The act of “sampling,” or looping beats from pre-existing recordings, can be pretty divisive. While some view it as essentially stealing, the skill that it takes to create something truly unique and new has elevated sampling into an incredibly precise (not to mention difficult) art-form, spanning genres from hip hop to electronica and everything in between. It’s not hard to simply take the hook from an already- popular song (*cough* Kanye *cough* Diddy), but the best DJs get their cred by digging through record crates to find the most awesomely obscure beats they can get their hands on. NOTHING is off limits when they head to their sonic laboratories, which is why some of the biggest hits of recent years actually got their start as a scratchy and forgotten vinyl from way back when.
