We live in a world where just about everything in music is a remix of something original.

With the different types of technology available to all of us, it has become almost impossible to develop original content in music. When I say original content, I am talking about a piece of music that has a sounds or themes or tones that have never been heard before. Sure artists can create their own beats or styles of music, but more often than not there will be songs out there that stylistically sound similar. What people are more likely to come across nowadays is remixes to original sounds and styles.

This increase in difficulty of constructing original lyrics, styles, beats and themes can be partially explained by the vast collection of music out there. We are much more inclined than previous generations to resort to the internet for inspiration. I have personally only created a couple of beats in my lifetime (watch out for that fire mixtape to drop soon, jk) and I when I watched the tutorial on how to make a beat in the software I used, you bet I incorporated some of the tutorial sounds in my beat. I know musical artists are professionals, but they too can be influenced by a beat or song that they like. Although I believe that artists have an extremely difficult time creating their own unique styles, sounds or beats, I am not saying that no “new songs” can be created.
Artists have an amazing ear for sound, no question about that. So, the ability to remix something original in a way that an artist can make the original piece sound better and add their own artistic touch to is as magnificant a skill then anything else. For example, let’s take two songs and compare their value. The first song is from 1980 and is called Paulette and was created by Balla est ses Balladins (its a 7 minute song, you really only need to listen to the first thirty seconds).

The Latin themed instruments make for a Hispanic sounding piece of music that really makes me want to head bob back and forth. Now take for example the second song called Can’t Get Enough written by J. Cole in 2011.

Clearly from the beginning of the song you can hear the Latin guitars used in the first song as well as the Latin singers. J. Cole by no means is “stealing” the work from Balla est ses Balladins. He is simply using what is already out there to create a better sounding piece of work and adding a new message than what was originally said.

According to Lawrence Lessig in his book Remix, Lessig argues that the best remixes add a new message that audiences can understand easier. There is a website that breaks down music to see if the artist used a sample and in 2016 there were 7315 tracks that had at least 1 sample in them. This website did not take into account some the smaller artists who have yet to break through into record deals or streaming deals. I gurantee if we added all of those artists up, the number of songs that used a sample would be close to 90 percent. All of these remixes deliver a new message, one that may connect better with the audience than the original and that is the power of sampling and remixing in music.