“Those ravers were at the edge of their lives, they weren’t running ahead or falling behind, they were just right there and the tunes meant everything.”
In an age where meaning is becoming increasingly transient and technological advancements continue to spawn ever confounding ontological crises, as humans we are hard-pressed to find outlets that nurture genuine expression of any significance. Do we remain puritanical and stick with the vehicles of expression that we have been accustomed to all this time? Do we embrace these ever shifting sociotechnological paradigms and integrate them into our art forms? Would doing so compromise the integrity of our art? In many ways, sampling, its inception, and its evolution has faced these ontological conundrums. Similar quandaries are faced by pioneers in the Web3 space as well.
“I didn’t know anything about sampling until someone comes up to me and says some artist is using your drum pattern, and I say, cool!”
- Clyde Stubblefield
In 1969, James Brown and his band recorded “Funky Drummer” in Cincinnati, Ohio. That day, Clyde Stubblefield had no way of knowing that the brief riff he played upon James's prompting would go on to be one of the most heavily sampled drum breaks of all time. This breakbeat can be found in everything from Dr. Dre’s production for N.W.A. to the Power Puff Girls theme song. It is an ethereal auditory relic that has transcended space and time. Now you may be thinking “okay buddy it ain’t that deep…”, however I assure you it is! In under four seconds of kicking and tapping, Clyde engraved his legacy into the aural landscape of human beings forevermore. He lives on globally through his music and that of all the artists who pay tribute to him via sampling. In this way, he is the progenitor of a global family united by the utility and love for his break.
Clyde Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer” break is of course by no means a standalone phenomenon. Entire genres and subcultures are the spawn of a culmination of samples such as Clyde’s. These samples help provide a flag under which producers and by extension their audiences may rally underneath, the veritable backbone of these tribes. With that being said, as important as people who get sampled are, those who are the sampler are people of equal significance.
“Don’t let sampling make you lazy, you know, do your thing creatively. But I would tell you this, when people sample those great songs, maybe they’re compensating for what the radio station isn’t playing.”
To be a truly great sampler just knowing how to produce a track isn’t enough. One must truly have an appreciation and understanding of their source material; otherwise, you run the risk of making something fit for Lebron. The greatest producers of all-time are not only masterful musicians, but they are also some of the most skilled listeners. They are the hosts of prodigious auditory lexicons filled with sounds that please and inspire. Samplers do the hard work for us in that they serve up these delectable sound bites on a gilded platter, as if we were tone deaf children who wouldn’t know good music if it slapped us in the tympanic membrane. When we listen to tracks by Dilla, Frankie Knuckles, Photek, or even Burial, I’m sure we’re all happy with said treatment. Samplers expose us to sounds that we would never have the pleasure of experiencing otherwise.
Samples and their use, though today generally regarded as a worthy form of creative expression and is now a mainstream practice, was not always seen in such a positive light. It took decades of collective work from musicians, producers, DJs, writers, emcees, rappers, and their community audience to successfully and acceptably integrate sampling techniques into the art form that is music production. In much the same way, the Web3 space can find a kindred trajectory.
Sampling and the salient genres that are so near and dear to the FLOPPY team grew to the height of their power and influence in European warehouses, in Chicago nightclubs, and in Detroit basements. Music and subcultures that were fueled by the artists and their audiences support; all parties involved working together to further the innovation of the music and enjoyment thereof. The communities built around these production styles were key in furthering the normalization of sampling. These communities rallied behind the music. Though these songs were an amalgamation of borrowed refrains, the people accepted the music as new. They knew these techniques were, yet still, a beautiful wonderful art.
In the case of the Web3 space, something similar can very well unfold on an even grander scale. This is not to say the mechanisms involved for its growth and normalization aren’t the same if not identical to the path sampling took. The Web3 ethos goes hand in hand with that of the sample. Sampling and Web3 both, are predicated on ideals of decentralization, they are just expressed differently. Producers who sampled sought decentralization by way of a no holds barred experimentation with sound in pursuit of greater expression with no regard for greater “central” entities and all the love for music itself. Whereas, Web3 developers seek decentralization by way of experimenting with the very modes in which we have lived our lives in the 21st century. Web3 developers seek to rebuild classical frameworks of everyday life/work with a similar disregard for greater “central” entities and the general status quo.
The success of both these phenomenon lie within the communities built around their progression. Again, sampling techniques were ratified in stereos, basements, clubs, and raves. Web3 platforms and frameworks will be ratified on GitHub repositories, kanban boards, CryptoTwitter, Discord servers, and via a myriad of yet to be dreamed systems. I invite you to go back and read through everything formerly discussed in this article regarding sampling through the lens of Web3 projects taking old systems and repurposing them in new and better ways to get a more clear picture of the analogy.
As it stands, the necessary work is already being done to set this new Web3 world up for long-lasting success. Just as in the case of producers and their audiences working together to legitimize sampling… Web3 developers and communities keep dreaming and keep working; from your efforts Web3 can be integrated and normalized in whatever form you may please.
As always, thank you for reading!
Explore the links below to learn more about FLOPPY. We are aiming to be a bridge between the sampling music production world lightly explored above and the burgeoning innovative world of Web3. Join us on our journey of marrying the two!
FLOPPY’s introductory article:
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Come watch us build in the SONGCAMP Discord’s FLOPPY Channel: