African Hip Hop: The untapped potential in sampling.
By Rita Kufandarerwa (Amber Stones)
It is irrefutable that sampling is a key aesthetic characteristic of hip hop. The use of samples in hip hop is an entrenched and controversial rite of passage. The aural nourishment of a well sampled beat can not be minimized, like Check the Rhime by A Tribe Called Quest which is a sample from Minnie Riperton’s Baby This Love I Have. We can granulize the seduction of sampling by bringing it close to home with Bank Alert by P Square which was sampled from Iyogogo, a classic song by the sensational Onyeka Onwenu. The digital manipulation of sound requires source material. When hip hop was born, inveterate diggers predominantly sourced breaks and bass lines from funk or jazz classics. Africa has rich sources of samples, from Ghanaian High-life, Cameroonian Makossa, Congolese Soukous, Angolan Zouk, Zimbabwean Sungura to South African Marabi. With this dizzying array of sonic sources, why are our hip hop producers not digging?
The idea of digging and finding usable sound pieces is an art that most contemporary producers do not possess. One has to have an unconquerable esoteric record knowledge in order to do that. To many contemporary producers, this is rather boring and most prefer to create beats from scratch. While that approach works, there are so many aesthetic sensibilities that are being sacrificed on the altar of bottom-up beat making. Hip hop can grow and morph into a genre that rewards originality but, sampling will always remain an abstract idea of musical beauty.
Over the years, art in the form of music has been modelled as a transferrable commodity that someone should pay for. This brings us to the bone of contention in so far as sampling is concerned-: copyright. Sampling requires an adherence to a defined set of professional ethics. Courts all over the world have seen nasty copyright battles with millions of dollars changing hands, settling intellectual property theft cases. Sample clearance raises a very difficult methodological issue for most producers. In order to clear a sample, one has to obtain two sets of permissions which are publishing rights and master rights. This type of bureaucracy is enough to dull any appetite to retain a melody from a classic song.
Sampling as a technique rests in history. There is no sustainable way of developing a veritable sample without studying history. Reading, studying and researching are the key elements of obtaining music knowledge. These elements are considered by many producers as dues that they will not pay. Unfortunately, the only picture that can be painted from music creations which lack historical roots is not appealing. Beats or musical collages of sound and rhythmic poetry form the basis of hip hop. The marriage of these two discrete endeavours must work from both ends. A disquiet between the two begets half-baked hip hop songs which have invaded our airwaves ad nauseam.
The musical output from African samples we have is stellar. Tweezy chopped and mixed Ngiyakusaba, the disco classic by Brenda Fassie to give us All Eyes on Me, an evergreen hip hop hit. Burnout by Bra Sipho Mabuse remains a stubborn and unchallenged sample source. I hope I am speaking for listeners like me who are appreciative of subtlety and would like our producers to dig deep into our old African music and immortalise it. By encouraging more sampling, I am not trying to take away any merit from producers who create beats from scratch. I am prompting hip hop producers to look for those harps and violins from our African classics which are grievously underutilised. To those producers who lace their beats with classic samples, keep at it- the universe will reward you with a cult following of the old and young.
Play music, be carried away- eternal orgasm.