What is the demand for sample-based hip hop now?

GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
edited March 2015 in Strut Central
I watched the Stones Throw documentary - and was reading the old posts on this board - and it seems like there was demand for sample based hip hop through the mid 2000s. Now it seems like that is completely out the window. I get that the legal environment is not conducive to sampling (economically) anymore, but it seems like tastes have swung as well. I think that a big reason that the SS demographic seems to stop around 2005 (the people still hanging around are just 10 years older, there aren't new 25 year olds coming on board) is that the youth these days - teens, twenties - aren't interesting in sampling or crate digging.

What do you think? Is there room for another Stones Throw to get going? Are there kids out there today that still are interested in DITC? I'm just not seeing it.
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  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I think new technology has a lot to do with the sound of hip hop.
    From turntable mixers in the early days, to 8sec samples/loops, longer samples, to chopping.
    I don't know what technology is the big influence now, or next.

    Kids who try to join soulstrut are run off pretty fast.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Kids dont own record players, but the small percentage that does i think will resucitate sampling down the line as an option for making music.

  • tech12ztech12z 56 Posts
    I think the decline in sampling is related to a bunch of intertwined factors: copyright issues and the fear-mongering surrounding legal risks (like OP said); technological change (like laserwolf said); the dominance of the ATL sound; the fact that kids are reared on hiphop that doesn't use samples, and so they grow up to make hiphop that doesn't use samples; an aversion to the work and patience that goes into crate digging ("I don't want to wait to find a nice loop, I just want to press buttons and make music NOW"); the opinion circulating within online producer communities that sampling is cheating and that sample-based producers are less musically talented than other kinds of producers; etc.

    I think there's still decent demand for sample-based hiphop, so I'd imagine there's always going to be supply. But I do think it's done (unfortunately) as THE sound of hiphop. Maybe someone will eventually come along and make it really popular again, but I feel like it's more likely to just become an increasingly niche style.

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,779 Posts
    Serato flooded the market for 12"s and the market collapsed.

    I've noticed people are snapping up clean LPs for $15 - $50 depending on artist / title.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    tech12z said:
    I think the decline in sampling is related to a bunch of intertwined factors: copyright issues and the fear-mongering surrounding legal risks (like OP said); technological change (like laserwolf said); the dominance of the ATL sound; the fact that kids are reared on hiphop that doesn't use samples, and so they grow up to make hiphop that doesn't use samples; an aversion to the work and patience that goes into crate digging ("I don't want to wait to find a nice loop, I just want to press buttons and make music NOW"); the opinion circulating within online producer communities that sampling is cheating and that sample-based producers are less musically talented than other kinds of producers; etc.

    I think there's still decent demand for sample-based hiphop, so I'd imagine there's always going to be supply. But I do think it's done (unfortunately) as THE sound of hiphop. Maybe someone will eventually come along and make it really popular again, but I feel like it's more likely to just become an increasingly niche style.

    I wonder if there's a furniture designer's forum somewhere on the net where there's a heated debate going on over whether bedframes made from oak are better than, say, wrought-iron ones, just because they're made from wood?

    I don't know if the market, such as it is, has ever really said "We want sample-based hip-hop!", any more than it's ever demanded the opposite. Technology has always been the main driver, same as when people began using samples to begin with. Cheaper hardware, better software and easier, more widespread access to the internet may have helped simplify certain aspects of the creative process, but they haven't rendered things like using samples or sampling from records redundant.

    Likewise, the legal aspect of sample use hasn't really changed, despite all the test cases and precedents. Sure, you have rights owners like Aaron Fuchs and others who've cottoned onto the fact that there's money to be made from the ownership of certain catalogues and are consequently capitalising on that pretty ruthlessly. But there were never any hard and fast rules covering sample use in particular, apart from "ask permission", so I don't buy the idea that there's a significantly greater legal impediment now than there was before.

    Well played on getting in a few of the kind of sour, snide little digs that are typical of the Rap Game Artisanal Locally Sourced Cupcake/Flatbread/Third Wave Coffee House bullshit that still clings to this whole debate. May as well try to argue that it ain't proper rock music unless the guitarist plays a pre-CBS Fender or a '59 Les Paul. Your implicit suggestion that rap producers who eschew sample use for whatever reason are lazy and lack creativity makes you little different from the central-casting rockist troll making "rap = crap LOL" jokes in the comments section on a Chief Keef Youtube clip. There is PLENTY of good rap music being made ALL THE TIME using samples that doesn't depend upon making a virtue out of its production methods because it's too fucking BORING to find an audience on its own merits. If you wouldn't know what it is because you're too hung up on this backwards-facing purist aesthetic - the diametric opposite of actual creativity, btw - to know where to find it, that's your tough luck.

    I still listen to the old shit as well as the new shit because [em]I actually like rap music[/em] as opposed to some romanticised idea of "authentic" rap music made a certain way with certain tools. I don't give a fuck about new shit that tries to sound old. Fuck Joey Bada$$ and his piss-boring style studies. What actual use is that shit when I can listen to Kane or Big L or Saafir or some other old shit that blasts it out of the water any time I want? Give me something I haven't heard before, not some tedious facsimilie of a '93 Primo beat, stripped of all context and decades away from when that sound was genuinely new and exciting. If you dig genre exercises in the use of SP1200s, MPC-60s, S-950s or whatever, that's fine. Miss me with any "real hip-hop" talk, though, because anyone doing that shit in 2015 and making it their USP, as opposed to focusing on just making the best music they can make, is on some Jack White "back to mono" bullshit.

  • tech12ztech12z 56 Posts
    Hey DocMcCoy,

    I think we're on different wavelengths here (although I can see why my post came off the way it did).

    I don't really give a fuck about the "real hiphop" debate, and I don't think "real hiphop" is a definable thing. Yea, I'll always be in love with dusty, chopped up sounds. And yea, I do think it sucks that the sample-based sound has gone into decline. But things change, and I'm happy to roll with it. I like Chief Keef. I don't like Joey Badass. I do like Action Bronson. I don't like Young Thug.

    I do think there is a real "market" for sample based hiphop, although I don't think its existence is explicit (like, "WE ARE THE MARKET!"). You can see signs of the market when you hear dudes fiending for Roc Marciano, Ka, Droog, etc. You can see the "anti-market" (whatever, I'm not a damn economist) when you see people dismiss that shit as "old man music."

    As far as legal concerns go, it really doesn't matter what the ACTUAL legal situation is. What matters is people's BELIEF about the legal system. Go to any producer forum and read the first 10 pages -- I'll bet you quickly come across a post that's like, "I'd really like to try sampling, but I can't because they'll sue me!" People are afraid to sample because of their imaginations of copyright laws and punishments. [Not mentioned here are posts like What exactly is a drum break?, which are indicative of other stuff contributing to sampling's decline].

    You're right to criticize me for suggesting there's any kind of laziness about the new generation of "sampleless" (kinda… you know what I mean) producers, I'll definitely give you that. The new gen is grinding and they're as creative as any one has ever been. But I do feel like there might be broad cultural shifts happening (not limited to hiphop) towards attitudes that aren't conducive to sampling. For example, the shift towards "instant gratification" in our culture (which may or may not be an actual thing) is not at all in line with the practice of sampling.

    I think the decline of sampling is a loss for culture at-large (I feel like sampling is/was special for a whole bunch of reasons that go way beyond music). But I'm not trying to suggest that this amounts to "the death of real hiphop" or anything like that. Hiphop is always doing fine.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    I heard samples on Lamar's latest album.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    current hip-hop production ranges from simple synths & 808-style drums to "for sampling" sound libraries, session groups like El Michels Affair or Adrian Younge that sound like 60s/70s era production, to sampling from actual records. all of this stuff appears on modern/popular hip-hop records.

    as far as digging, it's not a question of time - people can sample off youtube or mp3s. you don't need to spend half your life in a record store to find cool stuff to sample.

    as far as "traditional sounding" hip-hop or whatever, that is not the popular style anymore and it's not going to return. but there's plenty of stuff out there if you check.

    younger artists are just as likely to sample some indie rock cloud drone ssw whatever from 3 years ago as an old soul record.

  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,095 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    I don't give a fuck about new shit that tries to sound old. Fuck Joey Bada$$ and his piss-boring style studies. What actual use is that shit when I can listen to Kane or Big L or Saafir or some other old shit that blasts it out of the water any time I want? Give me something I haven't heard before, not some tedious facsimilie of a '93 Primo beat, stripped of all context and decades away from when that sound was genuinely new and exciting.

    amen

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    tech12z said:
    I think the decline of sampling is a loss for culture at-large.

    How so? Wasn't the heyday of this close to 20 years? What would be gained by prolonging it?

    How long were the glory days of Funk, Hard Bop, Psych or Ska etc etc?

    The only thing happening here is the passage of time and the inevitable cycles that all musical styles go through.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Just so^.
    Though there are people bemoaning/debating the death of Funk, Hard Bop, Psych or Ska.

    But as a wise man said, "time happens, things change".

  • tech12ztech12z 56 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    tech12z said:
    I think the decline of sampling is a loss for culture at-large.

    How so? Wasn't the heyday of this close to 20 years? What would be gained by prolonging it?

    How long were the glory days of Funk, Hard Bop, Psych or Ska etc etc?

    The only thing happening here is the passage of time and the inevitable cycles that all musical styles go through.

    This is admittedly a half-formed idea, so… yeah. (I'm sure someone has written about this more coherently though).

    I think you can see sample-based hiphop as a practice of (inadvertent/subconscious) political protest or resistance. I know a lot of music, both then and now, can be looked at as 'resistance', but sample-based hiphop seems different to me. It's neat because it isn't explicitly resisting some specific government or event (i.e., folk music during Vietnam). Instead, it implicitly (but blatantly) violates the abstract concept of property rights, which is one of the main pillars of capitalism. How many of our favourite songs use uncleared samples? How many of our favourite songs are basically illegal/against the law? I know the dude's making it didn't think in these terms, but sample-based hiphop is protest/resistance/outlaw music unlike anything else I can think of (can you guys think of parallels?).

    So, if you think about sample-based hiphop in those terms, its decline takes on a really interesting meaning (to me, anyways). It means that the protest against property rights, at least within the hiphop community, is declining, and that people have become more willing to work within the system than work against it. That's definitely just a product of time/change, but I still think its kind of unfortunate.

    edit: I guess you could also make the argument that, in continuing to use samples in far less obvious ways, the protest (if it is one) hasn't disappeared so much as it has gotten more clever / sneakier...

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,778 Posts
    Without getting into the keep-it-real argument, sampling in electronic/dance music hasn't been this popular since the '90s. Jungle is resurgent, bass music/dubstep stuff, house... but the thing they all have in common is that it's rare that a sample is merely looped. The samples are usually freaked, chopped, put through filters & effects etc. so that they sound "new" I guess.

    I think there will always be a place for sampling as long as it sounds fffffffresh.

    EDIT; re:your edit, just echoing your final sentiment!

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    tech12z said:


    I think you can see sample-based hiphop as a practice of (inadvertent/subconscious) political protest or resistance. I know a lot of music, both then and now, can be looked at as 'resistance', but sample-based hiphop seems different to me. It's neat because it isn't explicitly resisting some specific government or event (i.e., folk music during Vietnam). Instead, it implicitly (but blatantly) violates the abstract concept of property rights, which is one of the main pillars of capitalism. How many of our favourite songs use uncleared samples? How many of our favourite songs are basically illegal/against the law? I know the dude's making it didn't think in these terms, but sample-based hiphop is protest/resistance/outlaw music unlike anything else I can think of (can you guys think of parallels?).

    This is way off.

    Dudes just wanted to use the records they partied to. Early Hip Hop was using session players to clone their favorite shit.
    Its no different from folks building on established Blues riffs. Its not some political subversion.
    The "laws" werent established until years into the game. In fact many of the early samplers looked to the practice as exposing a new gen to forgotten music/artists. What it became by the 90s is another story.

    Shit sounds like some fuckin College course bullshit.

  • tech12ztech12z 56 Posts
    batmon said:

    Shit sounds like some fuckin College course bullshit.

    Definitely.

  • francois parkerfrancois parker formerly know as Parkz. 125 Posts
    There is a small section of the hip hop community who favour sample based rap music, and there is product being produced for that section of the community. Mainly vinyl only stuff pressed in small qualities which is just fine as it keeps the music under the radar and even if it did get noticed by the sample police its unlikely they will bother about a 300 run vinyl pressing that hardly anyone is going to know exists. Underground guys can just sample away to their hearts content these days.

    I dont really check for new hip hop and I've no idea what the bigger acts sound like or even who they are but Im sure if a producer came to them with a beat that had "hit record" written all over it and it had a loop that needed to be cleared Im sure the record company would just clear the sample like they have cleared samples hundreds of times over the years. A track built from multiple samples and I guess the label would say no to that one.

    Me personally I used to be a hardcore "hip hop music must be made from samples" kind of guy, but like most folks who shared that view Im kind of embarrassed by it now. I think I held that belief as when some of the artists I was into took the live instruments/ non-sampled route they were really rubbish at it, glad to say the standard has picked up over the years (obviously there have been live instruments in hip hop since day one, and some great session guys laying stuff down). I also really liked the idea of sampling old records, I love records.

    As for kids today, will there be a future generation of crate digging sample loopers, I think there will be kids doing it like a lot of us did, but not many, it will be an underground/minority hobby/interest.

    Had things like Logic/Live been around in the late 80s/early 90's and guys could have sat down at home and had 1000s of amazing sounding instruments at their finger tips we might never have had this whole crate digging/sampling culture at all.


  • kalakala 3,359 Posts
    "I watched 20 minutes the Stones Throw documentary"
    and felt bad that charizma got shot
    also felt bad that pnbw lost his homie

    then i felt really awful listening to damfunk trying to freestyle
    and then i shit blood in pubix and threw up bile watching the self congratulatory circle jerk complete with guest stars that it turned into
    holy toledo that was just fucking awful

    and yea hip hop is dead/alive/being resuscitated in the back of an ambulance on it's way to ryker's island/being tortured in syria by ice sis /alive and well in starlito's coupe/dead as baby huey at the fat beats warehouse/on life support and in a dust induced money coma at rza's LA mansion /chuck d copping a plea at selma ....samples notwithfallingstandingblanding at the speed of light@ grand concourse and dr dre is a billionaire.....soon we'll hopefully see drake impaled on dmx' crack pipe while biz markie gets skinny on zevia
    ghostface killa on jimmy kimmel and some whack ass vh1 dating show? ...bitch please
    wassup soulstrut?

  • the_dLthe_dL 1,531 Posts
    people really need to get over the where it came from question, who cares if it sampled from an OG press, mp3, youtube, tape what ever
    its either good music or it isnt.

  • JectWonJectWon (@_@) 1,654 Posts
    Thanks to the internet, I think the 'demand' is fairly strong. I occasionally hear samples in what little mainstream rap I hear...but on the internet (soundcloud, bandcamp, any internet-based music sharing tool) I hear a fuck'ton of good sample based rap/hiphop/music/whatever....because it's something I personally seek out and (as a result of searching) have noticed a lot of people making and enjoying that type of music.

    With the technology we have today, I am almost completely oblivious to the musical demands of anyone other than my own.

  • DJ_EnkiDJ_Enki 6,471 Posts
    JonnyPaycheck said:

    younger artists are just as likely to sample some indie rock cloud drone ssw whatever from 3 years ago as an old soul record.

    Yeah, this.

    Also, some of the biggest, most visible names in rap are still sampling--Kanye, Kendrick, etc. So the demand is clearly still there.

    Also also, whereas for a while, sampling used to be THE way to make beats, it's just one of many ways now: Sampling, stock sounds, sound pack downloads, drum machines, keyboards, live bands, replays/interpolations, sampling studio musicians, and on and on. Maybe you could say that Bomb Squad/Prince Paul/Dust Brothers "20 samples to make one song" style has been kinda crushed out, but it's been that way for a while.

    Also also also, I agree with Kala about the Stones Throw documentary.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    JectWon said:
    With the technology we have today, I am almost completely oblivious to the musical demands of anyone other than my own.

    ^This

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    This is a fantastic story in the mould of that classic "BEP samples Monty Stark" tale.

    Bonus beat: in my previous life as a sample clearance professional for a major music publisher, I once received a phonecall from Phil Manzanera, who was one of our writers. He was seeking my advice about rights ownership for a fiendishly obscure cumbia recording he wanted to sample in a song he was working on, and I can testify first-hand that, back in 2008, he didn't have a fucking clue how this shit worked.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    It's obscure in the same way the Rodriguez didn't sell any records in the States.

    b/w

    Guilty! I thought Phil Manzanera was Ray Manzerek or however they spell them.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    I perceive there to be more sampling happening today than there was 10 years ago when everybody went crunk.

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    I perceive there to be more sampling happening today than there was 10 years ago when everybody went crunk.

    It seems as if you have the group of Kanye West, Jay-Z and the like who have sales that justify full on sampling.

    Or as part of that higher end group you have people who can afford to have studio musicians replay samples, so they only have to pay fees on composition.

    And you've got the other end of people who are either butchering samples to avoid being recognized or are sampling and assuming/hoping they will fly under the radar.

    I can see your point though ... no shortage of entirely synth based beats. My entirely anecdotal observation though is that the youth and the music of now are not swinging that much toward sampling. Compared to most of the 90s when almost everything was some sort of loop or break that seems to really be lacking now (97-99 really started fudging those dynamics, though.). And I don't think the youth are missing it.

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    I still listen to the old shit as well as the new shit because [em]I actually like rap music[/em] as opposed to some romanticised idea of "authentic" rap music made a certain way with certain tools. I don't give a fuck about new shit that tries to sound old. Fuck Joey Bada$$ and his piss-boring style studies. What actual use is that shit when I can listen to Kane or Big L or Saafir or some other old shit that blasts it out of the water any time I want? Give me something I haven't heard before, not some tedious facsimilie of a '93 Primo beat, stripped of all context and decades away from when that sound was genuinely new and exciting. If you dig genre exercises in the use of SP1200s, MPC-60s, S-950s or whatever, that's fine. Miss me with any "real hip-hop" talk, though, because anyone doing that shit in 2015 and making it their USP, as opposed to focusing on just making the best music they can make, is on some Jack White "back to mono" bullshit.

    Wouldn't hating on Joey Bada$$ for being semi-throwback style contradict your comment earlier about liking music for what it is?

    What about the other artists in other genres that also do throwback styles? Soul, for instance?

    I've found if done well contemporary throwback styles can be good, and even sound cleaner/more modern at the same time. Unfortunately doing it well seems to be the hard part.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,778 Posts

    Samples. Still in demand.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    G-Writah said:
    Wouldn't hating on Joey Bada$$ for being semi-throwback style contradict your comment earlier about liking music for what it is?

    You mean this bit?

    on its own merits

    Because that's the only thing I wrote in this thread that [em]I[/em] think could be read as a call to judge things on their own terms. If you meant something else, let me know. Happy to hash it out.

    Returning to Joey Bada$$, "get in where you fit in" is all well and good, but in his case it seems that he or somebody involved with his set-up has decided that marketing him as the new generation's leading torchbearer for TRU3 SK00L rap values represents his best hope of finding any sort of audience. And it's worked. I saw him out here in Berlin last year right before he abruptly cut short his tour, and the spot was [em]rammed[/em]. To put it in context, I go to a lot of rap shows of all styles. Coming up over this next few weeks I've got M.O.P., Migos and a Flatbush Zombies/Underachievers double-header. I've been to very few shows in this city that [em]aren't[/em] rammed, as it happens. But with Joey Bada$$, this is someone without a big radio hit (or a particularly big underground hit for that matter), and there [em]appears[/em] to be no major-label money behind him, unlike a Schoolboy Q or a Meek Mill. Whether or not he was able to pull this crowd simply by presenting himself as The Antidote - "if this is what you want/need, then step right up because I'm selling" - is up for debate, I guess, but I really couldn't call it. The show itself was...OK. Static Selektah did a great job of hyping the crowd beforehand without resorting to the same tired classics you've heard a million and one times, but there was nothing truly exciting about it. It felt like a musical comfort blanket, somewhere to escape to when you're overwhelmed by all the Wakas and Guccis and Keefs and Thuggas and Yungs and Lils.

    The rap game is full of all kinds of slick marketing at every level these days, and very often things are far from what they appear. I'm instinctively wary of rappers who lean too heavily on nostalgia, because it seems at odds with the constant change and musical development that I personally believe is what makes rap unique amongst modern popular music. Very few rappers have ever succeeded by trading on the past, whether real or imagined. Jurassic 5 had a brief moment, and for a while that was a lot of fun and genuinely entertaining. Essentially, though, it was a novelty and it had the shelf-life of a novelty. Amongst the many bon mots faux_rillz blessed us with back when he still drank at this bar, one of my personal favourites was when he described J5 as "the Sha Na Na of rap". Cruel, but fair. Anyway, maybe Joey Bada$$ thinks right there lies a gap in the market that he can fill. Good luck to him if so, but it ain't for me.

    What about the other artists in other genres that also do throwback styles? Soul, for instance?

    I've found if done well contemporary throwback styles can be good, and even sound cleaner/more modern at the same time. Unfortunately doing it well seems to be the hard part.

    Yeah, to be clear, anti-throwback is not my default setting here. I try to roll case-by-case. I think Raphael Saadiq is fucking brilliant, for example. But good as he is, a song like Love That Girl isn't [em]quite[/em] good enough to make me forget that the song it pharrells[strong]*[/strong], namely Woman's Got Soul by the Impressions, is way, way better. And that's the big issue I have with throwback soul particularly - very often the songwriting feels like the last thing anyone thought about. Have you seen or heard this Leon Bridges kid who's signed to Columbia? Really good voice, good-looking lad, the kind of act you could easily imagine being successful without a whole lot of effort. Yet everything about how he's being presented to the world screams, "WE'VE FOUND HIM, EVERYONE! THIS IS THE NEW SAM COOKE!" Seriously, Sam Cooke. You're really going to dump that kind of weight on a kid's shoulders without giving him the material to help carry the load? Man, that's all kinds of fucked-up. It's like when that Duffy lass came along a few years back - bottle-blonde British girl doing ersatz soul, and everywhere she got written about, some soft biff was saying "she's the new Dusty Springfield!" Was she fuck. You can pull it off just by looking the part for a while, but if you don't have sufficient material strong enough to make people forget they're not actually listening to Dusty Springfield or Sam Cooke (or Big L), then it strikes me you're pretty much on borrowed time.

    [strong]*[/strong] - pharrell
    /faˈreːl/
    [em]verb[/em]
    to consciously invoke or call to mind familiar stylistic aspects of a classic pop or soul song in a new song without directly copying it.

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    You mean this bit?

    on its own merits

    Because that's the only thing I wrote in this thread that [em]I[/em] think could be read as a call to judge things on their own terms. If you meant something else, let me know. Happy to hash it out.

    Partially. To paraphrase, you like hip hop because you like hip hop, not because they are trying to recreate a sound of a certain era. My point was that it's entirely possible to have a throw-back sound that sounds good. It may sound like BDK or something else but if it sounds good, why castigate it just because it wasn't originally created in 1992? Seems contradictory to like a certain genre for what it is and then single out people who aren't playing a sound that is contemporary to their era.

    The rap game is full of all kinds of slick marketing at every level these days, and very often things are far from what they appear. I'm instinctively wary of rappers who lean too heavily on nostalgia, because it seems at odds with the constant change and musical development that I personally believe is what makes rap unique amongst modern popular music. Very few rappers have ever succeeded by trading on the past, whether real or imagined. Jurassic 5 had a brief moment, and for a while that was a lot of fun and genuinely entertaining. Essentially, though, it was a novelty and it had the shelf-life of a novelty. Amongst the many bon mots faux_rillz blessed us with back when he still drank at this bar, one of my personal favourites was when he described J5 as "the Sha Na Na of rap". Cruel, but fair. Anyway, maybe Joey Bada$$ thinks right there lies a gap in the market that he can fill. Good luck to him if so, but it ain't for me.

    It's a business. People promoting shows and selling tickets may like what they do, but they are also looking to get paid. Nostalgia sells. But true, I do think it hard to carry a serious career based strictly on a nostalgic sound unless you are looking to cater directly to that market and be known for such. (I think of Motley Crue or someone playing their hits from the 80s to a crowd of 50 year olds when I say that)

    Really though, what is the shelf life of most anything in the arts or popular culture? Bone Thugs had a good run but that style didn't stick either.

    What about the other artists in other genres that also do throwback styles? Soul, for instance?

    I've found if done well contemporary throwback styles can be good, and even sound cleaner/more modern at the same time. Unfortunately doing it well seems to be the hard part.

    It's like when that Duffy lass came along a few years back - bottle-blonde British girl doing ersatz soul, and everywhere she got written about, some soft biff was saying "she's the new Dusty Springfield!" Was she fuck. You can pull it off just by looking the part for a while, but if you don't have sufficient material strong enough to make people forget they're not actually listening to Dusty Springfield or Sam Cooke (or Big L), then it strikes me you're pretty much on borrowed time.
    I guess that depends on the style. Hitching your horse to something that specific would make it hard for long term success.

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    Duderonomy said:
    Samples. Still in demand.

    Action Bronson is niche though.

    Look at http://www.billboard.com/charts/r-b-hip-hop-songs

    How many of those are sample based? Not many.
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