Robbing Hood
Re-appropriation of an African-American ‘keeping it real’ in
hip-hop through the sampling of films, during times of
glocalization and appropriation
Stef Mul
10523537
Erik Laeven
Second reader: Catherine Lord
Word Count: 17.936
PREFACE
Hip-hop is, and has from the very first beat, rhyme and dance, been a culture with a certain narrative. One that for purists and originators might be seen as lead astray in a globalizing circus of commercialization and remediation of itself, handing this hip-hop narrative over to people, who do not stem from the streets of suburban New York and of African-American decent, initially, as well as Latin- Americans and other ethnic minorities living in these same neighborhoods. Hip- hop artists are often anxious to defend its own original ethnical and socio-geographical confines. “First there was African music,” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson firmly states in his book about his life as a hip-hop artist – among other things. “You know how Public Enemy says, in “Can’t Truss It,” that they came from “the base motherland, the place of the drums”? Africa, that’s the place they’re talking about,” quoting the hip-hop moguls, formed in 1986 (9). If one feels like subscribing to these thoughts, they might agree on the idea that the authentic culture of hip-hop stems from 1970 to 1979 and is interwoven with a great deal of African heritage. This was “before hip-hop was “commercialized” in the form of recordings,” according to some of the firmest purist fans, artists and scientists out there (Justin A. Williams, 22). Thus, there seems to be a strong, yet troubling liaison with notions of ‘being original’ or ‘authentic’ coded deep inside hip-hops own genes, that gets more and more troublesome after hip-hops is spreading and being appropriated around the world, in several cultures, media and lifestyles. Furthermore, this entanglement gets a paradoxical turn when one takes into account hip-hop’s appropriative use of other material as mode of artistic expression, being the samples of music, textual or musical interpolation and other multimedia references, both intra- and extra-musical. However, it was the same “commercialization” that brought the hip-hop culture to a European man from the Netherlands. I am historically and demographically – and ethnically – unfit to act up as a purist, as I only got to listen to and learn from the already “commercialized” version of a re-cultured hip-hop community. But from this very same distance I got to learn about how the seminal quartet of hip-hop – graffiti, breakdance, DJ-ing and MC-ing – together embrace the notions of a cultural heritage, authenticity and nostalgia into a shared experience that transcends the musical aspect. 21st Centuryglobalized hip-hop is now mostly associated rapping and rhyming, being the most distinguishable aspect of the (musical) culture when compared to other genres. It is being mostly sold around the world as a mere musical experience, without any other cultural substance or historical value, with solely the rappers on the forefront as the big stars. I myself, being late to the block party, have also had a predominantly auditory hip-hop experience, falling in love with the genre after many auditory encounters. However, quickly it also started to speak directly to my visual imagination, through the words and, moreover, a seemingly infinite variety of samples that added a certain kind of image to the narrative on tape. It was a first grasp on hip-hop’s modes of communication an introduction to its power to speak on behalf of the people living in the culture, coming from a non-white (and predominantly black) lineage and growing up in poor socio-economical situations. Not only through the graffiti on the walls and the provocative imagery of a break-dancer, but also through its quotations of so many other media-expressions, hip-hop expresses itself as an intrinsically audiovisual hodgepodge of mythological proportions, to tell the story of those in this minority position. I never considered it an accident that, while hip-hop was straying away from the Bronx “to folks who had never heard of rap or hip-hop”, already two films were made (Jeff Chang, 132). Through Wild Style (1982) and Style Wars (1983) flows a highly determined desire to show, tell and express. To show whom they are, where they come from and which conditions brought about their cultural expressions – almost as if they knew what hip-hop was going to be; to already establish grounds for authenticity. “Frequently cited as the most accurate representation of the early hip-hop period, (…) [and] though filmed in 1981, Wild Style is considered the quintessential hip-hop film because it sought to capture the energy of prerecording, pre-1979 hip-hop,” Justin A. Williams honorably describes the film (26). But it is not only literally in film that the hip-hop cultural has a visual voice, but the music itself also borrows from cinematic modes of communication. Sometimes long intermezzos between songs, directly quote whole sequences of films, dialogue gets intermingled with the lyrics or the melody of a soundtrack is reshuffled, and formed into a new beat. In what auditory fashion are the films integrated in hip-hop songs, what meaning do the film samples bear in the greater hip-hop narrative and how does it add up to the
notions of authenticity, as well as the paradoxical liaison with appropriation? These are the questions this thesis seeks to answer. The intermingling of film and hip-hop has never escaped my mind and interests, it being just as much part of this discussion on authenticity, sampling and appropriation, as it is left out of scientific texts on the matter. After years of trying to canonize hip-hop’s entire discography – a seeming impossibility – and a great desire to discover the origins of the samples, I found a staggering amount of films, put to use in several ways of sampling. Hence, the reason for this thesis, as an open exploration into the realm of hip-hop, and it’s discourse, as well as it’s tendency therein to include film, especially films that are not part of the African-American anthology. I feel obliged to carry out a disclaimer, acknowledging the fact that I am probably appropriating and framing myself, by talking about this distant culture. However, I think, and will hopefully prove as trustworthy, that the amount of non-African-American film samples is evident and interesting enough, to examine. Also, any potential misconceptions of things will be avoided to my power. Even though I am aware of my white, European (pre-)conditions, I feel like it is important to at least give it a try and possibly hand over some exploratory work on film samples that one might take into further research.
CONTENT
Preface 1. Taking back what is not yours 1.1 Re-Appropriation authenticity 1.2 A Hip-Hop Origin Story: keeping what real? 1.3 Corpus - Threefold of film genres 2. Postcolonial framework: introducing… 2.1 (Re-)appropriation: keeping it real 2.2 Meaningful borrowing: sampling or appropriating 2.3 Glocalization: a global narrative 3. Methodology 4. Analysis: Film-reels to keep it real 4.1 Tales from the Hood – lyrical depictions 4.2 Images and sounds from around the world 4.3 Film-reels to keep it real The Black Soprano Family Afrofuturism: re-appropriating history 5. In conclusion – Japsploitation appropriation Reference guide Filmography Discography Appendix
1. Taking back what is not yours
Lupin III is the illegitimate grandson of the anarchist antihero Arsène Lupin.1 Still, he stays true to his family origin: he is a grandmaster and gentleman-like thief. As contradictory as it sounds, this means that he holds up an admirable reputation, while stealing ”rather for the love of his art than to acquire wealth,” which gives him “a certain moral legitimacy when he relieves [dubious figures] of their ill-gotten gains” (Drake, 114). The respected rebel steals from those who do not fully appreciate or rightfully appropriated their wealth, making him a Robin Hood-like character full of moral and political potential. From his manga origin on paper, Lupin III went on to have a prolific anime career, with thirty-eight films and different series. Lupin III also appears to be of some inspiration to African-American hip-hop artists, as different parts of its soundtrack by Yuji Ohno and his Explosion Band2 are being sampled. Acknowledging the supposition that hip-hop’s sampling often bears certain meaning or critique, why then does this sample of a Japanese animation occur in this African-American part of hip-hop’s culture? Which cultural and global developments might cause hip-hop artists to use Lupin III’s music as the base of their songs? As such, Lupin III is the starting point and most salient object of this thesis on hip-hop’s relation with film-samples. What does this Japanese cartoon character tell about a hip-hop’s notion of ‘keeping it real’ and appropriation?1.1 (Re-)Appropriating Authenticity
The more hip-hop’s culture gets glocalized and universally commodified, the lesser the claim of “keeping it real”, as a common authentic ground of a relatively local inner-circle, is expressed through African-American centered sampling – a form of appropriation.3 In this thesis it also taken as a well-known 1 A fictional gentleman thief created by the French writer Maurice Leblanc in the 2 The references to the various LP’s that are sampled can be found in the textual analysis. 3 The paradox of appropriation (2.1), the notion of ‘keeping it real’ (2.2), and the concept of glocalization (2.3) are deepened in the next chapter.fact that hip-hop in its entirety is no longer just an expression of a singular group of (mostly African-)American minorities, because of the same process of glocalization. Taking a small look in online communities, other media, the music charts in countries all over the world and even just a look outside, on the streets of various international cities, will affirm the latter. Hip-hop culture spread from the African-American and Latino urban areas, to the white suburbs and, eventually, worldwide. “With the meteoric growth of hip-hop culture, rap moved beyond urban streets to the headphones of suburban white America” (McLeod Jr., 123). However, “global spread of hip-hop authenticity provides an example of the tension between a cultural dictate to keep it real and the processes that make this dependent on local contexts, languages, cultures and understandings of the real” (Pennycook, 101). The tensive contradiction between a specific way to ‘keep it real’ and effects of glocalization will be the overarching theme of this research on hip-hop culture. Specifically, the research will done on the basis of a close analysis of film samples, both through sound and imagery. Hip-hop’s notion of ‘keeping it real’4 and its reaction on being glocalized, thus no longer being socio-spatially bound to one geographic and demographic, is often treated in a discussion of appropriation by the Other – often meaning ‘everyone who is not African-American’. Discussions and texts on this matter largely revolve around the appropriation of language and appearance by other local cultures or white Americans. Examples are texts on white hip-hoppers (C. Cutler, 2003), Australian hip-hop subculture (T. Mitchell, 2003; D. Arthur, 2006) or the acquisition of the African-American notion to ‘represent’ by Dutch hip-hoppers (A. De Roest, 2017). Moreover, the effects on sampling habits are barely discussed. Most of the texts on sampling in hip-hop have either a basis in music theory and technology (D’Errico, 2011; Sewell, 2013), a focus on copyright law- 4 A working definition of the ‘keeping it real’ is: staying true to the early origin of hip-hop, growing up as a minority (in practice of mostly African-American or Latino decent) in the severe circumstances of urban America. I want to stress the fact that this term is never free of problematization. It ties in to the discussion of authenticity, which in itself is a concept that is hard to grasp. Authenticity is continually under the influence of global and local cultural alterations, thus one could always question what authenticity is really authentic. However, this thesis’ goal is not to find the true definition of a ‘keeping it real’, but tries to differentiate a certain connotation of the ‘keeping it real’ from several texts.
making (Arewa, 2005; Evans, 2010; Norek, 2004), describe it within the context of an African diaspora (Bartlett, 1994; Perchard, 2011) or as a holistic combination of all the previous (Schloss, 2014; Williams, 2010). In addition, the sampling of film excerpts has only been described in relation to the African-American Blaxploitation film genre (Demers, 2003). This thesis looks to add more specific research on the effects that glocalization and global appropriation has on hip-hop’s sampling culture, and how hip-hop itself can globally appropriate through sampling. Also, this thesis will expand the theory on film-based sampling in hip-hop, taking it beyond the references to Blaxploitation genre, as is already done by Joanna Demers. The range of film-samples5 seems to be enlarged over time – as will be illustrated by various examples in the theoretical framework and textual analysis below. All of which will be verifiable online through databases. Hip-hop’s tendency to sample other cultures is indeed an act of appropriation in itself. However, in a hip-hop era of glocalization, it might also be seen as an act of re-appropriation. One to reclaim authenticity, or in the least an attempt to claim a newer variation of it, as this thesis will show how the extra-cultural samples will actually carry a fairly similar discourse to, for example, Blaxploitation-samples. The textual analysis will eventually explore how these extra-cultural samples imbed a critical connotation, as sampling potentially is, and always has been, a sly comment on the misappropriation of “their” culture, just as much as it is an ode to what inspiringly came before them – but is no longer necessarily mainly African-American culture. Therefore, I propose the following hypothesis: African-American hip-hop artists use samples of non-African-American films – a form of appropriation – to reinforce an origin story, while criticizing the extra-cultural appropriation of their own cultural dictate, ‘the keeping it real’. As such, this thesis will put the underexplored element of sampling film as a mode of expression in the hip-hop culture against a background of postcolonial notions of culture, authenticity as identity and especially the paradox of 5 This thesis will from here on in use ‘sampling’ in a both visual and auditory sense
appropriation, in which appropriation is going both ways. I will show how this two-directional appropriation causes sampling to expand from quotations of the African-American musical predecessors – funk, soul and jazz – to more different cultural borrowings. Taking the sampling of film as a specific research object makes is possible to a) use image and auditory borrowing to support and proof the hypothesis and b) shed light on the underexplored connection between film and hip-hop, on which not a lot of research seems to exist.
1.2 A Hip-Hop Origin Story: keeping what real?
What is there to be ‘kept real’? To which actual heritage do I refer as the origin story? I will not elaborate extensively on a historical background of hip-hop, because this is not a historical research, and others have done so extensively and correspondingly. However, a little reminiscing might be crucial to determine a distinction between a possible ‘authentic’ hip-hop and a newer, post-glocalization hip-hop, spread out from its conceiving borders. There can be no doubt about the exact place of birth. Texts in various contexts refer back to a day in 1973, where three of hip-hop’s four pillars of MC-ing (rapping), DJ-ing and breakdancing6 came together on a block party in South Bronx, New York (Chang, 2007; Condry, 2006 Schloss, 2004; Williams, 2013; etc.). This very specific spatial origin tells how a very clear group of people in very unequivocal circumstances were involved. In America’s unequally segregated society, its urban inhabitants were African-American or Latino, with barely an exception. “Hip-hop was begat in one of the poorest and most crime-ridden jurisdictions in the United States. (…) It was a place of a desperate, hard-knock creativity, as evidenced by the way its citizens talked, dressed, and danced” (Butler, 989). These facts account for an evident origin and constitute the basis of the African-American hip-hop experience, being the most original hip-hop culture. Moreover, it became part of the African diaspora. Much of its defining pillars, like rapping and appropriating modes like sampling, “were already a part of the complex cultural roots, and routes, of African American history” (Morgan & Bennett, 181). Even now, while “[hip-hop] has undergone radical transformation during this 6 The other pillar being graffiti art.movement from street to international marketplace, it has retained a critical capacity to convey a signifying blackness of aesthetic form and emotive force. (…) [Hip-hop] continues to articulate a “black”, largely masculine urban discourse of marginality” (Perry, 635). This is not to say that hip-hop’s spread to different localities in this world always is an ill-spirited appropriation of an African-American culture, as it “has empowered young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds all over the world” (Morgan & Bennett, 177). New local hip-hop movements have earned their rightful place in hip-hop, or at least in its musical culture. However, many books and texts look into a “juxtaposition of whiteness and hip hop”, for example Everything But the Burden: What White People are Taking from Black Culture (Tate), Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America (Tanz) and “Hip-hop realness and the white performer” (Hess) (Harrison, 1784). These titles and their researches expose how there is not just a hypodermic but also an actual distrust towards certain forms of appropriation by the Other. A distrust, palpable enough to test notions of authenticity – the ‘keeping it real’ that is “put forth by black people in an effort to secure hip hop as distinctly their own” – on suspicions of white privilege and other wrongful appropriation (Harrison, 1784). The previous might be a problematic, restrictive and almost binary approach to race and even contradict hip-hop’s own allegiance to tolerance and mutual understanding. Black people in The Netherlands do not necessarily inherit the same culture as the African-American because they have the same skin color. Which point of view is your own ‘real’, depends on how much gravity you attach to origin-determinist arguments, ‘how it all started’, whether you take the artists themselves or the audiences all over the world as the definers of authenticity, and African-American or grander African diaspora as foundation (Harrison, 1786). However if it is not for skin color, thus race, one might argue that the ‘keeping it real’ in all cases accounts for those who share a certain socio-economic role in their locality. Or, how Mickey Hess explains Eminem as coming the closest to hip-hop ‘realness’, as he “emphasizes the autobiographical basis of his lyrics and his struggle to succeed as a rap artist” (373). For this thesis, the prerequisite of the ‘keeping it real’-narrative is that one comes from a American urban area, is an
ethnic minority and has experienced the socio-economic ‘struggle’ to which Hess refers.
1.3 Corpus – Threefold Film-Samples
Plenty of texts connect the fundamental elements, like rapping, dancing or sampling, and a certain socio-economic narrative to a mostly African-American demographic. Specific studies on the meaning and origin of sampling are solely focused on notions of African-American intertextuality, like Justin A. Williams’ extensive texts on what he calls meaningful borrowing. However, the sampling of film is barely mentioned – I found only Joanna Demers’ text on sampling Blaxploitation. This thesis, as a reaction to this lack, will utilize three different types of film-samples that have been selected and verified during a research on WhoSampled (www.whosampled.com). This website is an authorative entity for those interested in intertextuality through auditory or lyrical sampling, and a large part of the website consists of hip-hop samples. As such, it acts like a community, in which its inhabitants (contributors) are on a quest to find musical connections of any sort imaginable: covers (a remake of a musical piece, but with substantial artistic newness), remix (official reworks, released under the original artists name; otherwise it is listed as a sample), interpolation (the clearly intentional and identifiable replaying of another original music piece) and direct samples (most relevant variation of sampling and elaborated on in the remainder of this thesis). The process of authentication is overlooked by a group of moderators, and after they grant their approval, the contributors will again be able to respond and review the validity of the discovered musical connection. In this way, a fluid and (self-)controllable database has been established, consisting of over 300.000 confirmed samples. It also shows how the intertextuality, imbedded in sampling, is not only in itself a network of connections, but also is part of a networked community, whose inhabitants are looking for corresponding sample chains and a way to affirm their positions as members of the hip-hop community. Consequently, sampling is not a mere musical expression, but an expression of membership and cultural linkage. After residing in this database for a fair amount of time, it was possible to formulate and double-check certain sample-patterns, connecting filmto hip-hop songs and vice versa. A short introduction to the website is written out in the appendix. In this appendix a few examples of film-samples are displayed, to quickly show the extent of this database and to offer a first peek at the versatility of hip-hop’s sampling of film. From this database I have been able to funnel two different cohesive groups of film-samples – genres if you will – and of course Lupin III’s soundtrack. Together, this threefold of film-based samples will form an accumulative argument. The first two will exhibit different meaning, which come together in the last one. Moreover, the three research objects are samples from non-African-American films. As has been described in the previous sub-chapter, this is to demonstrate how extra-cultural sampling can be a musical method to tell an intra-cultural narrative or reclaim appropriated authenticity. In addition, the inclusion of three different genres into the corpus is firstly essential to uphold versatility. Using just one form of film-samples might make a case too fragmented and isolated, to act as a solid statement. Secondly, taking a single film or genre might fall victim to the threat of being coincidental sampling. At last, and most importantly, the three forms of film-samples share the fact that they all express an internal story of hip-hop’s culture, articulated through the appropriation of a film’s narrative, as well as that it also acts as outwards commentary on the appropriation of hip-hop itself, in distant societies and by other cultural interpretations. The threefold film-samples fits in the original hip-hop narrative of the ‘keeping it real’, while all having a common denominator, being samples from non-African-American film. Furthermore, the three genres will consist of some sort of hierarchical structure, the first being focused on the intra-cultural discourse and the second adding the notion of outwardly critique to its narrative. The first two will then come together in the third sample example, being both ratification of the hypothesis, as well as an example of what might be an actual manifestation of hip-hop re-appropriating itself. The selection of the threefold film-samples will be as followed:
Mafia Samples: The Black Soprano Family A similar breakdown of family rituals of the Italian-American mafia films, hidden inside the hip-hop aesthetic, will be executed. For example Griselda Records’ fast growing oeuvre, flooded with pop-cultural references and – literally7 – artful provocations, will be explored, sample-wise, but also through the remediation of film-stills and wordplay in song titles. Especially rapper Benny the Butcher, affiliate of the Griselda ‘family’, draws inspiration from the Italian-American aesthetic, as he leads his own ‘Black Soprano Family’. Elements and themes that constitute a great deal of Italian-American stories – or at least how these are depicted in films – seem to bear relevance to members of the hip-hop culture. Dinner scenes in, for example, The Sopranos series (1999-2007) or the The Godfather (1972) film relate to the embodiments of family-like ties and rituals of an African-American hip-hop group. Martin Parker breaks the focus on the feast in mafia films down: “the consumption of food is usually symbolically associated with home, leisure, or the liminal spaces and times of the work organization. (…) But what if we look at an organization in which images of the collective production and consumption of food appear to occur frequently” and meaningfully (990)? Also, the juxtaposition of a feast like this and the glorification of violence in mafia-film culture is relevant in comparison to the hip-hop culture, with its occasional violent lyrics and album covers. What meaning does the appropriation of this juxtaposition of violence and family bear for the hip-hop culture – and why do they reach out to the Italian-American film to express this juxtaposition? This thesis will elaborate further on the reasons why and ways how hip-hop samples certain Mafia myths. To which extent is sampling these films and their (multi-interpretable) values, a matter of criticizing a double standard in America’s audience, or at least an attempt to internalize a similar nuance to its 7 Frontman WestsideGunn and the other affiliates hire painters and other graphic artists to make original and limited edition pieces of art that are sold next to their mixtapes.
discourse, adding the dimension of commentary to sampling? Is this a first step away from mere storytelling, towards a more critical connotation and a first conception of re-appropriation? In this part, I will look at more than just the samples of soundtracks or film dialogue, also taking visual quotations into account mostly evident on album covers. Sampling does not just exist to copy a story and project it on oneself, and the visual borrowing seems to enlarge sampling’s language to provoke and commentate on a certain status-quo, while impelling ones own narrative. Sci-Fi Samples: Afrofuturism The second part of the analysis comprises of hip-hop’s exploratory relationship with works of Sci-Fi and other fantastical worlds, for example through comics and animated series. In what way are subversive elements in the Sci-Fi intermingled with hip-hop’s ambition to subvert a certain status quo? And how does quoting the fictional fit into hip-hop’s tenacity to ‘keep it real’, expressing the non-fictional hardships they grew up or are living in? However most of the Sci-Fi films often see through a white perspective and star a white lead, or are non-American altogether, taking place in, for example, Japan, this chapter will claim certain similarities in Sci-Fi’s narrative with hip-hop’s cultural discourse. In an article on VICE, Rose Eveleth conducts interviews with certain hip-hop figures, to get a grip on her presupposition that, however the “prototypical “science fiction” nerd might be portrayed as a white teenage boy, (…) the themes and struggles present in science fiction are deeply connected with those present in black culture” (Eveleth). Ideas of alienation, being foreign to your own world and a hopelessness that lies ahead in the future are themes that might be found in both Sci-Fi and hip-hop. Apart from these motifs, confined to the narrative, another reason for the connection might be rooted in the real world – the inequalities in society. From its earliest inception, Sci-Fi media were considered cheap pulp, accessible for the impoverished and lower educated, referencing to, for example, “low-budget drive-in movies” or cheap pulp magazines (Disch, 2). Eveleth quotes rapper B. Dolan, as he expresses that he also thinks of it as a “natural relationship that happened because of economics. What poor people can
get access to is considered poor culture. So in the hood and places where poor people grew up that was comic books” (Eveleth). This socio-historical fact lines up with a firm use of futurist aesthetics in other African-American pre-hip-hop expressions, as well as one of the earliest hip-hop acts. Jazz enigma, Sun Ra and his Arkestra, from the late fifties; Parliament’s exuberant space-shows during the seventies’ post-soul movements; hip-hop patriarch Afrikaa Bambaataa’s criticism on the American society, hidden behind his outlandish wardrobe and Sci-Fi-shows: they all showed great affinity with the uncanny, unknown and fantastical. “Afrofuturist thought posits a reconciliation between an imagined disembodied, identity-free future and the embodied identity-specific past and present, which can provide a critical link through which post-soul artists can express a radical black subjectivity,” Marlo David elaborates in his text on Afrofuturism in black popular music (697). The Afrofuturist aesthetic will be expanded and held against hip-hop samples of Sci-Fi film, through sound and imagery. It will exemplify the way in which expression of an African-American narrative is achieved through appropriation of non-African-American Sci-Fi film and also is an outward critique on society. A first few examples that solidify the presumed intermingling of hip-hop, Sci-Fi and Afrofuturism are: OutKast’s second album winks in its cover art to a Sci-Fi aesthetic and is playfully titled ATLiens (1996). They also reserved a prominent place for Attilio Mineo’s Man In Space With Sounds, an experimental representation of “space-age tomorrow” (1962), in its title track; Cannibal Ox’ multi-intertextually refer to several Japanese Anime, horror-flicks and Nordic mythology in their debut The Cold Vein (2001). A different exploration will follow in chapter 4. Lupin III sample: ‘Japsploitation’ appropriation Through these two film categories I will work towards Lupin III Particular cues and motives in film sound will be compared to the musical quotations hidden within the hip-hop song. How do the films intrinsically match the hip-hop’s narrative? This chapter will pose a correlation between, firstly, the overarching fact that Lupin III’s character is culpable of the same metaphorical theft as a sampling producer of hip-hop songs – stealing/borrowing from the well-off, to
provide and create for the disadvantaged. Secondly, Lupin III’s soundtrack is an overtly nod to Blaxploitation film, and its characters as well as lore is a mishmash of historical and cultural mutations. Thus, I will dig deeper into the implications of this very specific sample, to support the re-appropriation claim: hip-hop takes a part of its appropriated culture back by appropriating the appropriator. The sampled Lupin III soundtracks touch the preceding two samples, combining them into one meta-layered commentary on sampling, society and appropriation. Therefore, it is the third and last step of the stairs, heading towards the claim that African-American hip-hop utilizes non-African-American film samples, among other expressions, to reclaim authenticity in this day and age, wherein ‘their’ hip-hop is a global commodity. Re-appropriating the appropriators means remixing hip-hop’s adversative notion of authenticity once again. Lupin III has not yet been connected to hip-hop as a music genre – besides its presence on WhoSampled as a recognized sample – and as culturally significant. Observations on the preceding two genres, as well as conclusions out of the texts on postcolonial authenticity, glocalization and meaningful borrowing, among others, will be used to establish this third genre, as the final, overarching illustration of the sampling’s capability to re-appropriate.
2. Postcolonial Framework: introducing…
Three key concepts are evaluated beneath, as an interwoven whole of concepts that constitute the hip-hop culture. Their connection to the film samples will also be introduced. Sampling, as a mode of appropriating, and authenticity is an etymological antithesis, but seem to find synthesis in hip-hop. The concepts will have to eventually lead up to an approach of this paradox of appropriation and the reason to use films outside of the African-American cultural palette.2.1 (Re)Appropriation: “keeping it real”
Hip-hop’s conception is historically, but also socially situated in a postcolonial timeframe. Logically, the subversive endeavors of its culture are postcolonial just as much. Therefore, and maybe also thereto, hip-hop’s notion of authenticity is as diverse, as it is contradictory. Sampling, as a manner of re-using and repurposing, seems as the antithesis of an authentic act. So how do authenticity and sampling come together in a postcolonial sense, given the established fact that the mode of authenticity of ‘keeping it real’ is such a comprehensive and determinative aspect of hip-hop’s culture? Hip-hop might be the cultural assimilation of this antithesis, exhibiting the postcolonial problematization of authenticity, coming forth from the grand displacement of people during the preceding, colonial centuries. Some of those displaced and misunderstood human beings are the originators of hip-hop, being the people from African- and Latin-American, using creative force to claim an renewed agency and reclaim their own history – as described in chapter 1.2. Coming synchronically to existence with postcolonial theory and mentality, its modes of expression, as well as its subjects and subversive content, suit largely with the problems, power structures and emancipatory issues in the different postcolonial angles of study. Its narrative is also inclined to a possible postcolonial discourse, calling out for “resistance“: a resistance of the newly, ornot yet fully decolonized countries, but also the issues of migrants in the margins of Western societies, thus against the inequalities caused by the colonizers, then and now, as well as the Western-centered world-perception and historiography. This resistance can exist in the practical sense of the word, as groups take on the ruling powers by force or through political and ideological persuasions. Resistance can also refer to the “academic project of postcolonialism (…), conceptualized as resistance itself” (Jefferess, 4). The latter is more inclined to an ideological approach, criticizing colonial concepts and Western ethnocentrism, to someday eventually overcome and overthrow the human inequalities deriving from centuries of colonialism. These studies loop upon the fact that its consequences still resonate in contemporary societies, politics and human rights, thus try to remain critical on every aspect of reality we take for certain. Mari Korpela describes one of those unjust realities as colonial imagination: a patronizing, cultural definition of the colonized areas, and all of its non-Western (or non-white) population, forced upon them by the ethnocentric West. Korpela puts the colonial imagination forward as the ideological and discursive element of colonization, in comparison to a more systematic and political approach (1299). Through her study on Westerners in Varanasi, India, she firmly suggests a possibility that colonial imagination has not yet reached its postcolonial form, but instead Westerners hold on to their subjective definition of foreign authenticity, to romantically ‘appreciate [India’s] past instead of the modern present’ (1300). This is the basis of appropriation, and in this way, authenticity and ownership get yet again pilfered and re-allocated from its ‘rightful’ proprietor, as a sort of silent, possibly unconscious imperialistic backlash against postcolonial developments; appropriation. Jason Rodriguez, in relation to racial issues in a postcolonial American society, even intensifies this patronizing ideology, taking away any notion of romanticization, stating that color-blindness is the dominant racial ideology, supposedly calling out against racism, but does so under false pretenses – or at least, with the wrong consequences. Color-blind ideology is, what he calls, “the assertion of essential sameness between racial and ethnic groups despite unequal social locations and distinctive histories. (…) Color-blindness works as an ideology by obscuring the institutional arrangements reproducing structural inequalities and does so in a
way that justifies and defends the racial status quo” (645). In his vision, the privileged West is taking away outspoken forms of authenticity and differences, keeping a quiet, powerful vice-grip on the ‘Other’, while appropriating whatever it likes. If this is the case, hip-hop’s defensive and exclusionary interpretation of the ‘keeping it real’ would be defendable: ‘real’ hip-hop authenticity, framed “as a black-created culture threatened with assimilation into a white mainstream (Hess, 374).8 It being desirable, thus valuable, for appropriators – in this case mostly the West in general – might also explain why authenticity is in such close liaison with consumership and processes of commodification. Kent Grayson and colleagues reason on a, what they call, century old fact of market forces, in which the authenticity of a product itself, or the folklore surrounding it, is the driving force behind the value. Even more so, clear inauthenticity is deemed lethal, for marketing purposes (296). New technological developments even put more pressure on apparent authenticity, as the possible ways of producing counterfeits and other mass-production techniques is multiplied. This seems a credible observation, accurate for a lot of market forces, but hip-hop of course already has an ambiguous relationship with counterfeiting, borrowing and reusing. However, the same technological time period accounts for similar digital developments that are part of the reason for the worldwide spread and commodification of local cultures, thus building a foundation to appropriate, indeed restraining and modifying hip-hop’s notion of authenticity. Grayson et al distinguish two dimensions of authenticity: § Indexical authenticity: “when there does not exist a copy or an imitation (…), when it is believed to be “the original” or “the real thing. (…) To view something as an index, the perceiver must believe that it actually has the factual and spatio-temporal link that is claimed.” (297-298). 8 After using such statements, I feel compelled to reiterate the fact that this thesis also brushes against a similar form appropriation, but remains worthwhile to instigate more research and thought on the matters op cultural appropriation.
§ Iconic Authenticity: “to describe something whose physical manifestation resembles something that is indexically authentic. Authors sometimes distinguish this sense of authenticity from indexical authenticity by using phrases such as “authentic reproduction” or “authentic recreation”.” (298) In a different study authenticity is described as threefold indexically authentic. “Indexical authenticity for hip-hop music could be temporal (linked to a proper time), spatial (associated with the right place), or corporal (from the individuals who can “keep it real”)” (Motley et al, 251). However, one might argue that, following Charles Sanders Peirce’s linguistic categories of signs, it is impossible for every hip-hop artist to be thoroughly indexical, it being inconceivable to check ; this does however not necessarily have to knock down the credible claim that he or she is in fact ‘keeping it real’. It might be necessary to find another term for this non-indexical, Taking Peirce’s writing on semiotics into account, one has to notice that the third typology of signs is missing: the symbol. The notion of hip-hop as a culture, existing of a contradictory relationship with authenticity, might find its solution in this third, missing dimension of authenticity. Hip-hop’s culture, as well as its imbedded questions of authenticity, is namely also a symbolic construct, with ambiguous room for interpretation, metaphors and allegories, to which a lot of different people can and do align themselves. However, it is in this symbolic turn that the opportunity to freely appropriate arises, abusing the symbolic imagery or musical aspects, establishing fabricated icons. The mimicking of the initial indexical or overarching symbolic, especially by non-marginalized parties outside of the U.S. hip-hop community, often results in iconical imagery, which can even be blamed for being a mockery or parody. “The resulting appropriation and adaptation of the genre by others is perceived by members of the U.S. hip-hop community as copies or imitations of the “real thing.” As an example, one can take a look at a part of the Japanese hip-hop community, to see “that “blackness” on the streets of Tokyo is a commodity instead of a lifestyle, an icon rather than the real thing” (Motley et al, 251). As mentioned before, this also accounts for white America, as
“color-blind eyes interpret racialized cultural symbols in ways undermining their racially coded character, (…) allowing whites to use culture to experience a felt similarity with people of color” (Rodriguez, 646). It is this kind of appropriation that this thesis claims to be reclaimable, through sampling of film excerpts. Referring back to Korpela’s more delicate approach to an skewed postcolonial ideology, in which the history of ‘the Other’ gets romanticized, one might state that hip-hop’s culture has from its early conception for a great part also been based on a similar romanticized appreciation of a faraway past. The romantic ‘cultural imagination’ is however internalized, to reinforce a certain pride and glory in what was thought of as an inferior history by lots, or at least an inferior way of living in an inferior area, the ghetto. This socio-spatial aspect occupies several studies on hip-hop, combining the geographical confines and the social circumstances to pose statements about its authentic origins and future developments. Space and time was key in hip-hop’s nascence, as already set out in the preface. How does such a specific origin, with all the implications on authenticity, pan out into an universally appropriated culture? These cultural laws of hip-hop’s nature are set out in the first part of a theoretical framework. Which narrative derives from the socio-spatial origins of hip-hop and how does this relate to sentiments and statements expressed in the tracks? The indexical importance of showing your connectedness to the seminal neighborhoods of hip-hop, or just any area where you were born in, comes forward in the lyrics of many songs. In the lead single of Black Moon’s 1993 debut album, “Who Got Da Props?” Buckshot raps: “straight from Crooklyn, better known as Brooklyn,” as a shout-out to the New York borough – a line that was by the way sampled in the title song of Spike Lee’s 1994 movie, Crooklyn (Enta Da Stage, 1993). A Tribe Called Quest on their part honorifically mention the big thoroughfare, Linden Boulevard, praising their middle-class upbringing in the neighborhood; the street is heavily connected to the rap group, since the song in question, “Check The Rhime” became heavily influential (Low End Theory, 1991). The narrative of a socio-geographical common ground seems to be crucial: ‘this is where I come from, this is what I do’. Some of these sentiments even seem hostile towards interferences of other cultures, as Kembrew McLeod explains in his text on authenticity within hip-hop: “[t]he multiple invocations of authenticity made by
hip-hop community members are a direct and conscious reaction to the threat of the assimilation and the colonization of this self-identified, resistive subculture.” McLeod confirms an idea that authenticity is as classical, as an almost youthful antilogy of in-group versus out-group. In the past twenty-five years one could speak of a “spatial turn”, adding much more attention and value to “social and cultural phenomena as they happen in space” in critical cultural analysis (Forman, 13). Rap’s “self-defined and continuing challenge is to maintain its aesthetic, cultural, and political proximity to its site of original expression: the ghetto poor” (Dyson, 65). Appropriation of all of the culture’s assets, but done by people with a distance to this core environment, might indeed feel like an attack on its values and importance, as the references to the ghetto poor “may be used to legitimize a cultural or social setting that in negative ways, has partially given rise to its expression” (Dyson, 64). The latter is a thing to be proud of, one to cherish as an honorable achievement of what was deemed unthinkable in the circumstances hip-hop arose from. Soon, as it evolved, rap began to describe and analyze the social, economic, and political factors that led to its emergence and development” (Dyson, 61). Both its geographical aspect and the social state of affairs contribute to a sense of real authenticity and a great part in the story of ‘keeping it real’. Most of the writing on hip-hop involves this search for certain socio-spatial common grounds and ethnical histories. “Early research on rappers primarily focused on rap music as an urban, black, male youth culture” (Harkness, 284). Over the course of the last decades, as the music became popified and globalized, other ethnical and geographical cultures found their selves in a position of shedding light on what Carol M. Motley and Geraldine Rosa Henderson call the hip-hop Diaspora, “spanning ethnic, linguistic, and geographic boundaries” (243). “In hip-hop culture authenticity is one of the most salient boundaries – who is and is not ‘keeping it real’ is of central importance. Bourdieu (1984) notes that is this fundamental struggle between so-called ‘authentic’ and ‘fake’ that determines the value of culture” (Harkness, 285). This resonates with Korpela’s and Rodriguez’ thoughts on a Western tendency to claim a spot in what is deemed as valuable, but is in fact a space of cultural significance, constructed by and for a certain group. Murray Forman in his book The Hood Comes First
wants to stress his cautionary concern that a fixed original space, in which hip- hop was inevitably conceived or will be formed over and over, is too narrow-sighted: “space is not, in and of itself, a causal force; it is influential but does not determine outcomes (19). He does so, as he thinks that most of cultural analyses overvalue the purely impoverished ghetto as the one and only breeding ground of hip-hop’s culture. “Today many top Rap acts, like their audiences, hail from middle-class or more affluent suburban enclaves,” a also already was mentioned above in reference to A Tribe Called Quest’s song “Check The Rhime”. This is one of the aspects that might be misinterpreted and eventually misappropriated, if not in reality, in textual form. If one speaks of the re-appropriation of a hip-hop culture, it does not necessarily mean to take something back to the hood, but rather implies the reclamation of a narrative by its originators, wherever they reside. A similar rigorous approach, but then concerning the predominantly large focus on the ‘blackness’ of hip-hop’s history, sheds a light on the average historical research of hip-hop’s earliest authentic beginning in the seventies, that might just be as limited as Forman thinks of the field of work, concerning the socio-spatial determination of hip-hop. Reiland Rabaka suggests calling this limiting view, a (scientific) amnesia. In his book, Hip Hop’s Amnesia, he contends that neither hip hop’s aesthetics nor hip hop’s politics can be adequately comprehended without some sort of working-knowledge of historic African American social and political movements” (xx). The main gist of his story is the observation that everybody, acting inside the hip-hop culture, as well as the critics and scientists debating and analyzing from the outside, gravitates towards blindfolded authentication by just one aspect of African-American culture – ‘the hood’, ‘the impoverished’, ‘keeping it real’ or ‘the non-commodified’. These are all elements that underlie important hip-hop truths, which however cannot speak for its entirety. A sole focus on one of the single elements, as grounds for authentication, might marginalize the real authentic origin, loosing sight on the African heritage from its earliest spiritual past, passed the displacement of the African people and the forthcoming African Diaspora, into the early 20th century. Rabaka’s goal is to elaborate on “what has been forgotten but should be remembered concerning the “old school” origins and evolution of rap music and
hip hop culture” (xx). Therefore, hip-hop’s authenticity in the end transcends the contemporary developments of African-American life, as he explains how the African-Americanism was just as crucial in the existence of white subcultures in recent history. “It is extremely important for us to accent the African American influence on and contributions to both the Lost Generation and the Beat Generation, because without understanding the significance of this influence and these contributions African Americans will continue to be repeatedly robbed of their historical and cultural contributions,” Rabaka fearfully expresses (137). Isn’t this fear of appropriation, which is arguably happening right now? In his vision, it is all about respecting and certainly not forgetting ones original identity. He calls out to look further than ‘intramusical authenticity’, “to illustrate the incredible intellectual depth and wide-reach of rap music and hip hop culture’s contributions to contemporary history, culture, aesthetics, politics, and society” and eventually break free from an internal constrictiveness, to find power to re-appropriate a possible appropriation (xxii). This wide-reach is also important, to acknowledge differences inside the African-American identity. “African American critical thought has historically been focused on undermining white supremacy and examining black subjectivity under persistent conditions of inequality and oppression,” which also felt as needed in reaction to the first wave of predominantly white Postmodernist writing, from the likes of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson and Roland Barthes. However, the importance has to be stressed that the term ‘black’ should be met with less unambiguous, as well as ubiquitous definition (David M. Jones, 673). There should be ”recognition of difference as well as similarity in social identities and cultural work, (…) seeking movements and aesthetic practices that have deeper roots in African American cultural history” (674). Taking the narrow-sighted quest for intra-cultural film samples a step further, away from a Blaxploitation- centered narrative, to a farther-reaching inclusion of sample culture and African-American appreciation of different aesthetics. I want to make one side note on this, otherwise fairly strong exposition. Hip-hop’s boundaries of authenticity can be so constrictive, that the same amnesia that Rabaka speaks of concerns another ethnical group that actually took part in its culture from the very beginning. Having to deal with a stereotype
from within, the group would find itself constantly redefining their position within hip-hop’s culture, oozing out an African-American narrative. Especially Puerto Ricans, who were breaking and spray-painting alongside their African-Americans contemporaries in the Bronx, are often excluded from any cultural or historical analysis on hip-hop, apart from the acknowledging of their early presence. Juan Flores explains how a Puerto Rican rapper changed his name, struggling with his image and language in a culture Puerto Ricans co-created themselves: “KT didn’t always signal the Puerto Rican cultural heritage, and in fact the derivation of their names shows that their struggle for identity has been a response against the stereotyped symbolism of rap culture” (79). Flores describes this dynamic as the “Puerto Ricans’ nagging intimation that they are treading on Black Turf” (85). However, it can be seen as a fact that “rap is their history, and Puerto Ricans are an integral part in the history of hip-hop. (..) They helped make rap what it was to become, as they played a constitutive role in the stylistic definition of graffiti writing and breakdancing” (84) This Puerto Ricans’ intimation is a striking example of the ambiguity of authenticity, and how equally severely persistent the African-American narrative of said authenticity can be. Authenticity is a crucial construct within the hip-hop culture, being a construct hard to break out of and possibly limiting and muddling in its inclusion of other cultures. I have tried to establish a widespread, postcolonial notion of authenticity and how it is embedded in studies on the black origin of the culture; a new research on “the negotiation of authenticity by white, female, and suburban rappers” seems imperative (Harkness, 284). I would like to suggest that the same applies to a re-analysis of the film-sampling habits, taking into account the different appropriations of authenticity. Below, the quest for hip-hop’s musical relationship with it’s own past can commence. This second half of the theoretical framework will address concepts of sampling. How does the use of older recordings relate to hip-hop’s mostly African-American heritage, notions of authenticity and feelings of nostalgia? What is the range of sampling techniques and how do concepts of remediation, pastiche and others, fit into the antithetical spectrum of authenticity and appropriation; the sampling being a form of appropriation in itself, taking from other materials to create a new, personal
authenticity? In the actual textual analysis a few answers for the questions raised above, will be posed, as well as an attempt to define the ways in which the choice of film-samples indeed constitute a form of re-appropriation of it’s own cultural authenticity. As it has been set out above, being authentic, as in true to oneself and ones ethnical, socio-spatial origins, seems to be key in hip-hop’s forms of expression. From proclaiming oneself in a tag on some wall, to shouting out the boys and the neighborhood through nicknames and area codes or telling about the gruesome acts one has seen or even personally inflicted. Countless records represent the neighborhood or city, both in title and image. The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, Jay-Z’s Brooklyn’s Finest, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, Nipsey Hussle’s Crenshaw, J Dilla’s Welcome 2 Detroit, OutKast’s ATLiens: these are just a few examples of representing ones geographical origin, inevitably referring to certain socio-economic upbringing and a community. All this is achieved, just in the album title or on the cover. The represent of the authentic, or “keeping it real”, is integral to hip-hop’s identity. According to Justin A. Williams, this has to do with the tenacity of hip-hop’s own history. Or as he puts it, “[h]istorical authenticity in hip-hop becomes an extramusical and intramusical debate that contributes to construction of these genres and communities” (22). This counts as the setup for his work on the so-called historical authenticity of hip-hop, in this case expressed through sampling. Joanna Demers conforms to this assumption in a similar way, as she also explains how certain soul records “[were] known as the ‘Old School’, and for numerous rappers and DJs epitomized an authentic black consciousness” (41). It is not farfetched to build a similar hypothesis, which connects sampling to film fragments instead, as Joanna Demers does. She delves deep into the ‘Blaxploitation sound’ of the seventies black cinema, depicting ghetto life, black narratives and using black music. “Musical samples instantaneously invoke the characters and situations of the films, and transfer their mystique into their new hip-hop context” (48). This assertion leaves room to ponder about the sampling of non-African-American films and non-blaxploitation soundtracks. How does ones authentic black consciousness relate to these non-black references? This black foundation of the hip-hop culture, subsequently presented as the genre-defining understanding of
authenticity, might presuppose an exclusion of elements from other cultures, or prevent spread to other (popular) culture. This dissection exists even within itself, a sort of family feud that Kembrew McLeod calls “the Old School vs. the Mainstream” (143). Therefore, the central notion of authenticity has to be deepened, on the wise that its cultural variations will surface. But the notion of authenticity and its complications cannot be seen apart from hip-hop’s paradoxical liaison with appropriation. The basic mode of keeping it real seems intrinsically frightful or even hostile to appropriation by ‘an Other’, while on the other side it is saturated with appropriatory modes, borrowing from other material and cultures through samples, remixing and lyrical intertextuality. Appropriating another might also work out empowering, as Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin propose in their text on post-colonial literature. They quote Raja Rao, who thinks that, in a more positive connotation, appropriation might be explained as “the process by which language is taken and made to ‘bear the burden’ of one’s own cultural experience or ‘convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own’ (Rao 1938:vii)” (38). However, cultural appropriation is generally, and often unfavorably, marked by varying acts of “1) representation of cultural practices or experiences by cultural “outsiders” (sometimes called “voice appropriation”); 2) the use of artistic styles distinctive of cultural groups by non-members; and, 3) the procurement or continued possession of cultural objects by non-members or culturally distant institutions” (Matthes, 343). The negative connotation surrounding cultural appropriation mostly derives from the fact that certain cultural practices or experiences are misrepresented, misused or stolen instead of rightfully possessed. Making conclusory judgments of these profoundly abusive appropriations is a very delicate process. A quite clear-cut example of culturally appropriated materiality is the do-rag. Traditionally black people used this headpiece as a way to preserve or create a wave, becoming a more mainstream fashion item when hip-hops most prominent members started to wear it during the nineties. Suddenly white people, among whom singer Fred Durst, actors Steven Seagal and John Travolta, also caught onto this trend. This could quite conceivably be meant as an admirable wink to the hip-hop culture, but also be a culturally
oblivious act of misusing an African-American piece of apparel, firstly, and a hip-hop aesthetic, secondly. Even more nuanced and possibly more problematic is the misrepresentation of culture in different modes of expression. Stereotypes and other harmful exaggerations are lurking, to finally result in social injustice and other wrongdoing. For example, one might ask how it is possible and justifiable for a team of white producers or directors to convey African-American stories or feelings on film. Maybe a lot has to do with permission, but who determines the grounds for permits. But on what grounds does hip-hop have the ‘right’ to appropriate? Is hip-hop, through a mode like sampling, finally a language of an original group of minorities, trying to grasp the mode of appropriation to represent themselves? Hip-hop’s sampling might escape the verdict of harmful appropriation, because of its position in an African diaspora, or personal music taste: either way, it comes down to personal interpretations of the nuances of appropriation.
2.2. Musical Borrowing: Sampling or appropriating?
Taking and re-using other music material also goes back to the first hip-hop conception, when the DJs in the Bronx took small parts of different records to create an ongoing loop of rhythm on which could be emceed and danced. This was the hands-on, live predecessor of (digital) sampling now. Some theorists propose the idea “that given the social, cultural, and economic circumstances in which it arose, hip-hop was in inevitable; that if none of the hip-hop’s innovators had been born, a different group of poor black youth from the Bronx would have developed hip-hop in exactly the same way” (Schloss, 26). Sampling would have inevitably arisen from this determinate deprivation: the simple fact that they did not have any possibilities of getting instruments and proper music education. However, a less coincidental reason might be more appropriate and respectful of the creative force behind the developments of sampling – instead of defining hip-hop’s sampling as a “[random] musical hodge-podge cobbled together from the discarded scraps of majority culture” (Schloss, 28). “The looping aesthetic” would become the backbone, still evident in hip-hop. It “combined a traditional African American approach to composition with new technology to create a radically new way of making music” (Schloss, 33). Moreover, “it is the very act of borrowing bits of existing works in many instances that serves to connectculturally identifiable texts to new ones to further strengthen the community born of collective memory and collective experience” (Evans, 859). This is in line with the African-American studies’ concept of Signifyin(g)9, which basically means “repetition with a difference; the same and yet not the same” (Potter, 27). Hip-hop, as a musical culture, is “Signifyin(g) on what came before [it],” as it becomes some sort of “musical ‘conversations’ (…) between the present and the past” (Williams, 10). Signifyin(g) through sampling “openly celebrates its intertextualities places it firmly in the lineage of the African-based music-making”, which confirms the idea that sampling did not just evolve from arbitrariness (Williams, 11). “Sampling was and is hip hop’s ongoing link with history and tradition, including all of the African and African American musical genres” (Perkins, 9). But sampling not only acts as a historical account or homage but through this aesthetic hip-hop artists “can [also] assume the role of cultural critic, using music as a method to construct and deconstruct historical narratives,” Cheney adds (10). As such, sampling is an important expression of a shared cultural and historical narrative but also the voice of an individual, more contemporary tale and not just an essentialist approach by nostalgic artists, as it creates something new for the contemporary community. “It reuses commodities, records on wax, and makes them local and new by putting them into a musical collage” (Perry, 203). Moreover, “[though] sampling was identified as a technique congruent with a longer, common musical heritage, (…) while aspects of cultural memory and memorial were in play, so too were self-interested exploitations of the forgotten and the unknown” (Perchard, 290). Aside from staying true to ones African-American heritage, this, for me, adds a nuance to the ‘keeping it real’ of sampling: a competitive part of authenticity. Firstly, in this view sampling becomes a more pragmatically incentive to be competitively creative and authentic. Early hip-hop DJs found innovative ways to remove labels and other signifiers of their records, so that the valuable, often little-known discoveries remained in their hands. The same goes for ones ability to ‘dig in the crates’ of record stores and find “unused sample sources” as a measure of hip-hop credibility and expertise, as Perchard exemplifies by quoting DJ Mark the 45 9 Coined by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1983.
King10: “[people] look up to me because I’m looping up records that haven’t been used before” (290). It became an appreciated skill to sample as opposed to the concept of originality as a musical cornerstone. To sample is in other words also a way to comment on the act and appreciation of sampling. Hip-hop was partly frowned upon, by for example older African-American jazz artists, because of its very crucial mode of musical expression. Sampling these artists “launched an attack on those African American elders who held a distinctly low opinion of rap and sampling” (Perchard, 294). Such commentary is not only directed inward, on its own direct culture and heritage, but also outwards. De La Soul’s “Say No Go” touches postmodern critique by ironically sampling the Hall and Oates’ “I Can’t Go For That”, according to Elizabeth Wheeler. De La Soul’s song about a crack baby “critiques the American habit of throwing away both things and people” in a single sample by indeed the white, “blue-eyed soul duo” (200). More strongly put, “rap musicians have come to use the sampler in an oppositional manner which contests capitalists notions of public” by taking freely from other commodities (Porcello, 82). The use of juxtaposition in sampling seems to appeal the strongest imagination as also is shown by Naughty by Nature’s sample of Boney M.’s “No Woman, No Cry”11, in their 1991 song “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”. It can be seen as an ironical statement “about their perceived captivity within the socioeconomically disadvantaged communities the rappers were born and raised in, resorting to a fairly common sense of nihilism,” shows a way in which the seizure of another work does not go without thought nor meaning (Hilkens, 31). The juxtaposition of either conflicting messages hidden in songs, or using a sample of an overtly white song to elaborate on an African-American narrative, shows two variations of possible outwardly sampling commentary. Wheeler proposes a distinction of three ways samples are put to use by the African-American hip-hop artist (199): 10 What’s in a name? The 45 in moniker of course refers to the 45s, or in other words the small 7-inch or 12-inch singles. 11 Which is a cover of Bob Marley’s song of the same name.
• Hommage (quotation of a black entity to be proud of; e.g. James Brown or a Spike Lee movie) • Irony (antithetic quotation of a piece with a different intent or connotation, making it an ironic comment or critique; e.g. Naughty by Nature, mentioned above) • Blank Pastiche (a seemingly neutral, coincidental use of a sample, salvaging its audience into recognition, while actually critiquing the connotation people have with the sample) In addition, I made a own distinction to categorize the three ways film-samples are done: • Sampling from a film’s Original Soundtrack on wax, or digitally nowadays (OST; being the music score that is originally written for the film) • ‘Film-reel’ sampling (sequences of dialogue and other diegetic sounds that are taken from the film itself) • Lyrical interpolation (referring to or literally re-rapping dialogue from film in song text) The analysis of this thesis will combine the theory of meaningful sampling/borrowing/appropriation laid out above, to approach several ways of sampling film. To sample is to represent an inward narrative, not only of your own upbringing but also in honor of your ancestors, as one way of authenticity. Also, it is an outward critique on a society, taking aspects of other cultures to ironically express indifference or inequality. Thirdly, the appropriation of something not of one’s own cultural lineage is a way to comment on the very act of appropriation itself. To sample is to ‘keep it real’ and reclaim ‘the real’. But how does hip-hop’s notion of sampling withstand the forces of glocalization, taking it away from a predominantly black audience and artists? How do the ones sampling respond to appropriation from others, and what altering effects might the glocalization have in reverse?
