with the amount of sampling, referencing, rehashing that goes on in today's society I decided to try and make sense of it all by plotting them on a quadrant chart

but I'm curious—what's a lazy reference to you vs a good one?

Gonna peep this one. I will say it’s more of a subjective taste for me. I think when it’s done intentionally or creatively it’s great and an integral part of hip hop but unfortunately a lot of what I hear today just sounds phoned in to cash on a nostalgia grab

Yeah for me I think it works best when it's done creatively (i.e. not just copying an album cover word for word like what Nine Vicious does) and it has meaning (so the reference was chosen because it has something to do with the message of the new work)

Something about it being so on the nose bothers me. Even sample loops of yesterday at least seemed a lot more intentionally placed or expanded on. Some of the s*** I hear now is actually egregious. Someone had a thread on it awhile back it was honestly kind of funny looking at some of them

That Jack Harlow song sampling fergie gotta be one of the laziest

Why?

I can’t hate on newer generation ‘lazy’ sampling personally. Too many classics that could fall under that same criteria like Juicy, Big Poppa, Today was a Good Day etc

Homage epidemic is a real thing tho

depends on if i like the artist or not

I actually think there are worse like at least he’s having a conversation with the sample I think the worst examples are the ones that are basically like jangling keys, REMEMBER THIS HIT SONG? Type s***. Feels like the music version of them lazily remaking a movie

The Jack one I think is maybe one tier above that because he talks to the sample

Damn that’s real. But it felt more transformative back then because the act of sampling and chopping things up was newer. Or am I too young to know what it really felt like

Speaking out of my ass bc I was born in 2000 but from what I’ve gleamed there was definitely a novelty but I feel like the majority opinion especially outside rap culture always looked at it as very derivative (look at princes stance on sampling for the longest time) Even today if you look at a bunch of madlib/alchemist sample breakdowns on YouTube there’s a bunch of people who don’t know s*** about rap complaining that they lost respect for the song bc all they did was loop a section. It’s cool to dislike the music that falls victims to this type of sampling but it’s more just disliking the song and saying it’s bc of lazy sampling just to make it seem more authoritative

That’s real. Yea I guess not everyone has the same context or agreed-upon principles when it comes to talking about it so I made some assumptions in this video that people think sampling can be cool but that’s a good point. It def feels lazier to me to completely rehash an entire song than it is to take a piece of a soul song and loop it and talk about something else though

Just finished watching the video. Great job as always and my comment definitely wasn’t a dig at your stance, I feel like you did a good job noting that this isn’t a value judgement on the music itself but also obviously that it’s so much cooler when it feels like a conversation and is actually recontextualizing the original piece

when diddy sampled the police every breath you take (lazy)

Nah for sure I appreciate you I’m always looking for good discussion on here rather than just promoing the videos

oh man i thought this was gonna be an easy answer until i saw ur vid thumbnail and thought about why I don't like Anxiety

i think its a combination of how good the new song is and how different the new song feels from the original song

because if the new song isn't as good as the sample then it feels like a waste of a sample

and then on top of that if its singing a new chorus over the original instrumental like all those EDM remixes do, the poor quality of the song will be exacerbated by how similar it feels to listening to the original song, and then you'd be like "why would i listen to this when i can just listen to the original and get a better experience"

in contrast, i think if a song is good enough you can excuse how similar it is the original song if you just like it more than the original, or if you think it gives a different experience

idk that last point has been my rationale for a lot of vaporwave, some of it is literally just slowed down instrumental loops

like this ECO VIRTUAL song is just the opening to Human Nature by MJ and I still love and listen to the original a lot but sometimes I just wanna hear (and see ) this weather channel music video

That Bruno mars song from the Grammys, s*** a cover
And people like omg he got everyone dancing

I feel its the same s*** now.

We just know the songs being sampled better, so it feels less "original"

But hiphop as a whole was built on sampling and its not much different now than before

eh his flip with the letters was kinda creative, it’s just the song ass

I’d argue Lovin’ on Me is lazier but I like that song more

This is a war crime

I use the AI DJ on Spotify and it references my past played music and also plays me music from different artists. I don’t listen to BigXthaPlug but I’ve been getting some of his songs using that option and it feels like every single beat he raps on is a sample of a classic songs years prior

Uzi’s What You Saying is a really really cool example

Luther with Dot & SZA comes to mind as well

Meg & Glo ran that Pretty Boy Swag sample

Some bad ones are that NLE Choppa-Nelly song and ISSA PARTY by Latto & BabyDrill, I like the latter but the production and hook is too on the nose for it to be more than a one time listen over the OG.

haven't watched the vid yet but re-contextualizing whatever you're sampling is important imo

that's why the trend of basically remaking already classic R&B songs by newer singers or nine vicious remaking existing rap album covers (especially the thug ones since he's basically in the same lane) comes off as copying homework and changing it up a little

that's different than just generally flipping soul samples into rap beats or even doechii using the beat of somebody that i used to know in a rap context

Never admit out loud you use ai in any form to choose your music.

Execution