Stray Landings

De La Soul’s debut masterpiece 3 Feet High and Rising includes a 12-second sample from the Turtles’ 1969 song, ‘You Showed Me’ in the interlude skit, ‘Transmitting Live From Mars’. Upon hearing the sample in 1991, Mark Volman of the Turtles successfully sued De La Soul for an eye-watering $1.7 million in a case settled outside of court. Speaking to the L.A Times, Volman said, “sampling is just a longer term for theft. Anybody who can honesty say sampling is some sort of creativity has never done anything creative.” Volman is apparently deaf to irony, since ‘You Showed Me’ is actually a cover version of a song written by Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark of the Byrds. More ironic still, is the sheer amount of creative music has been spawned since then. Even to put the Golden Age of Hip-Hip to one side, we’ve had Plunderphonics, Chopped & Screwed, Breakcore and a more recent fascination with sound collage in the Internet Age. So what do we make of sampling today? Where can it go? Is ‘originality’ important? Does it