Certain instruments you hear being played, certain business icons you see bring ideas to fruition, and certain voices you hear blowing out unforgettable songs. Often times they ignite a fire in you to do the exact same thing. Something about their particular body of work connects with something inside you, particularly because it’s been a dream you’ve wanted to do for a long time.
You know that dream is meant for you, but you fail to launch because you don’t want to be called a copycat, an intellectual property jacker, or accused of being lazy, taking the easy way out, or having no work ethic.
There’s nothing wrong with borrowing from someone’s established body of work. Why take a dirt road when there’s one already paved? And no matter how you dice it, there’s work involved in order to complete this task.
Before you start sampling, though, you gotta take care of the legalities, such as asking for permission to use it and, in many cases, paying the piper.
Yep, you can’t just be out here sampling stuff all willy-nilly. You’ve got to pay to play.
R.I.P. to Biz Markie, one of the great rappers and DJ’s who influenced the Hip Hop industry in his own way. You’d probably know him best from his biggest hit “Just a friend.” The way he balanced talking through the song, telling a story, accentuated with him horribly singing, “You… You got what I need; but you say he’s just a friend, but you say he’s just a friend… Oh baby youuuuuu…!”
I couldn’t mention Biz Markie without dropping those few lines!
After Biz was an already established artist and after his biggest hit dropped, he was sued by a musician for unauthorized use of samples. In spite of Biz losing that court case, he said, “I still was me. It wasn’t a rape case or a gun case. It was a sample.” In fact, his 1993 album was named All Samples Cleared. After you handle the legalities, you can proceed to baptize that project with your own special funk and soul.
You may not know this about yourself, but people recognize your flavor when they are in your presence. You put some original stank on that sample, the type of stank that only you can be identified by. It’s a signature funk/stank. And once you’ve baptized it, it’s now an original…again!
If anybody accuses you of being a jacker, just brush the haters off. They’re just mad because they weren’t savvy enough to do it before you. The crowd who sees your dopeness will hype you up and call you a genius.
Work smarter, not harder. Great entertainers, musicians, actors, and athletes do it all the time. Movies are remade and songs are sampled and remixed. NBA stars recreate infamous dunks from the past. It’s a sign of flattery, a form of honoring.
The song “Anyone Who Had a Heart” by Elton John and Luther Vandross was originally done by Dionne Warwick. Ice Cube’s song “It Was A Good Day” used a sample from “Footsteps In the Dark” by The Isley Brothers. Beyonce sampled “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly & Maze.
I could go on and on about you not being the first and only person to sample something. When you think about these samples being used and songs remade, many people love the sampled version just as much, and sometimes even more, than the original. So, basically, just do you. You only get one life. Don’t sit on the bench being afraid to get in the game and not ball out because someone has already done it before you. Shoot your shot. Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean you can’t be great doing it too. |THIS.
[By Keisha Crawford]
