39
He had about three thousand records, and I had gravitated toward maybe two hundred 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 Three 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..
Flashmag! Edition 177 Octobre 2026
39