Risky Business

Simpson is undoubtedly speaking about Combes, the king of blatant sampling. The businessman turned rapper enjoys quadruple-platinum sales but gets much criticism for his lack of originality. If music sampling is a Garden of Eden--filled with temptations--then Combes has embodied sin by swallowing the apple whole. Combes helps himself to entire song loops and choruses like a customer obtaining self-service copies at Kinko's. Combes' takes of previous hits are so carbon-copy that if you listen hard enough to the original, you can still hear his voice. Prophets of pop predict that eventually Combes will pay a different sort of price for his sampling. Of course, financially, he can actually afford to surrender 75 percent or more of his publishing to the original artists. Mo' money--no problems with clearances. Echoing the defensiveness of MC Hammer, Combes admits, "Yes, I sample records . . . that's my shit! But you can't say you ain't gonna dance to my shit. When that muthafucka comes on, your ass is jigglin.'"

At least he admits it. The Verve copped a sample and then an attitude when the whole thing blew up in its face last year. The group's hit song "Bitter Sweet Symphony" contains a four-bar loop of an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones' song "The Last Time." ABCKO Music owns 100 percent of the publishing rights and denied clearance, stopping the single's release dead in its tracks. Only after 50 percent shares were negotiated for both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger was the single released.

Verve front man Richard Ashcroft admitted that he rushed home to sample it, but arrogantly proclaims, "We sampled four bars and we put that on one track and laid down 47 tracks of music beyond that little piece. We're talking a four-bar sample turning into 'Bitter Sweet Symphony'--and they're still claiming it's the same song." Apparently, the pissed and percentageless Ashcroft bought into one of sampling's biggest myths: "It's okay if you only take a few bars."

But such attitudes are nothing new. With all of the risks involved with today's sampling, perhaps today's artists feel that it's unfair that the earlier days were more lenient. Current sampler scientists such as the Chemical Brothers and DJ Shadow have fond memories of the days when De La Soul and its sampling lawsuit were something completely new.

Shadow recalls, "It was just so hip-hop. They were the underdogs going up against these bloated rock 'n' roll mind states. And as a result, I got really rebellious and just sort of took a stance of, 'Fuck it. I'm just gonna use it.'