LOS ANGELES--In an
announcement that has caused
grave concern within the
nation's hip-hop community,
the American Society of
Composers, Authors, and
Publishers (ASCAP) revealed
Monday that only two songs
remain for rappers to sample,
Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe Through
The Tulips" and Styx's "Mr.
Roboto."
"Such albums as Puff
Daddy's No Way Out and
Mase's Harlem World have
taken a heavy toll on our
nation's precious sample
reserves, ASCAP president
Richard Goffin said. "Our
nation's rap artists must now
face the consequences of their
failure to conserve this
all-too-finite resource."
With such artists as Puff
Daddy, Jay-Z, Foxy Brown,
Snoop Doggy Dogg, and
Method Man all slated to begin work on new albums in the next six months,
bidding for the sample rights to "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" and "Mr.
Roboto" is expected to be fierce. Puff Daddy, a.k.a. Sean "Puffy" Combs,
has already stated that he is willing to pay up to $20 million for the
rights to
the ukulele line in "Tiptoe" alone.
"Yo, I got to get that 'Tiptoe' track," Combs said in an interview in The
Source magazine. "I ain't got an album without it."
Styx spokespersons said the band will attempt to maximize profits from
"Mr. Roboto" by selling off the hit song from 1983's Kilroy Was Here
piecemeal. "Our asking price for the song's 'Domo Arigato' spoken-word
intro with synthesizer backing is $25 million," Styx bassist Chuck Panozzo
said. "As far as the lyric, 'My blood is boiling, my heart is human, my brain
IBM,' goes, I can't imagine we would be asking any less than $55 million for
that."
While Monday's ASCAP announcement stunned rappers across the
U.S., signs of the impending crisis were present years ago. In 1989, James
Brown became the first sample source to be exhausted, when the Jungle
Brothers used a snippet of Brown sneezing during an outtake for "The Big
Payback" on its album Done By The Forces Of Nature. By 1992, the music
of numerous other high-profile artists was exhausted, including George
Clinton, Rick James, Kool & The Gang, Prince and Queen. By 1995, nearly
80 percent of ASCAP-registered artists were tapped out as sample sources,
including Roxette, Peaches & Herb, Bruce Hornsby, White Lion and Jon
Secada.
Last Friday, the number of unsampled songs fell to two when rapper
Master P paid $12 million for the rights to "Is It Love," the B-side to the
1986 Mr. Mister hit "Broken Wings."
"This is an extremely serious situation," said Def Jam president Russell
Simmons, whose label--which has featured such artists as Public Enemy,
Beastie Boys, EPMD, and LL Cool J--was responsible for much of the
sample depletion of the mid- to late '80s. "Rappers may have to wait
upwards of 10 years between albums, until there's enough new pop songs to
sample. Other than that, the only solution is for rappers to come up with
the music themselves. Let's just hope it never comes to that."
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