So we've recently seen sampling regain some popularity after a trap filled hiatus of preset synths and 808s over the past decade. Even Kanye West who flew the flag for sample based production has fallen back on the soul loops in favor of a more synth based kind of production. Naturally, just like in the golden era of sample based production producers are digging back into the music of their youth for inspiration and recently legendary engineer Young Guru in fact pointed this out in a tweet. However when we look closer we do see some differences. In the eighties producers used quite obvious loops for the backdrop of their songs, but by the time the sample laws tightened up in the nineties, the art was based around sampling obscure records, or at least obscuring the more obvious. Either way, the goal was to go unrecognized which very obviously is not the goal now. The other important thing to note was that producers sampled various styles of music and they made it hip hop. What we're seeing today is hip hop producers re-sampling hip hop. Now not only are they sampling the same genre of music that they're making but they're often sampling a record that was initially made using samples in the first place. Hip hop had such variant styles and sounds because it drew from so many genres of music. If we're now solely looking back to the same genre of music and re-sampling the same thing, are we not going to hit a creative brick wall at some point? At what point does a sample of a sample of a sample of a sample become uninspiring and boring?. Now I'm an avid Sampler and will continue to take something new out of something old but if all you're doing is remaking the same thing, using the same overused ingredients, it's going to become uninspiring quickly. If you don't want to go down the vinyl route to dig, the Internet is your oyster.

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