Joanna Demers, assistant professor of music history and literature, University of Southern California Is the creative appropriation of previously recorded music theft? Or is that act, better known as ...

After Pop Smoke's tragic death in 2020, many wondered what would become of New York drill, and many naysayers claimed it died with him. Over the next year, several booming voices would knock at that ...

Ambient music can feel left-field and unfamiliar. It often abandons the tropes people use to define music in the first place—beats, hooks, vocals, or even a time signature (though to make it more ...

Do you keep hearing people talk about sampling rate in music? But aren’t certain what that actually is?? Well, friend, you’ve come to the right place. On a fundamental level, sampling rate is a result ...

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-Trak is reflecting on the evolution of the art of sampling. In a Twitter thread over the weekend, the producer/DJ/all-around industry titan—whose extensive ...

DRUMS WEEK 2025: Despite being much maligned, the 80s were an incredibly interesting and vibrant time musically speaking. The dust was beginning to settle on the punk phenomenon, and that can-do ...

Last summer, I received an email from an independent rap label, promoting one of its new releases. It had a note attached about samples. “Do your best to refrain from mentioning them by name unless ...