Have you ever heard a song and said, “I’ve heard that before, but I can’t remember from where”?
You may be right.
Borrowed music, lyrics and remixes have been a feature of many hit songs, and there have been many times when the “do-overs” or sampled music did much better than the original. Some have even won the Road March title for Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival.
There are cases, too, involving TT’s as well as regional musicians, when such acts ended up in court or reaching legal settlement for copyright infringement or for using music without explicit permission.
[caption id="attachment_1134623" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Patrice Roberts - Photo by Daniel Prentice[/caption]
Some notable examples come to mind, including the Andrews Sisters of the US, whose version of Lord Invader’s calypso Rum and Coca-Cola in the last century (1945) was number one for ten weeks on the Billboard charts; and Anslem Douglas’s Who Let the Dogs Out, sung by Baha Men.
Some hit soca songs have been sampled, inspired by others or interpolated.
Interpolation involves taking part of an existing musical work (as opposed to part of the actual recording) and incorporating it into new work. It does not include using any of the actual audio sounds contained in a pre-existing recording. Kevin Lyttle’s Turn Me On, for instance, interpolates the work of 112 – All My Love.
Sampling, on the other hand, involves taking a section of audio from an existing song and reworking it into the creation of a new track.
[caption id="attachment_1134555" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Kees Dieffenthaller -[/caption]
The best known example this Carnival season of sampling, inspiration and/or interpolation is the controversy between the producers of the Big Links Riddim (BLR) and Trinidad Killa. The BLR features Machel Montano, Kes, Yung Bredda and producer/writer Full Blown Entertainment. The controversy started when, without explicit permission, entertainer Trinidad Killa wrote, sang, recorded and released for public consumption, the song Eskimo on the same riddim.
Number 23 on the list below seems to be where the original drum patterns originated. Tell us what you think.
Sampling
Commenting on the use of samples in the local music industry, veteran producer Carl “Beaver” Henderson said, “Sampling isn’t even a headache any more. With AI, I can go onto some songs and pull out a guitar lick. Then go beyond and convert MIDI to MID and let another instrument play it. Anybody sampling in the traditional sense is lazy.”
(MIDI is a musical instrument digital interface used to play, edit, and record music; MID is the midrange, or the middle range of frequencies in a sound).
[caption id="attachment_1134625" align="alignnone" width="689"] Alison Hinds - Photo by Angelo Marcelle[/caption]
Beaver added, “Many do it (without permission), because the song most times doesn’t get big. But when it does get big, then the lawyers come in.”
Music producer/manager David Millien of MillBeatz Entertainment isn’t too fond of sampling.
“I never
