Drake samples success with YouTube rips

Borrowing breaks from old vinyl is so 20th century. But does chopping and screwing from YouTube represent innovation or infringement?

Drake sold 631,000 copies of his second record Take Care in its first week of release. Love or loathe Drizzy, that's a lot of records. Arguably the best track on the rapper's album is rags-to-riches ballad Look What You've Done, a raw dedication to his mother and uncle. The backbone of the song is a moving piano melody from a studio session with the late rapper-songwriter Static Major and cohort Smoke E Digglera, sampled not from an official source, but from YouTube.

Now, sampling isn't new – even Drake's grandma knows it spawned hip-hop – but it seems the traditional formats of vinyl and tape are being usurped by more accessible mediums. Given that 40% of YouTube's users visit the site to watch music videos, it seems like a natural evolution for producers to use it to source samples too.

A quick online search reveals dozens of programmes and tips on how to rip audio from YouTube videos. Running alongside it, however, is some fiery debate. "Your sound quality is gonna be ass!" is typical of much of the commentary. While there may be a compromise in quality, the payoff is the thrill of finding a sample that catches the ear. With anyone anywhere able to film and upload a video in minutes, YouTube is a seemingly infinite mine of potential audio gold.

It's not just music being sampled, either. I've spoken to half a dozen underground producers who are using YouTube to source field recordings and amateur singer samples, though none of them want to go on the record. Talking about it is just not the done thing, it seems, yet there's a good chance that the song you're hearing on the radio or dancing to in clubs has YouTube in its DNA.

In fact, incorporating vocal rips from YouTube hits into music has been going on for years now. According to sample site WhoSampled.com, hip-rock heavyweights N*E*R*D used a choice YouTube clip of a sheriff instructing a drunk driver to "tilt your head back and close your eyes" on their 2008 track Anti Matter. US dubstepper Skrillex also got in on the act by sampling the frustrated screams of gamer "Crazy German Kid" on his 2010 track My Name Is Skrillex.

It's not just convenience but copyright that's playing a part in this growing trend. If someone has already gone to the trouble of recording the streets of Senegal or uploaded the Mario Kart soundtrack, producers wonder, why do they need to? While copyright issues around officially recorded and released output are more stringent than ever, the public domain of YouTube is a free-for-all. While that's not to say it's in any way legal, by the time a low-quality rip has been processed and chopped, it's not going to be recognisable – or traceable.

For sampling purists, there's not just a question over sound quality but of detachment from the original source material. The previous generation knew their vinyl inside out, scratched it thin. The politics of sampling run deep, whether it's to pay dues, shout out inspiration, or embed messages.

Yet while some critics might deride sampling from YouTube as a low form of art, there's something deeply honest and exciting about reflecting the way in which we consume information today. There might be a lack of understanding around original context but a new world of meaning springs up in its place.

Contributor

Ruth Saxelby

The GuardianTramp

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