study of the relationship between sample, producer and audience is that of J Dilla’s album Donuts (Dilla, 2006), which was produced by Dilla whilst he was in hospital due to complications brought on by TTP and lupus, and was released 3 days before his subsequent death.
Throughout the album, the samples used by Dilla explore themes of death, love, and self-reflection. Many of these themes of death specifically have stemmed from interpretations by both fans and loved ones. (Diaz, 2018)
Due to his knowledge that he was dying, it is possible that Dilla inserted meaning into his record through carefully selected sample choices, and the album is a widely used source of analytical discussions on sampling. In his book exploring the album, Jordan Ferguson writes that the tracks are a perfect example of “Dilla “speaking” through his samples and urging his friends, family, and fans to not mourn his death” (Ferguson, 2014). A notable instance of this is the track Don’t Cry (Dilla, 2006). However, these readings are contrasted by Zachary Diaz in his in-depth analysis of sampling on the album, who argues that “although it is intriguing to discuss these many interpretations and how they relate to the possible themes of death and mortality in the album, they are speculative at best'' (Diaz, 2018).
As in all artforms, it seems that there are countless ways in which meaning can be imbued and interpreted into a hip-hop instrumental. However, the idea that inserting meaning is a primary objective of producers is disputed by Joseph A. Schloss’ in his 2004 book Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop
producers are not particularly concerned with using samples to make social, political, or historical points. In fact, symbolic meaning (as opposed to pragmatic value within the musical system) is almost universally overstated by scholars as a motive for sampling (e.g., Potter 1995, Rose 1994, Costello and Wallace 1990). Generally speaking, producers value the meaning of a particular sample not primarily for its own sake, but more as a venue for ambiguity and manipulation. (Schloss, 2004)
Schloss argues that samples are chosen primarily because they are beautiful, rather than for any other meaning. This is backed up by an interview that Schloss had with producer Samson S.
When I asked Samson S. if he would sample a song because of what it represented to him, he was unequivocal in his response: “Not based on that fact alone. I don’t care how much the record meant to me, if it’s not poppin’. . . . I go on just straight sound, man. You know, ‘Do I like it?,’ ‘Does it sound good to me?,’ that type of deal. I don’t really get all up into this mystical shit” (Samson S. 1999, in Schloss, 2004).
These contrasting viewpoints highlight the complications, as well as the merits and the downfalls of viewing hip-hop through an analytical lens. It may be argued because of hip-hop’s origins in deprived African-American communities that there is a sociopolitical expectation, when in actuality the music is made purely because it sounds good to those who make it. Conversely, it may be that history and meaning is always present in art that comes from certain social contexts, and is imbued through the artist themselves, whether or not they are consciously aware of it. Perhaps what makes the analysis of hip-hop so interesting is that it can mean anything, everything, or nothing.
Ethnographic Study - Who?
The first and still one of the only major scholarly works focusing on the hip-hop instrumental is Joseph G. Schloss’ Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop. Published in 2004, Schloss’ ethnographic study was conducted and written over the 6 years preceding release, a period where hip-hop had already become a global phenomenon.
When considering ethnic diversity, Schloss argues that although hip-hop is African-American music, it does not have to be created and performed by those of African Descent - “all producers— regardless of race—make African American hip-hop. And those who do it well are respected, largely without regard to their ethnicity” (Schloss, 2004). Schloss’ study therefore includes interviews with people from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds.
However, at the time of writing, although the audience was global, the main practitioners were considered to be American, and Schloss’ study focuses purely on producers from inside the USA (Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Seattle). Since this period, Hip-Hop has grown exponentially as an artform, with people practicing it all over the world.
Since this expansion of the form, multiple academic works have been written on the individual hip-hop communities that have arisen in different geographical locations. These include; Keepin’ It Real: Negotiating Authenticity in the London Hip-Hop Scene (Speers, 2014), Japanese hip-hop: alternative stories (Manabe, 2015), and Hip Hop and the Public Sphere: Political Commitment and Communicative Practices on the Norwegian Hip Hop Scene (Nærland, 2014). Like most hip-hop analysis, these works tend to focus on the rapper/vocalist, rather than the production element. As much as these works shed light on their individual cultures, they tend to provide a micro perspective. These smaller communities of hip-hop scenes and cultures thrive in their own geographical environments, as do the countless subcultures and variations of hip-hop that exist within the United States. However outside of this, over the last decade we have seen producers from all over the world find international success, and often collaborating with big name artists in the United States (which is considered the global centre of hip-hop culture). These include the UK’s Paul White, who collaborates frequently with Detroit rapper Danny Brown, Norway’s Fredfades getting features from Californians M.E.D and The Koreatown Oddity, and Japan’s Nujabes work with Cyne’s Cise Starr.
The further expansion of hip-hop practise and creation outside of the United States is highlighted by the advent of “lo-fi hip-hop”, a subgenre of instrumental hip-hop based directly on the work of sample-based producers J Dilla and Nujabes. Labels and playlists spearheading the genre, such as Paris’ Chilled Cow, Rotterdam’s Chillhop, and London’s College Music have found massive global success, with Chillhop alone amassing “over 1.1 billion streams on Spotify in 2019” (Hu, 2020). Of the producers releasing material on these labels, the minority are from the United States, with most of them being from Europe and Japan.
This globalisation of the practitioners of hip-hop means that when we approach hip-hop through an ethnographic lens, we are only ever going to be looking at a small fraction of what is actually happening. Ethnographic research is always going to be a lengthy task. It will involve having to build trust within a community first, before then conducting interviews and on-the-ground research. When taking to a global level and with the culture ever expanding and involving, both in macro and micro levels, it becomes an almost endless task. Where do we start? Where do we end?
The practicality of conducting a worldwide ethnographic study of hip-hop sampling and beatmaking practices is only one of many roadblocks that could be encountered. Within each group, whether it be within a country, within a city, within a small group of likeminded people, there will always be similarities and differences, and even outright contradictions. If we look at the development and eventual rejection of techniques showcased in my technical analysis chapter, we find that the ever evolving practises of hip-hop do not stay the same within one geographic subculture. So where an ethnographic study can give us an insight into a certain time and place, the transient and constantly developing nature of culture means that its perspective has an expiration date.
Conclusion
The past chapters outline several of the main modes of analysis utilised when looking at sample-based hip-hop instrumentals. Although the technical analyses of D’errico, Diaz and Sewell provide useful tools and viewpoints in which beats can be examined, they do not present a comprehensive method of analysis due to the expansive nature of the genre. Similarly, there is some merit to be found in musicalogical transcriptions and theory, but this interpretation is still incomplete. Though the nature of taking pre-existing recordings and rearranging them into new compositions may provide interesting harmonic and melodic phenomenon for the musicologist, it is the intertextual meaning and cultural significance of the act of sampling itself that provides the more interesting path of analytical thought.
Within much of the academic work on hip-hop, we see the intrinsic issues of class and race. The existence of a white racial frame within music theory can be applied more widely to a societal view of hip-hop music, and black culture itself. Up until 2014, sample-based music was not eligible for the Song of the Year award at the Grammys. This presents evidence of a system that looked down on sample-based music, and favoured “traditional” genres such as rock. Although undoubtedly change has happened, this traditionalist point of view is still prevalent in discussions of popular music. Some argue that sample-based music is stealing, and doesn’t warrant any respect due to it’s lack of ingenuity and talent. The inherent condescension of this being that the creators of sample-based are less talented because they do not play traditional instruments, or are cheating. However, having explored the complex nature and history of sampling, I would posit that arguments suggesting that sampling is not an artform due to preconceived notions around musical borrowing (and the copyright issues that incur because of this) is a form of racism and classism hidden under a veil of legal bureaucracy.
To spend time addressing these views may be unwarranted, as they are becoming increasingly archaic, with modern critics and audiences finding significant artistic value in hip-hop. This is echoed by the amount of academic study that has taken place around it. However, issues of classism are still endemic within the analytical practice itself, as the world of academic study is disproportionately populated by the socially and financially privileged. This raises questions on whether an analytical norm should be founded, as at best they offer an outsider perspective of the form, and at worst risk being a type of class voyeurism. Analysis also results in contradictions, which is highlighted by the works of Potter, who argues that samples are chosen because of their distinct social or historical meaning vs. that of Schloss, who argues that scholars overstate the importance of meaning in sample choice and that they are chosen primarily for their beauty. Do these contrasting views invalidate each other? If we consider both separate perspectives is one more important than the other?
The way that hip-hop rejects traditional analysis and refuses to entirely fit into any specific analytical form begs the question should it be analysed at all? There may be inherent issues with using critical theory and analysis, but there is still endless meaning that can be construed, even if it is only available to those with an analytical background. However, it can be argued there are further meanings that are available to the layman. What is taken from sample-based music stems from the relationships between the audience and the artist, the audience and the sample, and the artist and the sample. It is also the broad and varied appeal of hip-hop that has made it connect with so many people, and that accessibility should be available to the privileged as well as the underprivileged. Hip-hop is universal.
So if there is not a comprehensive mode of analysis for hip-hop, is there one that is most suited? I would argue that every track should be taken on its own terms, as these terms are constantly changing and growing.
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