There’s a good chance that your favorite hip-hop song by Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Jay-Z contains a sample from a previous work composed by a musician or band. During the 1980s and ’90s, hip-hop producers created the foundation of hip-hop sound with sampled music.
The film, Copyright Criminals, takes an in-depth look at hip-hop producers, rappers and the artists they sampled. De La Soul, Public Enemy and Digital Underground offer their insight on hip-hop samples. And the most sampled musician of all-time, Clyde Stubblefield, reveals that he never received funding for his sampled drum beats.
“The controversies surrounding copyright are quite complex,” says filmmaker Kembrew McLeod. “The position Copyright Criminals takes is not as simple as good or bad. We wanted people to better understand how copyright laws affect creativity and free expression.”
Copyright Criminals can currently be viewed on PBS. –amir shaw
