The likes of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have graced hip hop tracks for decades but sampling politics is still quite rare. Norient explored the subject of politics in sampling in its first issue of the Norient Sound Series:
Both areas – the political and sampling – potentially clash in many ways. By editing this publication and as a result of my own research on sampling, I observed at least seven relevant dimensions. In combination, they illustrate the socio-political potential of sampling.
Those dimensions are:
- Sampling Political Material
- Sampling with Political Intent
- The Problematization of Sampling Strategies
- Provoking Conflict
- Sampling in Politicized Contexts
- Sampling in Conflict with the Law
- Sampling as a Political Act
Of “Sampling Political Intent”:
Political intentions behind processes of sampling are covered and discussed in the aforementioned pieces by Nicolas Puig on Lebanese rapper Osloob, Lola Baraldi on the sampling of political speech (she analyzes satire as a form of activism), and Francesco Fusaro on the making of his track «Ain’t Nothing Wrong (with AOC)». Furthermore, Liam Thomas Maloney reflects on the sampling of religious materials in house music and considers sampling as a «technique that articulated the history of marginalized communities». In another article on experimental club music, Giuseppe Zevolli demonstrates that sampling is still used in similar ways these days among queer circles. Finally, multi-disciplinary artist Vika Kirchenbauer explains her own way of sampling with political intentions. In her article «Complicating Critique» she discusses the effects of changing relationships by the producers towards the sampled material over the course of the production process.