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Sampling and Jewishness: A Short History of Jewish Sampling and its Relationship with Hip-Hop

2016; Purdue University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/sho.2016.0014

1534-5165

Jon Stratton,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

This article examines the relationship between the Jewish worldview and sampling. The practice of sampling involves taking pieces of music or found sounds and integrating them into a new composition which might be partly or even completely composed of this material. Although sampling goes back to at least the period after World War II when the technique was used by Pierre Schaeffer and others in the musique concrète movement, it is these days most commonly linked to hip-hop. Hip-hop originated as an African American popular music form and sampling is sometimes understood to be an expression of African American cultural aesthetics. In this article I argue that sampling has a lengthy Jewish American history. I trace it back to “Yes! We Have No Bananas,” first recorded in 1923. I argue that there is a strong Jewish input to hip-hop sampling that includes artists like Steinski, the Beastie Boys, and Beck. Further, the work of these artists is often considered innovative in hip-hop. I argue that this is because Jewish sampling is founded on a Jewish worldview in which catastrophe generates fragments which are synthesized together to (re)form culture. In terms of sampling, fragments equate to samples.