Sampling isn’t just something Hip-Hop adopted along the way — the idea of taking existing music and reshaping it is baked into the culture’s foundation. At DJ Kool Herc’s legendary August 11, 1973 party in the Bronx, Herc used two turntables to isolate and extend the instrumental “breaks” dancers loved the most, a technique that became one of Hip-Hop’s earliest musical building blocks.
As technology evolved, so did the possibilities. Marley Marl became one of the pioneers of using actual samplers to capture individual drum sounds and reconstruct them into entirely new rhythms, helping establish a production method that would eventually become standard throughout Hip-Hop. From there, producers learned that virtually anything — soul, funk, jazz, rock, gospel, R&B and even Broadway musicals — could become raw material.
The greatest samples aren’t necessarily the most obvious ones either. Sometimes the genius is hearing a familiar record in a completely different way; other times it’s digging up something obscure and making millions of people recognize a few seconds of it forever. In no particular order, here are 20 Hip-Hop samples that perfectly show the art form at its best.
Public Enemy — “Fight The Power” / James Brown — “Funky Drummer,” Syl Johnson — “Different Strokes” & More
The Bomb Squad famously stacked numerous sounds together to make “Fight The Power” feel almost overwhelmingly dense, including drums from James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” pieces of Syl Johnson’s “Different Strokes,” and vocals connected to The Isley Brothers’ own “Fight The Power.” It’s sampling less like borrowing one loop and more like building a musical collage.