Multi-hyphenate musician Questlove has become known as the industry’s go-to music historian. Through films like Sly Lives!, Summer of Soul — and his latest on Earth, Wind & Fire, out now on HBO Max — he has created definitive accounts of some of music’s most essential voices.
Arguably, he’s also kept music of the past alive through his work as a DJ and member of The Roots. Over its decades-long tenure, The Roots has both sampled the greats and been sampled themselves by artists like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Wale, Logic and more. “Sampling works…because of the idea of a community creating something together,” he explains.
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The practice of sampling provided the bedrock of hip-hop and dance music as the latter half of the 20th century progressed, and like many parts of recorded music history, Questlove has studied its development carefully, cataloging the influence of icons like James Brown, Kraftwerk, A Tribe Called Quest and Public Enemy on its evolution. The history of sampling, however, has not always been an easy one. From 1988-1991, Questlove says it was the “Wild West” for the practice. “No one was policing us,” says Questlove of that fertile time. But that free-wheeling period of sampling came to an end as copyright infringement litigation against artist Biz Markie led to new rules around it, creating both a logistical and financial barrier to its use.
On the latest episode of Billboard On the Record, Questlove joins the video podcast to dive into the history of sampling and how new trends — like microchopping, catalog sales and generative AI — may pose new opportunities or risks to the art form.
To watch this episode of Billboard On the Record, check out the YouTube video below or click here for more viewing and listening options. An edited and condensed excerpt of the conversation can also be found below.
Why do you think certain artists are sampled over and over again?
I think records are a metaphorical protest against time moving forward. A record captures a compelling performance — an audio picture, a Polaroid, a moment in time — and it stays with you.
Sampling works because of sound and vibration, but also because of the idea of a community creating something together. If you watch The Last Dance, the story of the Chicago Bulls, you see the synergy of that team. I think that’s one of the underlying reasons we use old music to make new music.
As we search for perfection, there’s always a debate about AI versus making something yourself —microwaving versus cooking a full meal. To me, there has always been magic in imperfection. There’s magic in capturing human emotion and synergy. That’s why we do it.
Recorded music has always involved these ideas. If you listen to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” there’s a moment after “Flying High (In the Friendly Sky)” when a keyboard captures a woman’s operatic voice. That’s one of the early examples of capturing a recorded voice.
Sampling as we know it developed through new technology. Trevor Horn, who was once a member of the Art of Noise, had access to a Fairlight. The Fairlight was so expensive that only a few people could afford it. At one point, that group included Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. If you had $100,000, you could be a Fairlight operator.
On Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” there’s a drum breakdown that uses a short snippet from “Kool Is Back” by Funk, Inc. They were covering the Kool & the Gang song “Kool Is Back.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that was one of the first times I heard a breakbeat being used — something old to create something different.
Marley Marl pushed the idea forward when he realized he could use a snare drum from one record and a kick drum from another to create something new. Then Paul C got his hands on the SP-1200 and took it further. He became a mentor to what would later be known as a Renaissance era of hip-hop production: Large Professor, Q-Tip, Tribe Called Quest, DJ Premier, Pete Rock and others. It was a slow domino effect. Sampling is the idea of capturing human synergy and energy to create magic.
When did sampling become democratized beyond the very expensive Fairlight and become a more common part of music production?
For me, the Eureka moment was the June 1988 release of Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It was the “Back to the Future” flux-capacitor moment. Every song was crammed with samples — some had seven, some had 20. When I heard it, the dopamine effect was immediate: “Wait, my dad has that record. My dad has that record.”
My very boring father’s record collection suddenly came alive. He had about 3,000 records, and I had gravitated toward maybe 200 of them. I listened to The Jackson 5 and Bill Withers, but I had ignored the Blue Note jazz. Public Enemy made the entire collection feel like “Name That Tune.” I knew where the bass line came from and recognized different parts. That pulled me in.
What was that early period of sampling like — before lawsuits made it harder to do?
Between 1988 and 1991, it was the Wild West. No one was policing us. The Beastie Boys released Paul’s Boutique, and De La Soul released 3 Feet High and Rising. Sampling spiraled out of control. Eventually, people decided there had to be some boundaries and that you needed permission before taking someone’s creative DNA to make your own thing.
There will never be another period like 1988 to 1991, when an entire record collection could be juxtaposed into a song.
In 1991, there was a major lawsuit against Biz Markie and his label over his use of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally).” What changed because of that case?
It’s a strange case because Biz was trying to re-create something; it wasn’t simply about using a sample. Pop-song structure had not fully been incorporated into hip-hop yet. There were a few moments in 1991 and 1992 when hip-hop began adopting a more conventional song structure.
Rick Rubin’s major contribution was helping establish that format. Before LL Cool J, most hip-hop songs were made for the club. They could be eight or 12 minutes long. Rick came from the school of The Beatles: 16-bar verses, a chorus, another 16 bars and a fade at three minutes. Through LL Cool J, he helped establish the standardized album format and the three- or four-minute song.
Biz was paying homage to the Cold Crush Brothers. He had a routine based on “Alone Again (Naturally).” The double-edged sword is that so much music is derivative of an earlier time. Rock took many of its ideas from earlier music. Look at Led Zeppelin’s history with records from the 1930s. They were sampling, too. The difference is that when hip-hop did it, people sued us.
I’ve been thinking about where the modern era of music production began. Sampling and drum machines arrived within roughly a decade of each other, and digital audio workstations became widely adopted in the early 2000s. Where would you place the major turning point?
The Big Bang of technology probably starts in 1971. In my film about Sly Stone, one of his biggest innovations is that he was among the first people to use a drum machine. At first, people used drum machines as metronomes — to keep a drummer from speeding up or slowing down and to keep everyone on the same rhythmic wavelength. Sly found innovative ways to use one.
Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On introduced a kind of postmodern electronic culture, and suddenly everyone began following. Kraftwerk’s development in the mid-1970s was also important. They experimented with synthesized music and changed what people thought production could be.
But for me, Prince’s “1999” is a pivotal moment in 1980s production. I first heard the song while shopping for school clothes in September 1982, and I froze in the changing room. It sounded like music that, if you asked a band to play it back, would not sound the same. It sounded like space aliens playing.
I had never heard a drum machine programmed that way or synthesizers that sounded like that. Prince figured out how to make primitive-sounding electronics feel human. He also made the music challenging to create. That vocabulary has to be in your head before you even start with hip-hop.
A lot of older music catalogs are being bought and sold. The new owners are looking for ways to revive the music and bring it back into popular culture. They’re reaching out to people like you to rework it for them through sampling, interpolations and covers —
That’s one way to put it! There are also people who act like highway cops with radar, saying: “I dare you to use this. We paid millions for this catalog.”
On the other hand, some companies say, “We have a plentiful catalog. Come use our work.” I’m part of a producers’ thread that’s like the 1992 Olympic Dream Team of producers — Just Blaze, DJ Premier, 9th Wonder and many others. When someone brought all these catalogs to us and said, “You can use this stuff,” I laughed.
There’s something appealing about the outlaw quality of it. When you have something other people don’t have, it’s exciting. Once it’s all out in the open and legal, people can lose interest. It’s like the legalization of weed: The danger element disappears.
During the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud, Metro Boomin sampled “BBL Drizzy,” an AI song created by the comedian King Willonius, put his own spin on it and released it. I thought it was fascinating, so I wrote about the potential rise of AI sampling at the time. Given the copyright issues around sampling, what do you think about the idea of people creating a Motown-like AI song, sampling it and chopping it up to avoid rights issues?
From a sonic standpoint, I’m not there yet. I’m sensitive to digital distortion. It might be interesting for three seconds while you’re scrolling through social media, but I would never play it in concert or sample it because I dislike that digital distortion.
Ten years from now, when [AI music models are] on version 7.0 or whatever, they may perfect it. But I see AI as a parallel to sampling culture. The question is “AI or no AI?” Some people say it’s going to happen anyway, so we might as well join the bandwagon. Others say, “Why are you taking intellectual property and reskilling it?”
I believe there should be compensation. If you’re building an AI system, you should be transparent about the material used to build the platform, and there should be compensation for it. I’m not anti-technology. I love sampling, CGI and other digital inventions. But the way money is distributed — from the creator to the engineer, producer, label and publisher — has to become fair.
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