Tracklib Presents State of Sampling 2020

Initially planned for release in early 2019, Powfu didn’t put “Death Bed (Coffee for your Head)” on Spotify because he was "scared [he'd] get in trouble from the sample use in it." Fast-forward to February 2020: after a lengthy sample clearance delay around 2017's "Coffee" by UK singer-songwriter Beabadoobee, the lo-fi hip-hop track finally made its way to an insane 796 million streams on Spotify alone, fueled by a viral TikTok hit with over 4 billion views.

Initially planned for release in early 2019, Powfu didn’t put “Death Bed (Coffee for your Head)” on Spotify because he was "scared [he'd] get in trouble from the sample use in it." Fast-forward to February 2020: after a lengthy sample clearance delay around 2017's "Coffee" by UK singer-songwriter Beabadoobee, the lo-fi hip-hop track finally made its way to an insane 796 million streams on Spotify alone, fueled by a viral TikTok hit with over 4 billion views.

The opening track of Savage Mode II, the collaborative album by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin samples “I Thought It Took A Little Time (But Today I Fell In Love)” by Diana Ross. 21 Savage raps about how he frightens his enemies, showing you can even go full-on savage over a sugarsweet Diana Ross sample.

The Gwen McCrae interpolation on Gaga’s synth-heavy “Rain On Me” featuring Ariana Grande, was a random move by producer BURNS. “It was kind of subconscious that I started playing the bassline from ‘All This Love That I'm Givin’ by Gwen McCrae under the chorus,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “That felt like another lightbulb moment. I remember Blood turning to me and smiling as we'd just cracked a code.”

The average release year of all the songs sampled for Billboard Hot 100 hits during 2020 is 1999. This makes sense since last year's average was one year earlier: 1998. Many associate Rap with its 70s soul sampling style. But this year, the genre crossed the turn of the millennium, with 2001 as an average year - and Rap sampled the “newest” music out of all genres this year.

For anyone keeping up, it’s probably no surprise that the 2010s dominate: it’s the most popular decade to sample for six years consecutively! However, the millennials are waking up: sampling the 90s increased 143% this year. It seems the 90s are making a comeback in more areas than fashion...

Both in terms of sampling and being sampled, hip-hop has dominated the sampling charts. However, sampling “modern” R&B/Soul/Funk has been getting more popular since 2018: increasing by 130% this year.

Sampling pop, jazz, and electronic music is also growing. Last year, there weren’t ANY samples of these genres in Billboard’s 2019 year-end charts.

Sampling interviews, television/film, YouTube, and speeches is making a comeback. The “genre” was becoming more popular during the mid-2010s, but last year it suddenly dropped to zero. Examples include Eminem’s Alfred Hitchcock-sampling opening on Music to be Murdered By, or Meek Mill’s “Otherside of America” sampling both his own CNN interview as well as a Donald Trump interview.

There’s an indisputable trend that sampling vocals have risen in popularity. Hip-hop and R&B producers often single out the vocals in a sample, often to add a human touch to the more electronic sounds of deep 808s and the heavy drums.

Both in terms of sampling and being sampled, hip-hop has dominated the sampling charts. However, sampling “modern” R&B/Soul/Funk has been getting more popular since 2018: increasing by 130% this year.

Sampling pop, jazz, and electronic music is also growing. Last year, there weren’t ANY samples of these genres in Billboard’s 2019 year-end charts.

Sampling interviews, television/film, YouTube, and speeches is making a comeback. The “genre” was becoming more popular during the mid-2010s, but last year it suddenly dropped to zero. Examples include Eminem’s Alfred Hitchcock-sampling opening on Music to be Murdered By, or Meek Mill’s “Otherside of America” sampling both his own CNN interview as well as a Donald Trump interview.

After the success of Bandana by Freddie Gibbs and Madlib and the numerous wins coming from the Griselda camp, the trend of loops with no added drums is massive right now. Grammy nominations for Jay Elecronica’s long-awaited A Written Testimony and the Alfredo album by The Alchemist and Freddie Gibbs, prove this trend is not going to slow down anytime soon. Other prime examples include 1988 by Knxwledge, Ka’s Descendants of Cain (who independently sold the LP for $100 a piece), and Only For Dolphins by Action Bronson.

As in-DAW productions, quantized drums, and midi-packs have become a regular feature on Billboard hits, this year show signs that the pendulum has begun to swing to the more sentimental. One of 2020’s most apparent trends is the sampling of R&B and soul vocals from the 90s. As if that wasn’t nostalgic enough, the use of vintage emulators such as XLN Audio’s RC-20 has increased recently: adding the classic analog tape-recorded and distorted sound to the samples.

Last year's Tory Lanez project Chixtape 5, jam-packed with 90's samples was a clear indicator, and this year it’s a full-blown trend. Key examples include the Bell Biv DeVoe flip in Busta Rhymes’ “Outta My Mind” featuring Kendrick Lamar, or a classic Ginuwine track in “What You Know About Love” by Pop Smoke.

The one-bar xylophone loop from 1986’s “Drag Rap” by The Showboys, popularly known as Triggaman, shaped the hip-hop style of Bounce and has since been sampled in hundreds of songs. It made a big comeback this year when it was used in “Go Crazy,” a Top 10 hit by Chris Brown and Young Thug. But we also saw a general increase with songs like 2 Chainz' "Toni," Lil Wayne's "Clap For Em" and YG's "Equinox" using this classic sample. Welcome back, Triggaman.

This year we’ve seen how uncleared samples can obviously lead to (massive!) album delays. So Help Me God by 2 Chainz was initially planned to be released in September, but took till October 30th to be released due to clearance issues with several tracks. Wiz Khalifa's 2009 track "The Thrill" also finally hit streaming platforms this year after long-lasting clearance issues surrounding “Walking On a Dream” by Empire of the Sun.

And then there are El-P and Killer Mike, who had to re-do a track on the cusp of the official release of RTJ4. “We were terrified, like shit - what the fuck are we gonna do?”, El-P told DIY Magazine. “We just completely revamped the jam and made it better. I’m never gonna tell anybody which song it was… mainly because we’re gonna beat up the artist. [Laughs] I’m just talking shit!”

Of all the songs which featured on Billboard’s Hot 100 list during this year, 13% contained samples from previously released songs. That’s a whopping total of 107 samples, spread out across 95 songs. This number seems a relatively steady one, with last year’s total amounting to 15%.

All genres sample: and sampling seems to get more eclectic in terms of genres using the technique. In fact, although there’s a decrease in rap and R&B, ALL other genres are increasing in terms of the amount of samples used. Rock is an exception with a steady 8%, in line with the last two years.

51% of the albums that featured on Billboard’s Top 25 chart during 2020 contained samples; 321 samples in total. On average, that’s about two samples per album! This, similar to the singles, seems like a relatively steady number: last year’s number was 56%.

The most sample-heavy release of this year is Lil Wayne's No Ceilings with 18 samples: an old mixtape from 2009 which originally contained uncleared samples. It was finally released on streaming platforms in August 2020—eleven years after its initial release! However, excluding nine of the tracks which still couldn't be cleared: sample clearance remains an uphill battle (well, outside of Tracklib that is).

100% of the albums nominated for Rap Album of the Year contain samples. This seems like a consistent trend in hip-hop, with last year’s Grammy-nominated albums (including winner Igor by Tyler, the Creator) also ALL featuring samples. More importantly, it’s not just that this year: with sample-dense albums like Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony, Royce da 5’9”’s The Allegory, and Alfredo by Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist, there seems to be a trend of sample-heavy albums receiving all the praise: boasting (as far as we can count) around 13 samples on average per album.

Long story short: Nicki Minaj’s “Sorry” featuring Nas interpolates “Baby Can I Hold You” by Tracy Chapman, the singer-songwriter who is known for not being a fan of sampling, to say the least. No surprise Chapman rejected the license request for “Sorry.” Minaj’s track wasn’t commercially released, but the Queen leftover track publicly leaked when Funkmaster Flex played it on the radio. This led to a two-year legal feud between Nicki Minaj and Tracy Chapman. In September of this year, the court ruled that the interpolation was fair use since it wasn't meant to be played on the radio. The ruling states:

“Artists usually experiment with works before seeking licenses from rights holders and rights holders typically ask to see a proposed work before approving a license. A ruling uprooting these common practices would limit creativity and stifle innovation within the music industry.”

UPDATE (February 2021): Nicki Minaj eventually paid Tracy Chapman $450K to settle this dispute, following the earlier "fair use" judgement by US District Judge Virginia A Phillips.

After some good ol’ - well, new - fashioned social media-beefing over whether or not Tory Lanez unrightfully sampled Pretty Ricky's "Grind On Me" and "Your Body,” things turned out to be a fizzle. Tory Lanez shared documents with The Shade Room showing the sample clearances for tracks on his Chixtape 5 mixtape, killing the social shade with proof that Sony/ATV and the tracks’ writers were paid.

The will.i.am-produced track “Culture” on culture vultures by HOT97's DJ Megan Ryte featuring A$AP Ferg, turned out to plagiarise “Ice Drop,” a song by South African producer DJ Lag. Not just some song, but one of the biggest tracks in the South African genre of Gqom: a minimalist house style from the townships of Durban, pioneered by DJ Lag. So the song which, according to Megan Ryte, was "a statement record that recognises the importance of Black cultural contributions around the world," turned into a textbook example of exactly the opposite.

A massive $6.45 million lawsuit by Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J and DJ Paul claimed that hip-hop duo Suicideboys “made a career out of stealing and profiting from” at least 35 of their songs. Suicideboys, on their turn, questioned the legitimacy of the copyright claims: allegedly, Three 6 Mafia track “Mask and Da Glock” includes unlicensed samples of Diana Ross sample ("Sparkle") and Carlito Way (“I’m Reloaded”). So at the core of this case, there was a very interesting question: can unauthorized derivative works (songs with uncleared samples) be protected by Copyright Law? For the sake of an answer on that, it’s a bit of a bummer that the case ended when Three 6 Mafia and Suicideboys reached a settlement.