Lafayette Afro Rock Band, ‘Darkest Light’ (1974)
“Sampling Is (a) Creative or (b) Theft,” read a New York Times headline in 1997, summarizing a debate that has raged ever since songs started incorporating parts of other songs. The truth? It’s a little of both, and that’s what’s so fun about it.
Nowadays the theft is in a “great artists steal” sense — literal swiping largely fell by the wayside in the late ’80s and early ’90s, after Gilbert O’Sullivan sued Biz Markie and the Turtles took on De La Soul. But the best samples collapse music’s past and present into one moment and light up paths that like-minded listeners can follow backward into music history — to the obscure, the forgotten, the I’ve-heard-itbefore-but-not-like-that.
Here are 15 songs that you might not know by name, but whose sounds and samples were the building blocks for pop, dance music and hip-hop hits. run of red-hot R&B productions, including the should-have-been-bigger “1 Thing” by Amerie. The original is a driving, uptempo boogie by a group that had its biggest hits with slow-burning ballads (“Oh Girl,” “Have You Seen Her”). the new-wave pioneer is some kind of novelty act is almost criminal. The producers in Basement Jaxx went for “M.E.,” a deeper cut from Numan’s 1979 album “The Pleasure Principle,” and sped up its synthesized riff to create an early 2000s crossover dance classic. “Where’s Your Head At” even had the guy on the Pringles can jumping.
The Long Island, New York, funk group formerly known as the Bobby Boyd Congress met musician and producer Pierre Jaubert in Paris and became the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, recording a saxophone intro for the ages on “Darkest Light.” Depending on your taste in hiphop, those five notes are best known as a Public Enemy “Nation of Millions” interlude or for providing the boom to Wreckz-N-Effect’s “zoom-a-zoom-azoom-zoom.” (Bonus fact: A young Pharrell Williams is credited on “Rump Shaker” for writing Teddy Riley’s rap.)