Sampling beats from existing songs is nothing new in the music industry. While many artistes try their luck, turning a sampled beat into a successful hit isn’t always easy. However, some have managed ...

Sampling has been an integral part of hip-hop for decades. It's one of the genre's main foundations. When a producer uses a portion of an already existing song for a new record, the sample turns the ...

Gospel singer Gabbie Ntaate, renowned for her hit song Cheza For Yesu, has responded to Mansur Ssemanda, also known as King Saha, who accused her of copying his song Sala Pulesa to create her trending ...

Step 1: Hard-quantising all of your sampled hits to the grid is a surefire route to a monotonous, robotic beat. Try recording in your drum performance using a MIDI controller or drum pads, then ...

The art of beatmaking in the present is a lot more accessible than it has ever been. During the pre-digital age, being able to generate something of high-quality required one to go crate-digging for ...

Stunna didn't stop there. She pointed out what she sees as a double standard, suggesting racial bias in how sampled beats are handled. According to her, there's a different treatment when the sampled ...

Last week, we dug deep into the history of breakbeats in music production, looking at how artists and producers in the early days of hip-hop and jungle transformed sampled breaks from vinyl records ...

This article has been handpicked from the Okayplayer editorial archives and included in our Hip Hop 50 collection as a noteworthy inclusion to the genre's rich and diverse narrative. The article has ...

A$AP Rocky closed out his career-making debut mixtape 'Live.Love' with this Olympicks-produced track, which uses Squier's aptly named rhythm as a foundation for a ...

Nothing says hip-hop like Hall & Oates. That's right. Not even the filthy mouths of 2 Live Crew could resist their soft rock hooks, luxurious hair and awkward, ambiguous lyrics. (You can't go for what ...