J Dilla - Sampling

One of my favourite producers of all time spent quite a bit of time in his career as a sampler. Which would mean he would take fragments of well-known songs and mash them together to make something new and fresh. James Dewitt Yancey, or more commonly known as ‘J Dilla’ worked with high profile names in the hip-hop and soul music scene in the 90’s. Dilla worked tracks for artists such as D’angelo, Quest, Busta Rhymes and the list goes on. As much as he is known for producing the music that so many people know and love today, he is also very known for his work as an MC. Thousands of well-known tracks have a J Dilla remix where he puts the spin on something that nobody could touch. It is argued that Dilla crossed copyright lines but realistically he hasn’t done anything illegal. Copyright refers to “a set of laws that governs the creation, reproduction, and distribution of original works that can be perceived” (Dames 2007, p25) What Dilla did was retain all the rights to the original artist, but used that track as a base to make something new. Has anyone really invented anything? Or have famous inventors used other inventions by other inventors to “invent” something new? Making something completely new is one thing, but using the tools that everyone has access to, to find a new use in conjunction with another tool is a different story. In relation to music, yes, sampling is illegal. But it’s a very grey area because the argument of what is directly stealing something and taking an idea and changing it gets confusing. One of the Beastie Boys, commented on the issue of sampling on an article. He says "It's a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. We might take a tiny little insignificant sound from a record and then slow it way down and put it deep in the mix with, like, 30 other sounds on top of it. It's not even a recognizable sample at that point. Which is a lot different from taking a huge, obvious piece from some hit song that everyone knows and saying whatever you want to on top of that loop.” (Beastie Boy, 2013 - lifeportal.com) That quote basically sums up my position on sampling. Reference List Lisasmusz, 2013, retrieved 26 September 26, 2013 Dames, K 2007 ‘Understanding PLAGIARISM AND How It Differs from Copyright Infringement’, Vol.27, Issue. 6, pp.25-27.