Re: Fujees sampling ABBA

Elson Trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Sat, 08 Feb 1997 18:51:51 -0800


At 04.24 PM 2/8/97 -0400, Zachary.Cutler@oberlin.edu wrote:

The tradition
>of recontextualizing older music isn't a new one in african-american
>music, either. When Charlie Parker reworked "How High The Moon," or
>completely distorted "My Favorite Things," he was putting the music in a
>new context that forced you to re-interpret it as a juxtaposition to the
>the original composition.

That's an excellent point; Jazz music itself was the original music form
which "stole" from previous works.
Of course, sampling technology didn't exist back then, and no one ever
dared thought of manipulating and cueing a disc on a grammophone :) But
look at how many tunes use the chord changes from "I Got Rhythm"?

Similarly, when the Fugees do Bob Marley or
>Roberta Flack, or when US3 uses "Song For My Father," the music becomes a
>completely new vehicle for the artist.

Whoa, hold on - there is a big difference between the first two examples
and the last one; The Roberta Flack and Bob Marley tunes were covers of the
originals; the Us3 tune wasn't a cover but sampled a section of the song.

Although the Fugees may uses
>easily recognizable resources for their music, people often don't notice
>the more obscure music used in hip-hop used to as obvious an extent.

True, though I appreciate a more obscure sample than an easily recognizable
one. I guess that what's makes a Tribe Called Quest tune sampling Ron
Carter more cooler than Queen Latifah sampling Diana Ross. Actually, I
appreciate it when a sample of a non-funk/soul tune is used in a
funk/hip-hop context, for the pure reason that whoever wanted to put that
sample in there has a better imagination and sense of creativity than
someone who wants to put something more obvious.

Elson


-30-
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Elson Trinidad
Los Angeles, CA, USA
elson@westworld.com * http://www.westworld.com/~elson
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