We’ve Legalized Weed. When Will We Legalize Sampling?

For the fourth anniversary of its launch, Lil Peep’s mixtape HELLBOY was made available to streaming platforms last Friday. That means that every sample on the record had to be cleared with the artists who originated them, anyone from Aphex Twin to Avenged Sevenfold had to sign off before the album could be re-released the way the late Gustav Åhr intended.

Earlier this year, 2016’s crybaby was released in a similar way. Remastered from the Garageband sessions from Peep’s old MacBook, the mixtape that was uploaded on Spotify was missing one of its original tracks, Falling 4 Me, which contained a short - and kind of abstract - sample of Radiohead’s song Climbing Up the Walls. 

Allegedly, the song could not be cleared with the Abingdon band, so it will not be released until OK Computer enters the public domain. 

Or until we change the way we perceive samples.

I’m probably not the best person to get into the legal mumbo jumbo surrounding the art of sampling. I’m not a lawyer. What I can say, I can say it as an amateur music critic and a middling musician who has fiddled his fair share of samples.

I think it’s fucked up that musicians still aren't free to use samples freely to express themselves creatively. I see the argument for the protection of an artist’s work. I get that Radiohead worked hard and insvested good money to create their track. It’s their property, and no one should have the right to take it away from them or their estate.

In other words, I get why a record label isn’t allowed to sell their own bootleg pressing of OK Computer without the express consent of its masters’ owner. Even if you want to lash out against Internet piracy, I might make fun of you because you’re a little late, but I’ll empathize nonetheless.

Sampling is a whole other entity, though. When an artist uses a portion of a preexisting recording to create their own, their re-purposing existing concepts to create a new discourse. When you do that with words, you’re protected by the liberty of expression. But when you do that with sound waves, suddenly it’s not so clear.

Then again, most laws applicable to uncleared samples were created long before samplers were a thing. Legally, you can use a portion of a copyrighted song in an essay or a critic, but not in a work of art. That says a lot about our respect for contemporary art.

There’s a line between cultural appropriation and culture spread, and guess what, it’s not that fine. Cultural appropriation happens when someone steals someone else’s idea and passes it as their own. Culture spread happens when an idea is so interesting that it starts shaping the conversation, the culture, and even the way humans see the world.

Culture spread isn’t a crime you commit, it’s more like a virus you catch.

There’s this stigma surrounding sampling, as if it was lazy - or worst, dishonest - to use someone else’s music as a jumping off point for a new song. But, if you do it right, finding, cutting, and rearranging a sample isn’t that much easier than playing an instrument.

I’d go so far as to say there’s something spiritual in the act of sampling a record. It’s a way to connect with a cultural artifact from the past in a profound way. I’ve never connected as profoundly with a song as when I’ve incorporated a portion of it in one of my beats. It feels like having a conversation with a spirit, or traveling through time.

Sampling is also a way to communicate with your audience. It’s a way to say: “This is the stuff I’m into.” That’s obvious in Lil Peep’s work, the way he incorporates emo and indie rock pieces and broadcasts them to a new generation of trap superfans. That love of music is beautiful, even if it’s what risks ultimately relegating some of his best music to the footnotes history.

I don’t like the fact that Lil Peep’s Falling 4 Me is missing from streaming platforms. It freaks me out to think of all the great tracks and mixtapes that risk getting left behind as streaming becomes the norm, like old photographs lost during a move.

Culturally, Lil Peep’s track are as relevant as anything you’ll find in a museum. I’d like to live in a world where every musician is free to publish their work, no matter how it was made, regardless of if they have the clout or the means to clear samples they’ve used.

Ultimately, that’s the big difference between SoundCloud rappers and a “legit” band like Radiohead who has sampled their fair share of music. Radiohead has all the money in the world to clear whatever sample they want, which gives them a liberty of musical expression that a younger artist doesn’t have.

For a band that has always patted itself on the back for being anti-establishment, Thom Yorke’s crew is starting to act a little bit more like The Man every day.

I want to live in a world where a young person alone in their room doesn’t have to wait to have the privilege to get their hands on a musical instrument before they can create generation-defining anthems.

I’m tired to see the conversation surrounding samples hinge on a “don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness” argument.

We’ve legalized weed. When will we legalize sampling?

For smarter thoughts on the subject, make sure to watch Brett Gaylor’s documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto. You can also read Damon Krukowski’s brilliant op-ed Plagiarize This: A Reasonable Solution to Musical Copyright After “Blurred Lines”.