Interview with Chuck D and Hank Shocklee

awesome interview, very cool to get in to those guys' minds. the last question and corresponding answer at the end are killer - that says it all. makes me want to go pick up a public enemy record - i never realized how different sampling practices were in hip hop before record co execs and lawyers got their hands in the mix.

Yes, that was a great interview. Thanks for posting the link. Those two albums (Nation of Millions and Fear of a Black Planet) are so awesome. They still hold up great today--more than a lot of classic hip hop does. And when I first heard the sonic attack of it takes a Nation of Millions, I can't explain how blown away I was. It was one of those moments where it's just like, my god, I had no idea music can sound like this! Anyway, the end of sampling really hurt hip hop. The Chronic was ok, and bands like OutKast, Missy Elliott, and some of the more underground stuff is still really cool and different, but nothing holds a candle to these two albums or Paul's Boutique. Can anyone think of any other total sample-collage albums like those? I was a big hip-hop head at that time, and I can't think of any more. A lot of loops, but none that were difficult to decipher--where it would hit you after months of listening to it. Oh yeah, that's the horn blast from such and such a song. I loved that--trying to figure out as many of the single samples as possible.

Nothing's as dense as PE or Paul's Boutique, but those early Ice Cube albums and the first Del the Funky Homosapien album contained some amazing samples. Lots of P-Funk, but tons of other interesting things too.

I still occasionally visit the-breaks.com to try to figure out samples. Here's the [url=http://www.the-breaks.com/perl/search.pl?term=public+enemy&type=6]search results for PE[/url].