Simple beats and Auto-Tuned vocals form the foundation of 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye West’s latest release. As the title implies, it’s a breakup album. But perhaps the split is deeper than even West realizes.

His new sound is a bold departure from his previous efforts, but also a challenge to the parameters of what many listeners would consider hip-hop. 808s & Heartbreak doesn’t rely on an element once pervasive in the genre: samples. The album doesn’t contain any prominent samples, while West’s previous release, Graduation, featured them on 10 of its 13 tracks. He is not alone in this change: Young Jeezy’s last album, The Recession, boasts just three samples, and T.I.’s latest, Paper Trail, features only four.

The staple of hip-hop’s beatmakers for nearly 30 years, sample-based production has slowly eroded over the past decade, due to rising costs and rampant litigation. Today the average base price to clear a sample is $10,000, and the threat of lawsuits over copyright infringement looms heavy over artists and labels. High-profile rappers have become legal targets for music publishing companies, while independent MCs struggle to compete. With no standardized pricing, the prohibitive cost of samples has altered the creative approach of many hip-hop producers. The trend toward purely electronic production—synthesizers, drum machines, Auto-Tune—has injected major stylistic changes into the genre, with producers like the Neptunes, Timbaland, and T-Pain at the forefront.

“The art form of hip-hop—the sound that attracted us to it—is diminishing,” says RZA, Wu-Tang Clan producer and MC. “It’s becoming just another form of pop music.”

Up until the early ’90s, artists
sampled liberally from other musicians.
Beg, borrow, or steal (clockwise from top): Roland’s MC 808 sampling groovebox; Biz
Markie at the decks; Wu-Tang mastermind RZA performing in L. A.
“HIP-HOP IS BECOMING JUST ANOTHER
FORM OF POP MUSIC.” RZA

But a case brought against Biz Markie in 1991 changed the rules of hip-hop and sample-based music as a whole. That year, the rapper appeared in a U.S. District Court in New York accused of copyright infringement for sampling portions of a 1972 Gilbert O’Sullivan song, “Alone Again (Naturally),” for a track on his album I Need a Haircut. Though he initially sought permission to use O’Sullivan’s original composition, Markie never received it and included the sample anyway. The rapper’s actions incited a stern response from presiding Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy.

“ ‘Thou shalt not steal’ has been an
admonition followed since the dawn

of civilization,” Duffy told Markie. He then issued an injunction against Cold Chillin’/Warner Bros. Records for the distribution of the album and song. “People talk about the Biz case as a turning point,” says Hope Carr, president of Clearance 13’- 8”, an agency specializing in sample clearance and risk assessment. “It was enormously frustrating, because the decision didn’t really decide any actual law; the only citation was the Bible. But it certainly got a lot of people’s attention.”

Clearance agencies like Carr’s
began sprouting up in the early ’90s
to facilitate the proper licensing of

samples and broker deals on a case-by-case basis. While there is no set formula, the length and prominence of a sample plays a major role in determining price. It also matters who is being sampled (e.g., Barry White is expensive; Stax Records artists like Wilson Pickett are more reasonable). One response to rising prices has been the increased use of interpolation, the practice of having a musician rerecord a sample to help reduce costs.

“Take the temperature of mainstream hip-hop and it’s obvious that sampling just isn’t a large part of it anymore,” says indie rapper El-P, also label chief at Definitive Jux. “And the people that do sample [are the ones who] can afford to.” The practice is, in many ways, a millionaire’s game, populated by artists like Jay-Z or (until recently) West, who can pay to play—and who can lean on fame as a bargaining chip. “When [Kanye] sampled Ray Charles for ‘Gold Digger,’ everybody was like, ‘It’s not going to get cleared,’ ” says A-Trak, West’s former DJ. “But then he called whoever’s in charge of [Charles’] estate, and it eventually got cleared.”

“In the old days, samples were $2,500 or $1,500,” says RZA. “I paid $2,000 for a Gladys Knight sample for ‘Can It Be All So Simple’ off Enter the Wu-Tang ( 36 Chambers). That was a big intro, and the hook was repetitious. Something like that nowadays would cost $10,000.” The problem, RZA says, is that high prices are discouraging producers like him from using samples, which in turn impacts all parties’ ability to make money.

“For Gladys Knight, even though [that sample] only cost $2,000, that was an advance,” he says. “Enter the Wu-Tang went on to sell millions of copies. She probably made about $50,000 [from publishing]. The master owner probably made a good amount of money, too.”

A sample must be cleared with
two camps: those who own the

Clip Art CHARTING THE ALBUMS THAT MADE SAMPLING A VITAL—AND RISKY—PART OF MUSIC

1989
PAUL’S BOU TIQUE
BEASTIE BOYS
Helmed by the Dust
Brothers, the album—
with snippets from more
than 100 songs by the
likes of Led Zeppelin
and the Ramones—
established multilayered
sampling as an art form.

1989
AS CLEAN AS THE Y
WANNA BE
2 LIVE CRE W
A song on the PG
version of As Nasty
as They Wanna Be
parodied Roy Orbison’s
“Oh, Pretty Woman.” In
1994 the Supreme Court
ruled it fair use.

1991
I NEED A HAIRCUT
BIZ MARKIE
Markie was found
guilty of copyright
infringement for his use
of a Gilbert O’Sullivan
song. The case ushered
in the era of sample
clearance in hip-hop.

1996
ENDTRODUCING...
DJ SHADOW
Created entirely from
samples, the album
features snippets from
such artists as Björk and
the Isley Brothers,
plus clips from TV
shows, commercials,
and movies.

2000

SINCE I LEF T YOU

THE AVALANCHES
This Australian group
spent three years culling
together reportedly
more than 900 samples
(all of them either
cleared or obscured
enough to avoid a
lawsuit) for their debut.

2004

THE GREY ALBUM DANGER MOUSE

The producer’s mash-
up of Jay-Z’s The
Black Album and the
Beatles’ “White Album”
(downloaded 100,000
times in one day)
earned him a cease-and-
desist order from EMI.

2008
FEED THE ANIMALS
GIRL TALK
The Pittsburgh-
based cut-and-paster
used more than 300
unauthorized samples
on this love letter to
copyright lawyers and
district court judges
everywhere. M.N.

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