Beatmakers spend hours of crate digging searching for obscure releases with sample potential. And spending an equal amount of time are those dedicated to sourcing the samples once they’ve been made into beats and released.
On Last.fm there are groups searching to expose these carefully selected snippets, and lists of original samples used by various beatmakers on various albums keep appearing online – to some beatsters great annoyance. Madlib, possibly one of the most exciting beatmakers at present and the man behind Quasimoto, Jaylib and Yesterdays New Quintet, recently requested the removal of a page revealing the original tracks he used on Madvillainy, claiming the post would ruin him as an artist.
I understand there might be a certain risk involved if the samples haven’t been cleared, but if paperwork hasn’t been dealt with prior to release, that’s a risk you take. Or is Madlib just trying to protect his sources?
Surely Madlib and others should be pleased about instilling a hunger for discovering new music in people, making sure that old tracks too good to be forgotten escape precisely that destiny. Thanks to compilations of the original samples from J Dilla’s Donuts and MF Doom’s Operation: Doomsday, I’ve discovered Atlantic Starr, James Ingram, The Deele, the fantastic Only One Can Win by The Sylvers, and realised that I should probably give Dionne Warwick’s stuff a second chance.
Why be so protective and possessive about one’s music? If you don’t want people to interact and respond, maybe it’s worth thinking twice before releasing it in the first place.
