He is infamous for sampling and then releasing tracks without first securing the rights to the 'borrowed' material. It's music history left and right, with nods to some of the greats, like Louis Prima, whose brassy voice is chopped on the track 4th Dimension.Īnother big mark Kanye West left on the music industry is on the legal side of the game.
If you let yourself, you can go down the rabbit hole of music history by following the samples.Ī great example of this is Kanye's collab work with Kid Cudi to make the album Kids See Ghosts. There are creators and websites all about figuring out where a sample is from and where it has been used. One thing that Kanye and other producers have done with their samples is turn listening to music into an Easter egg hunt. Sampling can be a meditative process, or, as seen in a 2007 YouTube clip of Kanye in the studio.
Headphones, earbuds, or speakers, just get that music in your ears.
