instruments

The Akai MPC2000.

The use of samples by hip-hop producers is part of a much longer tradition that goes back to the roots of jazz.

A lot has been made of the fact that a large portion of early hip-hop was based on “taking” pre-existing songs and recordings, created decades before, and presenting them in a new, different light. This process was known as sampling, named for the sampler, which could literally record chunks of time as digital audio and allow users to manipulate it at will via keyboards or drum pads.

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