loop
19 tracksA section of sound repeated seamlessly. Loops, from tape to software, are the building block of hip-hop, house and techno, where change comes from what is added or taken away.
Production
sampling
25 tracks.
What it is
Taking a fragment of an existing recording and reusing it in a new one, as a loop, a chop or a texture. Sampling is central to hip-hop and dance music and raises questions of credit and copyright.
Read more on WikipediaRelated concepts
interpolation
3 tracksRe-recording a melody or lyric from an existing song inside a new one, instead of copying the original recording as a sample does. The borrowed tune is performed again by the new artist, and its writers are usually added to the credits.
turntablism
1 trackPlaying the turntable as an instrument: scratching, cutting and juggling records by hand to make new rhythms and phrases rather than simply playing songs in sequence. It grew out of hip-hop DJing and has its own competitions, such as the DMC World DJ Championships.
mashup
2 tracksA track made by laying parts of two or more existing recordings on top of each other, typically the vocal of one song over the instrumental of another. Its art lies in finding songs whose tempo, key and phrasing line up.
remix
56 tracksA new version of a recording made by reworking its parts: changing the beat, harmony, tempo or structure, often by another producer. A remix can turn a ballad into a club track.
breakbeat
10 tracksA drum pattern taken from the instrumental break of a funk or soul record, or written in its style: kick and snare are syncopated rather than evenly spaced. Breakbeats drive hip-hop, big beat, jungle and drum and bass.
Hear it in these tracks
WHTKD
Say to Me
WHTKD loops a soulful, pleading vocal over a warm, rolling deep house groove, a track that sounds like late afternoon turning into evening.
Gin Wigmore, Suffa, Logic
Willing To Die
Gin Wigmore's raw-throated hook meets verses from American rapper Logic and Hilltop Hoods' Suffa on a heavy, defiant anthem built over a sampled field recording.
Format:B
Chunky (Radio Edit)
A rubbery, swaggering tech-house stomper from Berlin's Format:B, built on a fat bassline and chopped vocals from Shorty Long's 1966 Motown single Function at the Junction, cut down to a radio-sized strut.
Flume
Holdin On
A chopped-up soul vocal, wobbling synth chords and a swinging, head-nodding beat: Flume's breakout cut is two and a half minutes of pure, woozy elation.
Faul & Wad, PNAU
Changes
Faul & Wad Ad build a sax-lit, bittersweet house groove around the children's-choir refrain of Pnau's Baby, a song about growing up that became a European number one.
DJ S.K.T
Must Be A Reason (Radio Edit)
DJ S.K.T rebuilds the vocal hook of Wamdue Project's 1999 number one King of My Castle into a tight, sunny 2017 house edit for DFX, using a replayed sample rather than the original master.
Daft Punk
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
A chopped funk loop and a robot reciting a workout mantra: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is Daft Punk turning a sample into one of the most quoted hooks of the century.
Camel Power Club
Ourson
Soft beats, sunny loops and a sampled Son House blues voice: Ourson is a short, cuddly piece of French chillout, first a 2015 single and later part of Sputnik II, that feels like a teddy bear rendered in warm sound.
Pigeon John
The Bomb
The Los Angeles rapper Pigeon John opens his 2010 album Dragon Slayer with The Bomb, a bright, bouncing single co-produced with General Elektriks' Hervé Salters from sampled live instrumentation rather than old records.
C2C, Pigeon John
Because of You
'Because of You' by C2C featuring Pigeon John is a bright collision of hip-hop, electronics and soul from four French world-champion turntablists, with the Los Angeles rapper's warm voice riding a beat built by hand on record decks.
Bakermat
The River
'The River' is a short, warm house track from Bakermat's second album The Spirit (2021), a record the Dutch producer built from gospel, soul and folk material: a two-and-a-half-minute sketch of uplift rather than a club epic.
ACRAZE
Do It To It
Orlando producer ACRAZE turned the vocal of Cherish's 2006 R&B single into a two-and-a-half-minute tech house track that spread through DJ sets before it was released and reached the UK top ten in 2022.
Klangkarussell
We Want Your Soul
'We Want Your Soul' is Klangkarussell's remix of Adam Freeland's 2003 anti-consumerist breakbeat single: the speech-synthesizer verses and Bill Hicks sample of the original, slowed into a long, hypnotic house groove on the album Netzwerk.
Nina Simone
Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)
'Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)' sets Nina Simone's ten-minute 1965 recording of a traditional spiritual about a sinner with nowhere to hide inside a four-and-a-half-minute house groove, for Verve Remixed 2 in 2003.
Fatboy Slim
Sunset (Bird of Prey)
'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' is Fatboy Slim's 2000 single built around Jim Morrison's voice, sampled from the Doors' 'Bird of Prey': a slow-rising, sun-bleached dance track whose video sends a 1960s fighter pilot on a hallucination.
Cardi B
WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)
'WAP' is a bold and provocative hip-hop track by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion: a minimal beat, a looped Baltimore club chant and two rappers trading explicit, joyfully unapologetic verses about desire.
Mirwais
Naïve Song
Mirwais, the former Taxi Girl guitarist who would soon produce Madonna's Music, sets a vocoded voice against stop-start acoustic guitar and retro synths: a 2000 French electro single that reached number two on the US club chart.
Felix Da Housecat
Silver Screen (Shower Scene)
Felix Da Housecat's 2001 electroclash single: a melody sampled from The Flirts' 'Passion', Miss Kittin's cool, spoken-sung vocal and a lyric of starlets and cameras, the record that opened Kittenz and Thee Glitz.
The Chemical Brothers
Star Guitar
'Star Guitar' is The Chemical Brothers' slowly blooming 2002 single, built on four bars of acoustic guitar sampled from David Bowie's 'Starman', and the song behind Michel Gondry's famous one-shot train-window video.
Alif Tree
Forgotten Places
'Forgotten Places' is a hushed downtempo piece by the Marseille producer Alif Tree, built around a sampled voice of the jazz singer Shirley Horn and released on Compost Records in 2006: nu-jazz that sounds like a memory being replayed.
Pilocka Krach
La Luna Y El Sol
A track from Pilocka Krach's 2017 double album Sugar Cane & The Lost Amigos, a tour diary pinned between Mexico, Detroit and Berlin: raw sampled cuts and growling synths in the Bar25 veteran's electro post-rave style.