The Sample Lesson

The Sample Lesson is an ongoing art project by Samuel Michaëlsson - an attempt to pay homage to the original creators of the samples as well as the crate digging producers and MC's that help me discover new and old music. Click here to subscribe to The Sample Lesson!

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Bo Hansson Week Sample Lesson 13 - Cannibal Ox vs Bo Hansson. To celebrate the musician and organist Bo Hansson's legacy in hiphop music I will post 5 sample lessons this week with music from his albums from 1970 to 1975. If you're in Sweden make sure to check out the documentary on Bo Hansson's "I Trollkarlens Hatt" by Hans-Erik Therus, currently running on K-Special on SVT play.

Cannibal Ox is an American underground hip hop duo from Harlem, New York, United States. It consists of Vast Aire and Vordul Mega. They actually came out with a new album this year, "Blade of the Ronin", but their seminal "The Cold Vein" was released 14 years ago. It was produced completely by El-P of "Company Flow" and nowadays in "Run the Jewels" along with Killer Mike. "The Cold Vein" was released on El-P's independent "Def Jux" label, which was actually sued by "Def Jam Recordings" over the name similarity. Since then it's known as "Definite Jux". The album was noted for its profound lyrical content; Vast Aire's and Vordul Mega's lyrics painted a vivid picture of a poverty-stricken New York. The album put the duo in the underground hip hop spotlight, and has since been described as one of the best rap albums of the decade 2000-2010. Ab-Soul of TDE also sampled Attic Thoughts in his 2012 track "Pineal Gland" and Roc Marciano did the same in "Hoard 90" from 2011. Popularity in Sweden put pressure on Hansson to tour, and a touring band was hastily assembled. The tour was cancelled by Bo Hansson, however, citing a lack of motivation. Instead, he returned to Studio Decibel and started work on his third album (Attic Thoughts). Using the tried and trusted backing musicians the recordings continued the progression of the previous album. Despite being the most accomplished record of Hansson's career, it did not find the success it deserved.

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Bo Hansson Week Sample Lesson 12 - Fattaru vs Bo Hansson. To celebrate the musician and organist Bo Hansson's legacy in hiphop music I will post 5 sample lessons this week with music from his albums from 1970 to 1975. If you're in Sweden make sure to check out the documentary on Bo Hansson's "I Trollkarlens Hatt" by Hans-Erik Therus, currently running on K-Special on SVT play.

Fattaru is a Swedish rap group composed of the brothers Marcus "Mackan" Price och Mingus "Mingan" Price and Kristoffer "Stuffe" Malmsten and Morgan Röhl (DJ Kojak). In 2001 they released their debut album "Fatta Eld" with classics like "Mina Hundar" and "Första femman". The song "Babylon", also featuring Fjärde Världen, is produced by Masse from the Salazar Brothers and uses Bo Hansson's "Excursions with Complications" and turns it into a conscious and political rap song. On the album Mingan delivers an interesting bar on the self-reflective "Mingus": "Sticker hem, lägger mig ner, låter kroppen domna / Släpper världen från mina axlar, lyssnar på Bo Hansson och somnar". "Excursions with Complications" is extremely popular among rappers, it's been sampled no less than 16 times by artists like Atmosphere, Fat Joe, Cormega, Black Milk, Freddie Foxxx etc. The list goes on.. 

The song is found on Bo Hansson's 1972 (1974 in the UK) "The Magician's Hat". Like its predecessor, the album was, at least partly, influenced by fairy tale and fantasy themes, with the song "Elidor" having been directly inspired by Alan Garner's 1965 fantasy novel Elidor. It was not as commercially successful and failed to reach the charts in the UK and the U.S. On the "Dutch Progressive Rock" website, Nigel Camilleri has noted that the album saw Hansson "exploring a broader musical territory than he did on Lord Of The Rings" but he also criticized many of the tracks for being "snippets of musical ideas which had not been expanded on". This is ironic as these snippets now have been expanded on at least 16 times and reached thousands of people worldwide.

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Bo Hansson Week

Sample Lesson 11 - Danny Brown vs Bo Hansson.

To celebrate the musician and organist Bo Hansson's legacy in hiphop music I will post 5 sample lessons this week with music from his albums from 1970 to 1975.

The Detroit rapper Danny Brown, born in 1981, is somewhat of a late bloomer in hiphop, he featured as an XXL freshman in 2012 just a year before he dropped the album "Old". His style and flow is not like any other rapper, and his ability to change his voice is reminiscent of the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. His looks and style has caused problems for him at times. He was close to signing a deal with 50 cent's G-Unit label in 2010: "It was a real thing. 50 was with it; he just didn't sign me because of my jeans. He liked the music, but he didn't like the way I looked," Brown told MTV. "I understand where they were coming from with that, but you gotta understand where I'm coming from too: I'm from Detroit." This attitude, and self respect, is hard to find in today's music industry and might be one of the reasons why Danny Brown has attracted fans over so many genres.

The song "Sweet" is actually a song by Michael "House Shoes" Buchanan, featuring Danny Brown. House Shoes an American hip hop producer and DJ who lives and works in Los Angeles. "Legend and Light" is sampled by House Shoes from Bo Hansson's "Music Inspired by Watership Down" album. It's Hansson's fourth solo album and is, as its name suggests, built around musical ideas inspired by Richard Adams' heroic fantasy novel Watership Down. It was the second album of Hansson's to have been based on a novel; his first solo album, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, had likewise been based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It was originally released in Sweden as El-Ahrairah by YTF Records in 1977. This title was taken directly from the pages of Watership Down, with El-Ahrairah being the name of a trickster, folk hero-deity rabbit, known as "The Prince with a Thousand Enemies". The animation is taken from the eminent Ruff Mercy video for "Sweet". Check out his website for more amazing music videos! http://ruffmercy.com/

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Bo Hansson Week.

Sample Lesson 10 - Pusha T vs Bo Hansson. To celebrate the musician and organist Bo Hansson's legacy in hiphop music I will post 5 sample lessons this week with music from his albums from 1970 to 1975. If you're in Sweden make sure to check out the fantastic documentary on Bo Hansson "I Trollkarlens Hatt" by Hans-Erik Therus, currently running on @svtkspecial on @svt_play Pusha T started his career in 1992 in the hiphop duo "Clipse" along with his brother Gene aka "Malice" who released several albums and were heavily affiliated with the production duo "The Neptunes" composed of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. Later on in 2010 he signed to Kanye West's "GOOD Music" label, and the song "My God" is from the 2011 EP "Fear of God II: Let Us Pray" and is produced by Hit-Boy and Deezy. It's not the first time that Pusha T rhymes on a Bo Hansson track however, on "Jokes on You" from 2007 he joins Faboulous on a beat that samples "Born of a Gentle South" from Bo Hansson's 1977 album "Watership Down". This track uses a sample from the song "Time for Great Achievments" from the album "Attic Thoughts" released the year before. It's also used in the Swedish rap group Fjärde Världen's "Fronten" from 2007. Bo Hansson was a great musician but he couldn't really handle the fame and pressure that came with the success of his most famous "Music Inspired by the Lord of The Rings" album. It was released in Sweden on "Silence Records" in 1970 and copies of the album began to filter across to Britain where it came to the attention of Tony Stratton-Smith, who was so impressed that he released the album as on his own Famous Charisma label in September 1972.

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Sample Lesson 09 - IamSu! vs Bobbi Humphrey. The song "Shyne" from Bay Area rapper and producer IamSu! is from his 2012 mixtape "Suzy 6 Speed", and even though his full length album "Sincerly Yours" from 2014 is very good many would agree that his earlier mixtapes like Kilt 1 & 2 is among his best material. The hyphy inspired sound that he has developed together with his HBK Gang (including Kool John, P-Lo, Sage the Gemini, Jay Ant etc.) is not very predominant in this song, but instead features a Bobbi Humphrey sample from her 1974 "Satin Doll" album. 

Bobbi Humphrey is an American jazz flutist and singer who plays fusion, jazz-funk and soul-jazz styles. The album "Blacks and Blues" from 1973 is considered a classic and it's not the first time that she's been sampled in hiphop tracks. The album "Fancy Dancer" from 1975 was cleared for samples completely and is the base for Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y's fantastic "Live in Concert EP" from 2013. 

"I rep the gang among some other things, yeah / I sample songs that my mother sings".

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Sample Lesson 08 - Deniro Farrar vs Chromatics. Most people will recognize this sample of Chromatics "Cherry" in Schoolboy Q's "Man of The Year", but Deniro Farrar was first, and he does it even better in "Fears" from his 2013 mixtape "The Patriarch". He is the front figure of the "Cult Rap" movement, with its name deriving from how he's been able to grow his underground fan base in a cult-like fashion. Deniro Farrar has created an interesting style blending indie elements with street lyrics and through collaborations with artists like Ryan Hemsworth and Child Actor. Chromatics is an American electronic music band from Portland, Oregon that was formed in 2001. The band consists of Ruth Radelet (pictured), Adam Miller, Nat Walker, and Johnny Jewel.

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Sample Lesson 07 - YG vs Ray Parker Jr. On "Twist My Fingaz", which is produced by Terrace Martin, YG pays homage to the West Coast G-Funk tradition. Artists like Dr. Dre, Warren G, Nate Dogg, Snoop Dogg and DJ Quik developed the G-Funk sound that usually incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals as well as extensive sampling of P-Funk (George Clinton & Parliament-Funcadelic). The bassline sampled in this track is not a Parliament song however. It is by Ray Parker Jr. and his 1980 record "For Those Who Like To Grove". Parker is responsible for yet another famous bassline, the theme song for the 1984 movie "Ghostbusters". #yg#samplelesson #sample #rap#sampleconfession #rayparkerjr #hiphop#music @nardwuar @music @pitchfork@whosampled @yg

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Sample Lesson 06 - Action Bronson vs Mazhar ve Fuat. Produced by Party Supplies (A Brooklyn based production team composed of Justin Nealis and Sean Maho) that frequently collaborate with Action Bronson. The music video for "Easy Rider" pays homage to the 1969 Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper film of the same name. The video, lyrics as well as the sample allude to a psychadelic hippie lifestyle. In other words "Easy Rider" is highly thematic and according to Action Bronson the song "..is one of the best things I've ever created in my life". The guitar, song and pretty much the whole instrumental is sampled from the song "Admiz Miskindir Bizim" by psych-folk duo Mazhar & Fuat. The song is from their 1974 album "Türküz Türkü Çağırırız" (which translates to “We are Turks, we sing Turkish folk songs”). The duo, formed in 1973, released this one album before joining up with bass guitar player Özkan Uğur to become the famous pop trio "MFÖ" (Mazhar-Fuat-Özkan).

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Sample Lesson 05 - Missy Elliott vs Cybotron.

From Missy Elliott's 2005 album "The Cookbook", the song "Lose Control" featuring Ciara and Fatman Scoop was produced not by Timbaland, like the majority of Elliott's tracks, but by herself. Apart from the sample from Cybotron's 1983 electro hit "Clear" it also features vocals from another 1983 track "Body Work" by the band "Hot Streak".

Cybotron was one of the earliest techno groups coming out of Detroit, formed by Juan Atkins (now considered a techno legend) as well as Richard "3070" Davis (who is credited as a co-writer on Lose Control). In 1985, Atkins left the group due to artistic differences with Davis. Davis wanted the group to pursue a musical direction closer to rock, while Atkins wanted to continue in the electro-style vein of "Clear".

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Sample Lesson 04 - Three 6 Mafia vs Marvin Gaye. Sippin’ on Some Syrup (or Sizzurp) is along with Stay Fly the most well known Three 6 Mafia song. It features Pimp C and Bun B from UGK as well as Project Pat (Juicy J’s older brother). The lyrics focus on getting high on Promethazine mixed with Codeine, also know as Purple Drank, Lean etc. The mixture originates from Houston as early as in the 1960′s with local blues musicians cutting beer with cough syrup, and in the 90′s it was popularized by people like DJ Screw, Big Hawk and it became synonymous with Chopped and Screwed music style. It was not until in 2000 however, when Three 6 Mafia dropped “Sippin’ on Some Syrup”, that the mixture would reach nation and even worldwide recognition. It might be strange to think that DJ Paul and Juicy J, who co-produced, found the sample and inspiration from Marvin Gaye’s “Is That Enough” from the 1978 album “Here My Dear”, dedicated to the fallout of his marriage to his first wife, Anna Gordy Gaye. In the song, which was recorded shortly after a day in court with Anna, Marvin attacks her for using her monetary gain to force Gaye to pay for attorney fees. There is a drug related connection between the two songs however: in the two last minutes of “Is That Enough” one of Gaye's saxophonists takes over while Gaye is imagined to have smoked his joint as hinted in the final lyric this is a joke / I need a smoke. 

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Sample Lesson 03 - J Dilla vs 10cc. 

J Dilla's crate digging abilities are probably uncontested, and in "Workinonit" from the 2006 album "Donuts" he samples at least 5 different songs, with 10cc's "The Worst Band In The World" from 1974 being the most prominent. Dilla is a true Detroit legend and has inspired thousands of producers all over the world to dig out gems from the most obscure tracks and records. 10cc is an English art rock band that reached most of their commercial success in the 70's, and that interestingly had two songwriting teams, one "commercial" and one "artistic". This one is a great example of Dilla's ability to take influences from unexpected genres and bring them together as layered fragments.

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The Weeknd - Tell Your Friends (2015)

Soul Dog - Can’t Stop Loving You (1976)