The homies over at HHIR have compiled all the samples from Slaughterhouse’s major label debut, Welcome to: Our House. They range from Korn (“Hammer Dance“) to a brilliant flip of Imogen Heap’s “Little Bird” on “Flip a Bird.” Take a look at all the samples below and download the set here.

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Last week, Brooklyn maestro El-P released a remix to “Drones Over BKLYN,” the first single off his forthcoming album Cancer for Cure. The remix, entitled “Rush Over BKLYN,” is the product of a partnership with Legitmix, a fascinating new company that promises to do away with the woes of sample clearance by, it appears, pre-clearing music for would be samplers and merely asking that users pay the price of the song. In the words of the site itself:

Legitmix fosters a symbiotic relationship between artists and the copyright holders they sample— and music fans benefit. Artists, producers, and DJs create freely, avoid licensing headaches and profit from the sale of their Legitmix files and the associated source music. Musicians, labels, and publishers get paid when their music is purchased as part of the Legitmix process. Websites receive a commission when they refer sales. Fans get a convenient, legal way to support their favorite artists while building their music collection. Legitmix makes this possible by keeping a percentage from the sale of Legitmix files and source music.”

Though I’m not entirely certain this is a profitable model for artists or Legitmix itself, I am intrigued by what appears to be a huge victory for transforming standards of copyrighting and the traditionally forbidding process of clearing a sample.

On “Rush Over BKLYN,” El-P samples Rush’s towering “Tom Sawyer,” creating a somewhat spirited mash up if not necessarily a proper remix. Though the song is fun and it works, it doesn’t really feel like much more than the two songs grafted together and certainly doesn’t feature El-P’s signature production complexities—no post apocalyptic synths, no densely layered drums, no warped movie samples. El-P, a truly iconoclastic artist whose production often seems to exist solely to distort the familiar (prepare for your brain to explode), remains ironically faithful to his source material.

Of course, maybe this is the point. “Rush Over BKLYN” announces Legitmix’s modus operandi in bold, neon letters: LOOK! DON’T BE AFRAID TO SAMPLE!

And this is great. Though I tend to like my sampling to resemble old Public Enemy or RZA songs (this style, summed up in an anecdote: when the Bomb Squad, PE’s production team, used to make beats from records, they would stomp on the records to flatten the grooves, adding grit to the samples and making sounds occasionally unrecognizable), it is wonderful to see sampling promoted not only as legitimate art, but as a business practice to be engaged in between partners, not adversaries. There are countless stories of artists being taken to court for copyright infringement, which is fine. If you sample something without receiving permission, don’t cry when you get sued. That’s the letter of the current law. But laws and positions can and should change as they become antiquated. Current copyright standards for music don’t really make sense in a world where ideas and content can be exchanged with extreme ease and blinding speed.

It once made sense to sue artists for profits off of illegally sampled material. When Biz Markie got sued by Gilbert O’Sullivan for “You Got What I Need” or Supertramp went after Fabolous for “Breathe,” it made sense because those were both big singles that promised prolonged royalties. Is it logical (theoretically, this hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge) for Imogen Heap to go after Lil’ B for repeatedly using Clams Casino beats that sample her “Just For Now?” What’s she going to do, have her lawyers send a cease and desist and ask for half of his future YouTube views? Though she certainly has the right–not only to go after our beloved Based God, but also to refuse to let her work be sampled–we’re approaching an age when a standoffish stance is almost moot in the cackling face of easy access.

Legitmix marks a step in the right direction. No one seems to argue any more that sampling is a real skill and a reality of modern music—a bit like calling Hip-Hop or MTV “fads” at this point. Legitmix, if it becomes popular enough, could help steer the legal discussion in a new direction and that is a truly remarkable thing, certainly something to be celebrated by fans of creative sampling. On top of that, it could potentially foster greater collaboration between artists, an opening of vaults that allows for reworkings of songs old and new (this level of collaboration could, in turn, lead to some truly horrendous music, but then again so can your ability to go buy an Mbox and a copy of Pro Tools). Attitudes don’t shift overnight, but it is nice to see the groundwork being laid to potentially transform how artists and businessmen look at sampling and the exploitation of copyrights.

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