![mo money mo problems original sample mo money mo problems original sample](https://images.rapgenius.com/a82fe6ba94e5fab1ed44093c372234d6.1000x667x1.jpg)
They want huge chunks, unchanged from the original. But musicians are no longer content just to pilfer a drumbeat, a bass line or a vocal snippet. Since its inception, sampling has offered its practitioners myriad new ways of remaking a song in their own image - to slice and dice a song so drastically that they don't even have to call it by its original name - and talented artists from Public Enemy to the Chemical Brothers have emerged in this genre. And, more so than their predecessors, they are repeat offenders when it comes to plundering pop's collective memory. Hammer and Vanilla Ice, these artists are respected in their fields. Meanwhile, Will Smith looks to Patrice Rushen's ''Forget Me Not'' for ''Men in Black,'' Lil' Kim uses Kool and the Gang's ''Ladies' Night'' for the chorus of ''Not Tonight,'' and Wyclef Jean of the Fugees leans on the Bee Gees for ''We Just Trying to Stay Alive.'' The difference between 19, however, is that unlike M. All are based on excerpts from hits, including ones by the Police, Grandmaster Flash and Diana Ross. The king of sampled hits is Sean (Puffy) Combs, better known as Puff Daddy, whose ''I'll Be Missing You,'' ''No Way Out'' and ''Mo' Money, Mo' Problems'' (a collaboration with the Notorious B.I.G.) were three of the summer's most popular songs. There two ways of looking at the practice: Is taking pieces of a well-known song and incorporating them into a personal musical vision the equivalent today of remaking a pop standard? Or are these hits evidence of a creative slump, a sign that pop musicians have lost their ability to write effective melodies and songs? The issue is making a sample the song itself, so that a chorus lifted wholesale from an earlier hit becomes the basis of a new hit. The issue is not just sampling, the now standard music-making tool of using digital excerpts of sounds and songs. This summer, however, songs based on samples of previous hits are not only back but so pervasive that they deserve to be re-evaluated. Consequently, the artists, justly or not, were soon mocked out of existence. At the time, these derivative hits seemed to threaten the legitimacy of rap, which had always prided itself on its street credibility and a refusal to pander to popular taste. It was due to the fact that both melodies were sampled from familiar pop tunes, ''Superfreak'' by Rick James and ''Under Pressure'' by Queen and David Bowie, respectively. The popularity of both songs was not necessarily due to the rapping skills of their performers. Hammer and ''Ice Ice Baby'' by Vanilla Ice.
![mo money mo problems original sample mo money mo problems original sample](https://pics.me.me/thumb_team-1-when-we-win-mo-money-mo-problems-bittersweet-58998031.png)
IT WAS EARLY 1991, AND TWO SONGS RULED THE radio airwaves: ''U Can't Touch This'' by M.