About this and that!

[iLL:WiLL]

Documentarul asta era urcat si pe youtube da' se bloca la un moment-dat...Bun Asa

[sunrah]

Beat This: A Hip Hop History (1984)

L-am vazut la un amic cu ceva timp in urma. Numai cuvinte de lauda, cred ca ar trebui sa puna cineva cap-la-cap si un documentar ceva mai complex despre hip hop-ul romanesc, chiar n-ar strica!

P.S.: sa-ti faci cumva timp sa citesti kenny parker show, chestii foarte smecher expuse acolo.

[sunrah]

XNDL "Progress" ( <- Click!)



Pr?©sent?© il y a quelques mois dans ces pages, le patron du label allemand Subversiv*Rec revient cette fois-ci en tant que DJ en nous proposant un mix pointu et sombre, d?©j? sorti en 2003 sur CD-R et vendu sur son mailorder. En bonus il nous offre quelques titres in?©dits r?©alis?©s avec son partenaire Offbeater Cfx. Un beau cadeau pour les amateurs de sons anticoniens et de ballades nocturnes au fond des bois. Enjoy!

TRACKLIST :

01. XNDL - Progress:
Neotropic feat. Dose One - 10th Floor Witches
Savath & Savalas - Decatur Queen
Alias - Slow Motion People
Daedelus feat. Busdriver - Quiet Now
Anticon - We Ain't Fessin
Curse Ov Dialect - All Cultures
Sixtoo - ?
Odd Nosdam - No More Wig #4
Delarosa & Asora - Paz Suite 4
Why? - A Little Titanic
Clouddead - And All You Can Do Is Laugh, Pt.1
02. CFX - Star Trek
03. CFX - Engel
04. CFX - Clinic
05. CFX - Death Ride
06. XNDL - Conklusion Rmx
07. XNDL - The Landing Part 2
08. XNDL - Dubtales
09. XNDL - Shut The Do

[sunrah]

The Real Milano - Reppin' For The Slums



Here's some Milano joints to follow-up that post from the other day. �Show 'Em Freestyle� is an ill bio running down Milano’s moves in the rap game, while his classic tag-team with Pun, �Where You At?� dropped on the DITC album. �Deal With The Feeling� is arrogant nonchalance over a slick Show composition, while �Done In Vein� is a Lord Finesse-blessed piece on some �can’t hold me back� shit. Keep your eyes peeled for the much-delayed Boulevard Author album on Beatdown.

Milano - Show 'Em Freestyle

Big Pun & Milano - Where Ya At? [DITC’s Worldwide, Tommy Boy, 2000]

Milano - Deal With The Feeling [twelve inch, DITC/Fat Beats, 2000]

Milano - Done In Vein [Show’s Street Talk, Lumberjack, 2005]

Milano - Warrior's Drum [Spanish Harlem mixtape]

[sunrah]

Dday One "Blend Meditation" ( <- Click!)



Producteur r?©v?©l?© l'an pass?© par son premier long format Loop Extensions, Dday One s'affirme comme ?©tant la rel?¨ve de la g?©n?©ration des Daddy Kev et consorts, des amoureux du vinyle en perp?©tuelle recherche de la boucle parfaite. Il vous offre ce mois-ci un mix assez fid?¨le aux ambiances de ses productions, un m?©lange subtil de hip-hop instrumental, de jazz et de downtempo. Merci qui?

TRACKLIST :

01. A Word From T-Kid On Life...
02. Introduction In Progress
03. Dday One - Seeds Of Revolution
04. Dave Brubeck - Calcutta Blues
05. Luke Vibret - Music Called Jazz
06. Omid - Solarism
07. Grand Puba - 360 Degrees (Inst.)
08. Poly - He Is At The Discotheque
09. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Mistadobalina
10. Strictly Roots - Beg No Friends (Inst.)
11. Mode Selector - From Somewhere And Nowhere
12. Das Efx - The Want Efx (Remix Inst.)
13. Air - Modulor (Modulor Mix)
14. Mantronix - We Control The Dice
15. Ultramagnetic Mc's - Ease Back
16. Spyder D - Rap Is Here To Say
17. Take - L.A.T
18. Sound Defects - Focus
19. Sach - Number Nine
20. Sam Sever - Tonight (Dub Joint)
21. X:144 & SPS - Last Voice
22. MCP - Bass Is What We Want
23. Stereo Mc's - What Is Soul
24. Maker - Live It (Part 1 & 2)
25. Kankick - Don't Fight That (Inst.)
26. DJ Krush - Kemuri
27. Dday One - Our Music
28. 2Tall - Hourglass
29. The Roots - Distortion To Static (At Ease Mix Inst.)
30. Ed OG - Be A Father To Your Child (Inst.)
31. Barsha - Internal Affairs (Inst.) / Alkaholiks - Likwit
32. Pharcyde - My Soul (Inst.)
33. Fererico Aubele - Malena
34. Break Mongors - Untitled Break
35. Cut Chemist - Spoon

[doru649]

^^^

[Kremlin]

la `Blend Meditation` ...stii cumva durata fiecarei piese? pentru a le putea separa...

[sunrah]

zi-mi minutu-secunda si iti spun ce piesa e. nu am time list-ul.

[Kremlin]

pai eu vroiam sa le separ pe toate...si nush exact cand incepe fiecare

cand ai timp ai putea sa vezi si sa`mi spui secunda si minutul inceputului fiecarei piese? sa le pot taia...

[sunrah]

hah. pai pierzi esenta, e vorba de un mix.

daca vrei neaparat sa le sapari, fara sa pierdem timpul aiurea, cauta direct piesele...

[sunrah]

People. Interview with Count Bass D: Un om admirabil, un interviu pe masura.
November 21, 2006

Count Bass D is a musician, a writer and a family man. I remember talking to a friend that knows him and he said, "Not only is D talented and all those other things, he's deeply caring." You don't have to know him to understand this. His music resonates with care. The sonic fabric of his style drives the audience to believe he's not your average musician.
Hailing all the way from Nashville, Count Bass D is moving things. As we've said before, "Act Your Waist Size is a brilliantly moody album, worth every moment you spend listening to it." Dork caught up with Count for a brief conversation.

Dork: Your name is a play on the great jazz musician Count Basie. Were you a big fan?

Count Bass D: Yes, but actually I was more of a fan of Bassie's attitude and the way he treated his musicians. The fact that after he was gone and passed in �84, his musicians, the Count Basie Orchestra still have the ability to tour to this very day because of their relationship and the type of guy that he was. I wanna be remembered as a good guy like he was remembered as a good guy. I wasn’t as familiar with the big band early, it was more of the spirit. I love the arrangements, and I love the music, you know, it was obviously a little before my time and I’m not really like a retro artist like that, but it’s more of like the spirit of the musicianship. That’s what I love about the jazz musicians and jazz music in general, is the spirit of the musicianship.

You also play live instruments, which some people may regard as an essential talent for a producer to possess. Do you agree with that? Are there things that you feel are essential talents that an MC should possess as well?

I believe an MC should study a lot of different things outside of MCing. I believe that when you bring that to your MCing table, it makes you who you are. I believe that people should concentrate on who they are as people. And if they concentrate on who they are as people, and when they bring that back to whatever discipline it is, be that it’s DJing, be that it’s MCing, BBoying, be that it’s producing, that’s how they become most original and stick out in the sea of people out there. A lot of people are studying DJ Premier, studying Pete Rock, studying Dilla, and that’s great but you have to study yourself and find yourself in what they’re teaching you and learn how to incorporate that and then you’ll see much more originality just pop out of you. Everybody as an individual has their own story so you have to bring that to the table.

I read somewhere that on a typical day that you come home from your day job, and then spend time with your family and then you make beats. How is it that a self professed �best producer in the game� still has a day job and time for the family?

Uh, God makes that possible (laughs). As far as the ideas and the music that comes to me, luckily I don’t have to labor over it too long but luckily God completely translates those ideas directly and I’m able to put those into the type the machines I’m working with. With my family, I think it’s the same thing, where God hooked me up with a family this large so that I would be able to keep doing this thing. [Before] I didn’t want to be alive for many many years. I wanted to stop doing music for a living and all my day jobs weren't cutting it. It was a situation where after I started having a family I started having a reason to live. That’s the reason why I think God got me stuck in the music business, because I have to do it. That’s the only way I can feed four children, one on the way and my wife. It's all of us on tour. All of us everywhere. It’s not even a joke. It’s so real, it’s so real.

There was a time when you said you didn’t like rapping so you stopped, that was until your friend, MF Doom made Operation Doomsday and you liked it again. And then there was another time when you said you that you didn’t like producing so you stopped altogether and went to go work at a dry cleaner. Do you feel that it’s an advantage that you have the ability to stop just because you weren’t feeling it, as opposed to having some expectations you have to meet?

Yes I think that’s a blessing, because instead of giving someone half my best, luckily I have a discipline where if I’m into playing music more then that’s a phase, at the same time I try to play my position and do the phase I’m in so that people get the best of me. And that’s the reason why people have been saying about me �The thing with Count is that he doesn’t disappoint�. And that’s because I’m not trying to be somebody else. I’m only doing exactly what I’m good at, at that time and if I’m not good at it at that time, then I’m not going to do it. The thing about the lyrics, I have always been into extensive vocabulary and being on a different range of subjects. At the time that I was doing it, nobody else was doing it. So I stopped doing it, I didn’t think that people would really feel it that way. You know Slick Rick always had the nice vocabulary and all that, [but] it wasn’t until Doom came out with the Doomsday, until that was the format. We had been affiliated for many many years, but I hooked back up with him in the early 2006 and he just took me under his wing. He basically gave me like a Hip Hop PhD. I’ve come through the ranks and I’ve had some good teachers, the Mighty BIC. Alot of people showed me how to work these machines, [but] it wasn't until I got with Doom. He completely broke me off with a bit of knowledge, that I’ll be able to take to my grave and I’m forever grateful about that.

Do you ever listen to yourself for leisure or is it mostly for the work like during the creative process? You have a favorite song you play or perform all the time?

The only album I listen to every once and a while is Begborrowsteal. It’s like one big piece. It’s almost like a short film. The rest of my records, I don’t listen to that much, you know, I just don’t. The music comes and then it goes out. Because I’m the one doing it, and I’m the one involved, I don’t get an opportunity to sit back, enjoy and take in my catalog like everyone else. I’m just trying to keep going and keep going. But Begborrowsteal is a special record but the rest of them, obviously they are all, those are my adopted children. Prelife Crisis and Act Your Waist Size, I gave up for adoption.

I was reading up on you and you’ve some interesting things so I’m gonna quote you on them. You’ve said before �I don’t believe that my music is for everybody. As a certain artist if there’s a person I don’t like, I would… discourage from buying my shit. As far as my music is concerned, I’m not as much of a capitalist… I’m perfectly fine. As long as me and the other five people that got my last name got something to eat…�. But what if only say, only 5 people in the whole wide world liked your music then, you wouldn’t be able to feed to your family. Would that affect your creative process in terms of style or would you jut keep doing everything the same way and hope the world is more receptive?

Not at all, not one ounce. This is to death right here. It’s like a Jean Michele Basquiat painting. There’s only one person who has it and if that person’s willing to pay 6 million dollars for it, then that’s gonna feed his family. So if 5 people are willing to ante up and chip in an say â€?Yo Count, we’re willing [to have] you to just personally come here and make us some artwork, blas?© blah...â€? I would completely perfectly happy with that. I have no goal of being larger than I am and not [having] one more person know who I am. There are so many people across the world who know me. I’m completely satisfied. I don’t see how these guys can have three hundred, five hundred million dollars and still charge $15.99. I think that’s bullshit and I don’t see how fans put up with that shit. You know what I mean? I don’t see how that’s fair.

You’ve been around the country alot, from Boston to Tampa and now you’re settled in Nashville which seems like a very unlikely place for a Hip Hop artist. How did you end up there, and did you feel that not being in the limelight of the big city with other artist is helping you creatively?

Without a doubt. Its just a situation where Nashville, I ended up there, because I was in boarding school in Pennsylvania and I had visions of going Northeastern or Julliard to study more music but the streets kinds got into me a little bit. I still had the project mentality, you know. I was doing some drugs and some things like that in my room and because I was there on a scholarship, I almost got kicked out. I had to come down to a regular state school in Nashville to make my way. It was divine order, let’s say it that way. Because in Nashville I’m my own guy, I don’t have any pressure from anybody to sound like anybody or to compete with anybody for anything. Artists don’t even come down here to perform, I barely run into these dudes. So I feel like I can conduct myself in anyway. And I’m in Nashville because it’s the cheapest place for me to raise my family- nah seriously, it’s the cheapest place for me to raise my family and do my thing. That’s the only thing I’m here for, see what I’m saying? If I make enough money to handle my family, after that I'm trying to help the other people around me that I know are struggling, I’m not trying to get rich off of this in any type of way. The only thing I’m trying to do is seeing and taking care of my responsibility. That’s it.



Japan seems to see many of your projects first and it also seems like Japan is one of those countries that give a lot of respect to American artists who rarely get any play at home. Why do you believe so?

I think it’s a situation with Japan, they're still music fans, they’re still music lovers. And what I mean by music lovers is that they still listen to music for music’s sake. In America I find alot of people buy records because they buy the first big record on Tuesday and they have to be able to start quoting lines with their friends on Wednesday. Its like certain people watch television shows not because they like them but because they’re so popular and they feel like at the water cooler the next day they're not gonna have anything to discuss with anyone. Japan is not like that. They listen to whatever the hell they wanna hear. And it’s not a matter of if the new big record comes out and if they don't know any of the words, then [they’re] gonna look like an asshole at school. That's why as far as Japan, they’re still music lovers. People don’t like music here, not for the most part, not any more. [.............................]

Listen, music is product now. Like when you go to the grocery store, there are great detergents there right? And there’s a whole sea of detergents that aren’t, but you only see what’s [there] so you don’t sit there and say �I'm gonna seek out and order my detergent online or such and such�. No, what you see is what you get. So whoever markets it the best and whoever has the best placement is whoever's gonna win. It’s not a matter of who’s the best, period. It all comes down to opinions. It doesn't matter what detergent gets your clothes clean, it’s a matter of what's easiest for you to access. It's that that simple. And I’m fine with that because when I'm dead and gone, then people will have more of a reason to put my records on. That’s what happened with rappers, you get to make music until your dead and then everyone decides that they wanna go head. That’s the only reason why I’m making so much music now, that’s the insurance policy for my family, and that’s the honest to god truth. And I know it sounds corny, it sounds ridiculous but that’s the way it is. I’m trying to make as much music, and put it to the side. And I told Oriana, �If something happens to me, and those muthafuckas start calling and say �You got any other shit?�, then you can start to negotiate.� Seriously that’s the god honest truth. That’s the only way I can live. [Respect]

Crate digging is parallel Graffiti: Crate-digging to me is like graffiti. I apply the same rules to it. I believe in getting up on the biggest spot that you possibly can. It’s definitely illegal, that’s the reason why I still sample. I believe in order to make real hip-hop, you have to really be making some sort of parallel to graffiti. So, I applied the same thing to digging for records.

That is Hip Hop. Hip Hop started with graffiti. That was before everything. That was before people were hooking up, in �73 and ’74. The same thing too, when you talk about putting together block parties, you guys were stealing the electricity just to be able to get power. My point is, that’s how Hip Hop starts. It is a renegade type of music, its like punk rock is the only way you can really describe it. It’s not supposed to be any rules, it’s not supposed to be any format. Nobody supposed to follow anything. Or anybody. The location changes every time. The block party wasn’t in the same spot. If the cops come shut it down, well you gotta move it. It’s like the same with graffiti. If you’re getting up in the same spot for a while, and it gets hot you gotta move it. Graffiti is what dictates everything. If you’re not following the model of how those guys just went after it - for the love. None of those guys ever blew up and made millions. But alot of the guys were able to parlay that into things to make money for themselves. But I don’t understand this whole arts millions and trillions type shit. That’s not me. I got into it for the art of it. I’m not a good business man. I don’t know shit about it really, I spent most of my time learning about the arts. As far as with the graffiti thing, that’s the parallel to Hip Hop. I believe that if you can’t find some sort of a parallel to what somebody’s doing and graffiti, to me that’s not Hip Hop. For me, personally I think Hip Hop is completely dead as a result of nobody having that attitude anymore. It’s like an unspoken rule that’s supposed to be there and its just not there anymore - not across the board, obviously you find little pockets here and there. But across the board, I think it’s just gone. You know what I saying. If Kool Herc doesn’t have a mansion, if Grand Master Flash doesn’t have a mansion, if Bambaatta doesn't have a mansion, then the whole shit is a fraud. And I what I tell these guys too, is if you’re an inspiring musician and you talk about Hip Hop this, Hip Hop that, you make sure you study the guys who started this shit, because you see what’s happened to them. Look at what DJ Hollywood’s doing and see if that’s what you wanna do. Look at what Grand Wizard Theodore I doing and see if that’s what you wanna do. Don’t look to Puff and these guys because that’s not what’s going to happen to you if you studying Hip Hop [correctly]. If you doing the Hip Hop shit correctly then you not gonna end up with a Bentley and all that other shit. It just doesn’t happen that way. So you have to ask yourself �Do I still wanna do this for a living?� If you doing Hip Hop and you aspire to end up like Kool Herc or Grand Master Flash, cool. Which is a lot of respect, not necessarily doughwise, because I never seen Kool Herc - he may have a Bentley, he may have a mansion… I don’t know. But my point is that I should see him on MTV cribs showing me what the benefits of this Hip Hop thing has done for him. He’s not seeing the residuals, if its really all supposed to be about Hip Hop, then how come Crazy Legs isn’t ambassador and doing all this crazy shit? I’m not hating on these big dudes now. Don’t get me wrong, but lets call a spade a spade and see it for what it is. Rap music is not music, and you guys are doing a great job, but rap music is pop music. When I see Jay-Z and Puff and them, I see Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. No different. And I don’t hate on these girls for what they’re doing , but at the same time that’s not what I do. I tap machines. And I'm creating a music theory that these guys are gonna have to come back and study. Pete Rock is creating a music theory, Doom is creating lyrics that people are going to have to study forever. That’s it.



Any exciting projects we can expect from you?

Yes, it’s my wife’s book and its called �Something to Cope�. It’s a collection of her writing. She just had a whole bunch of writings; short essays, prose and poetry. I had an idea and said �You know instead of just putting the book out… I wanted to do an audio CD that comes with it�. There are 48 different writings in there so I did 48 beats, put �em up under there and just had her speak it. Its not like spoken word or nothing, its just her speaking the writings as the writer. I’ve been working on it for 5 years now. I put most of my heart and soul into that project and so that’s the most exciting thing I’ve been working on. That will be coming out the top of next year, probably around January or February. It’ll be manufactured in hard cover and everything. It’s my gift to her for everything she’s done for me because she really is everything for me. I wouldn’t even be here, musically or anywise. I didn't really give a crap about doing any of this, but she knew I had to feed the children I gave her, and put me on track and made sure I handled that. So musically I can get it done and she does the rest and that’s how we’re doing it.

[sunrah]

Jay-Z Wins The First Annual "Fuckouttahere" Award

Jay-Z takes a call from Marley Marl on Ed Lover's radio show

Listening to Jay get interviewed these days is like watching Meet The Press or some shit - a whole lotta spin. But who actually believes that he would’ve used a Marley Marl beat on Kingdom Come? As far as the other comments, let me just translate:

"I love Premo, but just Just Blaze is where I've got that chemistry right now" = Premier refused to make a song out of "Superfreak".

"Tim is in another zone right now" = Timbaland is busy making fruity shit like "Sexyback".

"We gon' put the security clearance with your name on it" = Don't ever call me again in your life Marley.

For those that missed it the first time around, listen to this Jay interview from just before Reasonable Doubt dropped for a little more honesty:

Continuing the throw-back interviews from my tape vaults, today’s session features an excited Jay-Z as he chops it up with Westwood, shortly before the release of Reasonable Doubt. A lotta memories on this one - remember when Hov was talking about "this is gonna be my only album"? Speaking of broken promises, right after Ice Cube dropped Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, he was quoted as saying he was only doing one more album before he called it quits, since "motherfuckers get sick of you if you’re in their face too much". If only the "Bitch Killa" had heeded his own advice and stopped rapping after Death Certificate, he could have stepped off at the top of the game….

But back to Jay, during this interview it's clear that he's enjoying the initial success of "Ain't No Nigga" as it began tearing up the clubs, and he's brimming with confidence when discussing his soon-to-be classic debut. He also touches on speaks about his early days rolling with The Jaz, and introduces a little label by the name of Rocafella Records before he drops a couple of verses over Funkmaster Flex rocking doubles of Sadat X's "Stages and Lights" beat.

Jay-Z - Interview and Freestyle (1996)

[sunrah]

01. Ghost Is Back (produced by Ghostface Killah)
02. Miguel Sanchez feat Trife Da God & Sun God
03. Guns N’ Razors
04. Outta Town Shit
05. Good feat Trife Da God & Mr. Maygreen (produced by Kolade & Peanut)
06. Street Opera feat Sun God
07. Block Rock (produced by Madlib)
08. Miss Info Celebrity Drama (Skit)
09. Pokerface
10. Greedy Bitches feat Redman
11. Josephine [Remix] feat Trife Da God & Dion (produced by Hi-Tek)
12. Grew Up Hard feat Trife Da God
13. Blue Armor feat Sheek Louch
14. You Know I’m No Good feat Amy Winehouse (produced by Mark Ronson)
15. Alex (Stolen Script)
16. Gotta Hold On
17. Back Like That [Remix] feat Kanye West & Ne-Yo (produced by Xtreme)

[cain.marko]

"I love Premo, but just Just Blaze is where I've got that chemistry right now" = Premier refused to make a song out of "Superfreak".

"Tim is in another zone right now" = Timbaland is busy making fruity shit like "Sexyback".

"We gon' put the security clearance with your name on it" = Don't ever call me again in your life Marley.

ahaaaaaaaaa mortale fazele



Ghostface: aveam "You Know I’m No Good feat Amy Winehouse" nu stiam ca e de pe albumul nou. M'A SPART! d`abia astept more fish.

[sunrah]

fii atent la asta =>

Jay-Z Versus the Sample Troll
The shady one-man corporation that's destroying hip-hop.

Last week, a mysterious company, Bridgeport Music Inc., sued hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, accusing him of breaking the law when he recorded his 2003 single "Justify My Thug." The song is an obvious nod to Madonna's "Justify My Love," but she is not the plaintiff. Instead, Bridgeport is suing because Jay-Z did something that is normal in hip-hop: sampling. He took a few notes, looped them in the background, and produced the tune. Bridgeport claims to own those notes, and is demanding a fortune in damages and a permanent ban on the distribution of the song.

Bridgeport is an unwelcome addition to the music world: the "sample troll." Similar to its cousins the patent trolls, Bridgeport and companies like it hold portfolios of old rights (sometimes accumulated in dubious fashion) and use lawsuits to extort money from successful music artists for routine sampling, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable. The sample trolls have already leveraged their position into millions in settlements and court damages, but that's not the real problem. The trolls are turning copyright into the foe rather than the friend of musical innovation. They are bad for everyone in the industry—including the major labels. The sample trolls need to be stopped, either by Congress or by court rulings that establish sampling as a boon, not a burden, to creativity.

Bridgeport is a one-man corporation formed in 1969 and owned by a former music producer named Armen Boladian. It has no employees and no reported assets other than copyrights. Technically, Bridgeport is a "catalog company." Most catalog companies are in the relatively quiet business of licensing rights for television commercials, cover songs, and selling sheet music to interested fans. But Bridgeport has figured out a far more lucrative business model—trolling for sampling cash.

George Clinton is otherwise known as the King of Interplanetary Funk and, along with the late Rick James, the world's most famous funk musician. In the 1970s, Boladian and Bridgeport managed to seize most of the copyrights to Clinton's songs. How exactly they did so is highly disputed. However, in at least a few cases, Boladian assigned the copyrights to Bridgeport by writing a contract and then faking Clinton's signature (as described here). As Clinton put it in this interview, "he just stole 'em."

Bridgeport, if a thief, stole the winning ticket. The Clinton sounds it acquired went on to be among the most widely sampled in the rap music of the 1980s and 1990s. Sampling is as elemental to the genre as beats, beefs, or bragging, and Clinton's sonic creations were a major part of Public Enemy's debut, and were also used heavily by N.W.A., Dr. Dre, Biggie Smalls, and other rap pioneers. Often the sampling is virtually impossible to detect—listen to this sample in this N.W.A song.*

The rise of rap presented a golden opportunity for Bridgeport. After years of demanding fees, in 2001, Bridgeport launched nearly 500 counts of copyright infringement against more than 800 artists and labels. The company, suing in Nashville, Tenn., located every sample of Clinton or other owned copyrights it could find. It took the legal position that any sampling of a sound recording, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable, is still a violation of federal law. Imagine that the copyright owner of The Lord of the Rings had sued every fantasy book or magazine that dared used the words elf, orc, or troll. That gives you an idea of the magnitude of Bridgeport's campaign.

Since 2001, Bridgeport's shotgun approach has led to many dismissals and settlements, but also two major victories. First, in 2005, Bridgeport convinced Nashville's federal appellate court to buy into its copyright theory. In that case, Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, the defendants sampled a single chord from the George Clinton tune "Get Off Your Ass and Jam," changed the pitch, and looped the sound in the background. (The result is almost completely unrecognizable—you can listen to it here). The Sixth Circuit created a rule: that any sampling, no matter how minimal or undetectable, is a copyright infringement. Said the court in Bridgeport, "Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way."

Then, in March of this year, Bridgeport cashed in. It convinced a court to enjoin the sales of the best-selling Notorious B.I.G. album Ready to Die for illegal sampling. A jury awarded Bridgeport more than $4 million in damages.

These troll lawsuits may sound unattractive. But is Bridgeport perhaps serving the goals of copyright—fostering creativity—in some less obvious way? One idea is that Bridgeport is more Robin Hood than troll, stealing from lazy, rich rappers like Jay-Z to channel money back to deserving artists like George Clinton. That argument would make some sense if making rap music were easy, or if Clinton or other artists were in some way the beneficiary of the lawsuits. But neither is true. Bridgeport and other trolls do take from the rich. But they keep the money.

If the benefits are abstract, the costs imposed are obvious. Sample trolls have already changed the face of hip-hop. Early rap, like Public Enemy, combined and mixed thousands of sounds in a single album. That makes sense musically, but it doesn't make sense legally. Thousands or even hundreds of samples, under the Bridgeport theory, mean thousands of copyright clearances and licenses. Today, Public Enemy's breakout album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, would cost millions to produce or, more likely, would never have been made at all.*

The kicker is that while sample trolls are bad for artists, they're also bad for mainstream record labels. Record labels want to get out new music at minimum cost. But if clearing rights in the Bridgeport world costs a fortune, production becomes that much more expensive, and innovative music that much riskier a bet.

What, if anything, can be done? In the big picture, copyright must continually work to ensure that the basic building blocks of creativity are available to artists and creators, especially as new forms of art emerge. We already know what this means for novelists: freedom to use facts, borrow stock characters (like Falstaff) and standard plots (the murder mystery). For filmmakers, it means the freedom to copy standard shots (like The Magnificent Seven's "establishment shot"). For rap music, it means the freedom to sample. Rap's constant reinvention and remixing of old sounds makes it what it is; now is the time for the copyright system to get that. Vibrant cultures borrow, remix and recast. Static cultures die.

Legal solutions to the sample-troll problem are relatively easy—much easier than fixing the patent-troll problem. First, there's only one appellate court, the 6th Circuit, that takes the ridiculous position that any sample, no matter how minimal, needs a license. Most copyright scholars think the decision is both activist and bogus—in the words of leading commentator William Patry, "Bridgeport is policy making wrapped up in a truncated view of law and economics." Other courts can easily counter Bridgeport. They just need to say that the infringement rules for sampling are the same rules that apply for the rest of copyright. Dumbledore may resemble Gandalf, but he's no infringement. Similarly, if you can't even recognize the original in a sample, it shouldn't violate federal law to use it.

Congress could also easily act against the sample trolls. All that is needed is a "sampling code": a single section of the law that declares the usage of some fixed amount of a sound recording, say, seven notes or less, to be no infringement of the copyright law. That would give artists a simple rule to live by, while still requiring licenses for big samples that would compete with the original. It's a win-win scenario. With a single line of code, Congress can make this problem go away.

In the end, it's probably wrong to suggest the sample trolls are evil or hate rap music. The trolls simply look for profit, like any business, and are rational and predictable, like the mold that grows on rotten meat. None of these problems would be quite so severe if artists actually controlled their own copyrights. George Clinton's copyrights end up blocking sampling, when he himself favors sampling. "When hip-hop came out," said Clinton in this interview with Rick Karr, "I was glad to hear it, especially when it was our songs—it was a way to get back on the radio."

Copyright is supposed to be the servant of artists, but today that is all too often just a pretense. The vast majority of the nation's valuable copyrights are owned not by creators, but by stockpilers of one kind or another, and Bridgeport is just a particularly pernicious example. We need better devices to keep the control of the most valuable of artist's rights with artists. For, to paraphrase Judge Learned Hand, copyright was born to protect and liberate musicians, but it all too often ends up enslaving them.

Click here to see the complaint in the Jay-Z case.

Correction, Nov. 16, 2006: The article originally and incorrectly stated that It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was Public Enemy's first album. In fact, it was the group's second. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

Correction, Nov. 17, 2006: The article also originally misidentified a sample as from a Public Enemy song—it was from an N.W.A. song. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

George Clinton's Interview

Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, et al. / 410 F. 3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005)

Weapons of Business Destruction

Bridgeport v. The Island Def Jam Music Group