The Sampling Dictionary 2008

The Sampling Dictionary 2008

22 August, 2008 | 2.27AM

• Written by: The Last Real DJ Alive
• Filed under: Music News: book, hip hop, sampling

Hip hop in the USA might now be more plastic than the credit card collection of Roman Abramovich, but it’s far from dead, as our Beatsource music download site proves.

And whilst downloads are now all the rage, to create those downloads - the songs - artists are still perfecting the dark art of “crate digging” by sampling the rarest and obscurest vinyl known to man.

Say hello to the Sampling Dictionary 2008 - the crate digger’s bible - something created with obsessive enthusiasm in Japan, and the answer to all your sampling needs.

Here’s what’s inside the book, according to the www.turntablelab.com:

“They’ve literally done all your research for you in this huge 241 page dictionary of hip hop artists, organized alphabetically by name, track name and the songs sampled for the track.

It includes all big name hip hop artists from 2 Live Crew to Z-Trip, including even hard to find, obscure artists like Siah & Yeshua Dapo to Kartoon Krew.

It even has dictionary style printing on the sides for quick flipping by alphabet.

Yes - it’s all here in this one inexhaustible book, because you can’t really take the internet with you to records stores (yet).”

(This isn’t really true - we have iPhones.)

Anyways, the press release goes on:

“Although it’s an awesome reference, we’ll warn you that the inside cover does say, ‘All data are not necessarily accurate [sic].’

Don’t fret though, we feel they threw that in there so some nerd doesn’t cause a fuss ‘cause one sample is wrong.

For the most part, it’s pretty spot on.

It also has a list of the ten commandments of digging on the back, in broken English: ‘Don’t forget to keep turning on your equipments.’

They do give you some good tips like, ‘Go through the records stores A-Z, even the boxes on the floor,’ this has always been a secret of ours.

But they forgot the most important rule to digging, ‘Never bring your girlfriend with you.’ It’s like the girl equivalent of a guy gettin’ dragged into Sephora.”

Sampling the records in this book isn’t just for the purpose of making hip hop - any electronic genre can be created with them, from techno to house; especially drum & bass.

Pick up this underground gem, on import, here for £14.99.

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