Tool: Who Sampled?
If you already know about Who Sampled? then you know just how fantastic it is. If you don’t, please allow me to introduce you to this website where you can “explore the DNA of popular music”.
Who Sampled? is a completely FREE site does just what you think it should - it lists songs that are sampled (snippets of audio) in other songs. You can basically trace exactly where artists found inspiration for their songs, or their remakes of original songs. Confused? Here is a good example:
From the homepage, click on Discover from the main menu. Now you can select either from a collection of Artists, Genres or Years/Decades. For this example, I chose the legendary rock band Queen from the Rock/Pop Genre. By clicking on Queen, a user can see all of the different artists who have sampled Queen in their songs. I decided to find out which artists have used Another One Bites The Dust.
Once I click on Another One Bites the Dust, I can see that it has been sampled in at least 91 other songs. The most popular of those songs is Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. What I love about this site is that it puts two YouTube videos side by side so that you can hear how the sample was used in the new song and compare it to the original version.
Genres like Hip Hop and R&B use samples extensively, and very artistically. One of the. most sampled artists of all time is the legendary, James Brown. Who Sampled has almost 15,000 songs listed that use samples from the Godfather of Soul.
I absolutely LOVE this site and I think it is essential reading for any lesson or unit on Hip Hop and other popular music courses. You can go down a VERY deep rabbit hole seeing all of the different ways that artists have been influenced by other artists. I guarantee that many of your students think that the songs they are listening to today are totally original and new. I think they will be surprised when they find out just how much music history there is in popular music. I’ll never forget when my middle school students didn’t believe that the Fugees didn’t write the song Killing Me Softly with His Song, but that it was actually a remake. I’m sure that many of you have had similar experiences - possibly with your own children or students.
Who Sampled has added a Sample Pack section of the site. This section allows users to sell their own original samples and beats. They are perfect for use in other DAWs, like Soundtrap. After you buy the Sample Pack there is a simple agreement that you will need to sign if you decide to release your work for distribution.
There is also a section called 6D - Six Degrees of Musical Separation - an homage to Kevin Bacon and the game named after him. This is a VERY cool section of the site so don’t skip over it. It asks you to enter the names of two music artists or bands and it will show you all of the various ways that they are connected. For example, I entered Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin, and it showed the one connection between the bands - a producer named Keith Olsen who produced music for both bands. Super cool and another potential rabbit hole.
Be warned that because the site is free, it has lots of those annoying pop up ads and click bait, but it’s worth the hassle. You can sign up for a free account if you’d like but it isn’t much different than the “non-logged in” experience. They do have a Premium account for $30/year that eliminates the ads (and supports the site).
I highly recommend bookmarking this site and sharing it with your students today.