Nostalgia Kills, Sampling/Recreation, and The Excellence of Renaissance by Bey

08-17-22

Currently there are multiple songs coming out that aim to replicate the feelings of popular 2000s or 90s songs. They do this by sampling these songs and putting their own “twist” on it. I wouldn’t say this is such a horrible idea if multiple artist fail at doing it correctly. While their idea may be to recreate a song as iconic as the song they sampled, the result is a song that falls flat of creating true artistry and ends up as another catchy tiktok song. It seems that each new song that samples old songs do it in a way that is corny, uninteresting, and lacks individuality.

Before I continue, In no way am I saying that sampling is bad. It such an amazing art form. Some of my favorite songs stem from a sample. One of my favorite artist ,Kanye West, uses samples religiously. I absolutly love how Tyler the Creator samples Is Anyone There by Hookfoot in SWEET/I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE (which is easliy one of my favorite tyler songs).However, I do believe some recent sampling has been lazy and not exciting.

This thought came to me while scrolling on twitter and seeing the news that Muni Long and Tink would be recreating the iconic song “The Boy Is Mine” by Brandy and Monica. While I love both artist and truly believe they are talented, I think that it’s time to kill the need for recreate everything. Artist should want to create their own multitude of iconic songs. Copying 2000s or 90s music or moments can get so old, repetitive, and late.

Many artist these days goal is to replicate the 2000s or 90s. It’s so easy to gain a audience of fans by sampling a widely loved song, putting some lame ass beat in the background (that barely change it from the original).

Beyoncè IS not an example of this!! SHE IS SO AMAZING in her talent of sampling or interpolated older songs and making it IDENTIFIABLE hers!! RENAISSANCE IS SOOOOO REFRESHINGGGG!!! UH she is truly such an amazing artist and so talented in what she does. Although her album had many nods to disco and old house music, her visuals (well from what we seen) aren’t so centered around copying the these time periods so that it’s nauseating . She is the perfect example of referencing past genres correctly and making it new. I aspire to one day be an amazing artist and creator as her.

I think another example of an artists that put their own twist on music is the UK group Flo. They are just starting out but wow!! They have had an amazing start. It’s obvious they referenced and study 90s/2000s groups or artist like Destiny’s Child and Brandy, but it doesn’t feel old or like they are trying to replicate the past. It feels new. I cant wait to see what’s coming soon.

My tips to artist of any medium: Always strive to create something new and fresh. While I always recommend artist to study the past and current greats, never find yourself trying to copy them in an effort to create some kind of nostalgia or… Take the knowledge that you can from them, pull ideas or concepts, and make it your own. As I have said before individuality is key and is do much more valuable than you may think.

Ps. I know Pablo Picasso said “good artists borrow, great artists steal” but that nigga don’t know what he was talking about. don’t believe he said!!!

-azana, wunder, igotsumtosay