What was the first hip hop track to feature a sample?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Any ideas?

― HBD, Monday, 2 January 2006 15:31 (twenty years ago)

It was "I'm Missing You" by Puff Diddy and the Partridge Family.

― I Am Sexless and I Am Foul (noodle vague), Monday, 2 January 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash And The Wheels Of Steel maybe?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

Have to define "sample".

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 2 January 2006 16:27 (twenty years ago)

I guess it depends how you define a sample. "Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" uses parts of other songs, but it's done with live mixing, not with a sampler. I have no idea what'd be the first rap track to use a sampler.

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 January 2006 16:29 (twenty years ago)

The first thing to spring to mind is "Sucker DJ's" by Dimples D (produced by Marley Marl) which is from 1983, though I'm not 100% if a sampler is used on it - sounds like that though.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 January 2006 16:32 (twenty years ago)

"Rockin It" and "Planet Rock" were both 1982.

But live mixing or no, "Adventures," does in fact contain samples. And a whole shitload of them.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:00 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure what the answer is (and of course plenty of tracks before "Wheels of Steel" used parts of a song or two, sometimes played live and sometimes spun by a DJ I assume, though "Wheels of Steel" may have been the first one to make a collage out of it -- that was before stuff like "Zulu Wildstyle" by the original pre-Lyndon Bambaataa Time Zone, right?), but here's a related question: What was the first hip-hop track to use "electronic" (as in Kraftwerk-style beatbox as they called them then) beats? I've always assumed it was "Planet Rock" (which was before "Rockin' It" and "Scorpio" and "Flash to the Beat", I think; they all came out around '82), but the great new Soul Jazz 2-CD comp *Big Apple Rappin" (due out in February I think) has one called "Funkbox Party" by Masterdon Committe which I'd never heard before, and which I assume came before "Planet Rock" (sounds very 1980 otherwise, and the comp goes '79-'82.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 January 2006 17:05 (twenty years ago)

"Rockin It" and "Planet Rock" were both 1982.

Does Planet Rock actually sample Kraftwerk, or does it merely use studio interpolations of "Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers"? I'm not sure.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:09 (twenty years ago)

"Funk Box Party" was 1982, just like "Planet Rock."

I'm pretty sure "Planet Rock" came first. Planet Rock does use an actual sample from what I understand.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:12 (twenty years ago)

Actually though I'm not positive "Wheels of Steel" did anything collage-wise that hadn't really been first done on some of those *Live Convention* albums on Disc-O-Wax (and maybe other labels?) Not sure how legit/legal these were; the Disc-O-Wax I have (plain 12-inch single style white sleeve, black label, two album-length sides but not divided into individual tracks, and I have no idea who's spinning on most of it though maybe that's announced on the vinyl itself, and it's possible it originally came in an an actual sleeve though I've never seen one) is *Live Convention '82*, though there may well have been earlier ones before that.

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 January 2006 17:14 (twenty years ago)

"Wheels of Steel" was '81 though, so maybe that's all a moot point. (When was Bam's first Wildstyle mix? Granmixer D.St. and the Infinity Rappers "Cuts It Up," which I'm fairly sure has actual samples, looks like '82.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 January 2006 17:19 (twenty years ago)

From what I understand, the Live Convention stuff was one of the first legit releases of the type of live jams that people were tape trading for years, no?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:20 (twenty years ago)

Yeah'd, I'd guess they were, but I was never sure about the "legit" part.

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 January 2006 17:22 (twenty years ago)

DST and Buffalo Gals and all those "Cut-up" records came in "Wheels Of Steel"s wake. That was ground zero for turntablism ON RECORD.

If you want to make a case for live mixes, then yer splitting hairs. And you can just trace it back to the first time anyone made a bootleg recording of Herc or Bam and taped it for their friend in gym class.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:22 (twenty years ago)

Everyone knows DJing as such had been going on for years, this is why I thought it'd be more interesting to ask who was the first to use a sampler on a track, since from what I gather they were pretty rare and expensive before mid-eighties.

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:24 (twenty years ago)

...all of which I would kill to hear. The tapes are so storied, but outside of Live Convention, Death Mix and a Cold Crush Brothers thing, not many of them had survived.

Or at least that i've know of! You'd think Stones Throw would have some Violent Turd/Seelard-style clandestine CD-R network for that stuff.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:25 (twenty years ago)

Umm.. Sugarhill Gang, Rapper's Delight, 1979?

― Mitya (mitya), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:26 (twenty years ago)

Nope - no samples nor turntablism on that track. That was studio musicians recreating the break from Good Times.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:28 (twenty years ago)

Oops. You're right. Forgot.

― Mitya (mitya), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:32 (twenty years ago)

Does Planet Rock really use a sample? Talking tech, the Fairlight came out in 1980, who was using them? By 82 or so Trevor Horn used them with Art of Noise and Buffalo Gals. New Order used an Emulator around 82/83 so it's likely Arthur Baker did as well. When exactly did the Emulator come out?

If Wheels of Steel does contain samples, was Flash using a studio with a Fairlight? I thought it was supposed to be all turntable, though I assumed he used overdubs.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:12 (twenty years ago)

The Emulator 1 came out in 1981, so I'd guess if Baker used samples on Planet Rock, that's what he used, though I thought it wasn't samples.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:16 (twenty years ago)

Wheels Of Steel uses pieces of pre-existing music, therefore, by definition, it uses samples.

I'm 98% sure that "Planet Rock" uses actual samples from "Trans-Europe Express." Listen to the opening percussion break.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:19 (twenty years ago)

I always figured they spliced tapes to get those loops.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

Wheels Of Steel uses pieces of pre-existing music, therefore, by definition, it uses samples.

Maybe I mistook the thread to mean what was the first hip-hop trakc to feature a sampler, something I'm still curious about answering.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

t-minus five days from release of first sampler in the united states?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:38 (twenty years ago)

I think that's the direction we should go in here, otherwise we'll end up talking about Mills College tape-splicing in the 60's, or Terry Riley's "You're Nogood".

xpost

― sleeve (sleeve), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:45 (twenty years ago)

t-minus five days from release of first sampler in the united states?

Thing is, when samplers came out, they were too expensive, and for years hip-hop seemed more dominated by electro, or more about gear like drum machines and synths in general. I think conventional wisdom is that sample-dominated hip-hop didn't really take-over untill the samplers became more affordable, more like 1986 to 1988, many years after the first samplers were introduced.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 18:49 (twenty years ago)

I thought the whole controversy with "Rapper's Delight" is that they _said_ they used studio musicians but really did not.

― musically (musically), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:01 (twenty years ago)

No, they were studio musicians.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:06 (twenty years ago)

I think that's the direction we should go in here, otherwise we'll end up talking about Mills College tape-splicing in the 60's, or Terry Riley's "You're Nogood".

ITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAINITSGONNARAIN

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

I alwasy give credit to You're Nogood, which I think is 2 years after It's Going to Rain, but the fact that his source material is pop music makes it more interesting to me.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

Arthur Baker confirmed years ago that Planet Rock used a recreation of the synth line from Trans-Europe Express. Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos provided the TR-808 drum programming.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Monday, 2 January 2006 20:15 (twenty years ago)

Talking tech, the Fairlight came out in 1980, who was using them?

Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Jean-Michel Jarre.

Regarding sampling in hip-hop, is it possible that Eric B & Rakim were the first ones to actually use a sample rather than turntablism or sessionist recreating a backing track? Or was it someone earlier?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 2 January 2006 20:39 (twenty years ago)

"Rockin' It" was 1982

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 2 January 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

Geir, I meant what HIP-HOP producer was using them.

People used samples before Eric B & Rakim, but they certainly helped popularize that style.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 2 January 2006 20:46 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.