" 'Hip-hop's corny now.'If we take corny to mean stuck in a formal rut, Jay-Z is right. "
If I've read the rest of this article correctly, Slate is suggesting how to save hip-hop:
Starting in the mid-90s, sampling as an art form was torn asunder by law and love of money - and the music once based on what Greg Tate called "that rare ability to extract the lyrical from the lost and found" got dead boring.
Oh, don't worry, Sasha Frere-Jones doesn't come out and say it like that. Like most people who write about music, she's swept up by the passion of a personality. The savior of hip-hop is a personal savior: "This is why God invented Kanye West". But as she discusses West's aesthetic strategies, it becomes clear that what sets him apart is a conscious return to sampling - and therefore to referencing - earlier works.
" Sampling is ... a means of post literate production. ... Sampling in rap is a process of cultural literacy and intertextual reference. ... In addition to the musical layering and engineering strategies involved in these soul resurrections, these samples are highlighted, functioning as a challenge to know these sounds, to make connections between the lyrical and musical texts. It affirms black musical history and locates these 'past' sounds in the 'present'.Rap DJs and producers reshuffle known cultural formulas and themes. It is in this context that narrative originality is lodged. In the age of mechanical reproduction, these cultural formulas and themes are in the form of recorded sound, reshuffled, looped, and recontextualized. "
- Black Noise, Tricia Rose
Of course, West does choose to work with other artists who have deep, deep pockets - deep enough to spring for "blue-chip" beats, hooks, and above all, context.
Sampling. Damn, I could've told them that.
. . .
File sharing and downloading are the battlefield now, and the record companies appear to be on the run. But don't forget that they've already fought one war against the idea that "music wants to be free" - and they won.
Posted by MartialI think the work of one Mr. Puffy Combs is argument enough against the notion that bringing back sampling would save hiphop.
Posted by: erin on March 17, 2004 12:13 PMWell, in order to save hip-hop, the DJ/producer also has have a talent for sampling. Puffy surely knows how to yank on heartstrings - hard. But he has no subtlety and no apparent appreciation for the complex layering of references which once made hip-hop so exciting.
Posted by: Martial on March 19, 2004 09:37 AM