State Champ Radio sampling
When Drake dismissively told Metro Boomin to go and “make some drums” in one of his recent diss tracks during his beef with Kendrick Lamar, the superproducer went off and did just that — and the result marked a turning point for the use of AI in music production.
The beat, titled “BBL Drizzy,” pairs a vintage-sounding soul vocalist over some 808 drums. The producer released it to SoundCloud on May 5, encouraging his fans to record their own bars over it for the chance to win a free beat, and it swiftly went viral.
But soon after, it was revealed that the singer from the “BBL Drizzy” beat didn’t exist — the voice was AI-generated, as was the song itself. The vocals, melody and instrumental of the sample were generated by Udio, an AI music startup founded by former Google Deep Mind engineers. Though Metro was not aware of the source of the track when he used it, his tongue-in-cheek diss became the first notable use case of AI-generated sampling, proving the potential for AI to impact music production. (A representative for Metro Boomin did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment).
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As with all AI tracks, however, a human being prompted it. King Willonius, a comedian, musician and content creator, had put together the Udio-generated song on April 14, pulling inspiration from a recent Rick Ross tweet — in which the rapper joked that Drake looks like he got a Brazilian Butt Lift — to write the lyrics. “I think it’s a misconception that people think AI wrote ‘BBL Drizzy,’” Willonius told Billboard in an interview about the track. “There’s no way AI could write lyrics like ‘I’m thicker than a Snicker and I got the best BBL in history,’” he adds, laughing.
There are a lot of issues — legal, philosophical, cultural and technical — that are still to be sorted out before this kind of sampling hits the mainstream, but it’s not hard to imagine a future where producers turn to AI to create vintage-sounding samples to chop up and use in beats given that sample clearances are notoriously complicated and can drag on for months or years, even for big name producers like Metro Boomin.
“If people on the other side [of sample clearance negotiations] know they’re probably going to make money on the new song, like with a Metro Boomin-level artist, they will make it a priority to clear a sample quickly, but that’s not how it is for everyone,” says Todd Rubenstein, a music attorney and founder of Todd Rubenstein Law. Grammy-winning writer/producer Oak Felder says clearing a sample for even a high-profile track is still a challenge for him. “I’ll be honest, I’m dealing with a tough clearance right now, and I’ve dealt with it before,” he says. “I had trouble clearing an Annie Lennox sample for a Nicki Minaj record once… It’s hard.”
Many smaller producers are not able to sample established songs because they know that it could get them into legal trouble. Others go ahead without permission, causing massive legal headaches, like when bedroom producer Young Kio sampled an undisclosed Nine Inch Nails song in an instrumental he licensed out on BeatStars. The beat was used by then-unknown Lil Nas X and resulted in the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Old Town Road.” When the sample was discovered, Nas was forced to give up a large portion of his publishing and master royalties to the band.
Udio’s co-founder, David Ding, tells Billboard that he believes AI samples “could simplify a lot of the rights management” issues inherent to sampling and explains that Udio’s model is particularly adept at making realistic songs in the vein of “Motown ‘70s soul,” perhaps the most common style of music sampled in hip-hop today, as well as classical, electronic and more. “It’s a wide-ranging model,” Ding says.
Willonius believes AI samples also offer a solution for musicians in today’s relentless online news cycle. While he has made plenty of songs from scratch before, Willonius says AI offered him the chance to respond in real-time to the breakneck pace of the feud between Drake and Kendrick. “I never could’ve done that without AI tools,” he says. Evan Bogart, a Grammy-winning songwriter and founder of Seeker Music, likens it to a form of digital crate digging. “I think it’s super cool to use AI in this way,” he says. “It’s good for when you dig and can’t find the right fit. Now, you can also try to just generate new ideas that sound like old soul samples.”
There’s a significant financial impact incurred from traditional sampling that could also be avoided with AI. To use the melody of “My Favorite Things” in her hit song “7 Rings,” for example, Ariana Grande famously had to cede 90% of her publishing income for the song to “My Favorite Things” writers Rodgers and Hammerstein — and that was just an interpolation rather than a full sample, which entails both the use of compositional elements, like melody, and a portion of the sound recording.
“It certainly could help you having to avoid paying other people and avoid the hassle,” says Rubenstein, who has often dealt with the complications of clearing songs that use samples and beats from marketplaces like BeatStars. But he adds that any user of these AI models must use caution, saying it won’t always make clearances easier: “You really need to know what the terms of service are whenever you use an AI model, and you should know how they train their AI.”
Often, music-making AI models train on copyrighted material without the consent or compensation of its rights holders, a practice that is largely condemned by the music business — even those who are excited about the future of AI tools. Though these AI companies argue this is “fair use,” the legality of this practice is still being determined in the United States. The New York Times has launched a lawsuit against OpenAI for training on its copyrighted archives without consent, credit or compensation, and UMG, Concord, ABKCO and other music publishers have also filed a lawsuit against Anthropic for using their lyrics to train the company’s large language model. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has also introduced a new bill called the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act to require transparency on this matter.
Udio’s terms of service puts the risk of sharing its AI songs on users, saying that users “shall defend, indemnify, and hold the company entities harmless from and against any and all claims, costs, damages, losses, liabilities and expenses” that come from using whatever works are generated on the platform. In an interview with Billboard, Udio co-founder Ding was unable to answer what works were specifically used in its training data. “We can’t reveal the exact source of our training data. We train our model on publicly available data that we obtained from the internet. It’s basically, like, we train the model on good music just like how human musicians would listen to music,” says Ding. When pressed about copyrights in particular, he replies, “We can’t really comment on that.”
“I think if it’s done right, AI could make things so much easier in this area. It’s extremely fun and exciting but only with the proper license,” says Diaa El All, CEO/founder of Soundful, another AI music company that generates instrumentals specifically. His company is certified by Fairly Trained, a non-profit that ensures certified companies do not use copyrighted materials in training data without consent. El All says that creating novel forms of AI sampling “is a huge focus” for his company, adding that Soundful is working with an artist right now to develop a fine-tuned model to create AI samples based on pre-existing works.
“I can’t tell you who it is, but it’s a big rapper,” he says. “His favorite producer passed away. The rapper wants to leverage a specific album from that producer to sample. So we got a clearance from the producer’s team to now build a private generative AI model for the rapper to use to come up with beats that are inspired by that producer’s specific album.”
While this will certainly have an impact on the way producers work in the future, Felder and Bogart say that AI sampling will never totally replace the original practice. “People love nostalgia; that’s what a sample can bring,” says Felder. With the success of sample-driven pop songs at the top of the Hot 100 and the number of movie sequels hitting box office highs, it’s clear that there is an appetite for familiarity, and AI originals cannot feed that same craving.
“BBL Drizzy” might’ve been made as a joke, but Felder believes the beat has serious consequences. “I think this is very important,” he says. “This is one of the first successful uses [AI sampling] on a commercial level, but in a year’s time, there’s going to be 1,000 of these. Well, I bet there’s already a thousand of these now.”
This story is included in Billboard‘s new music technology newsletter, Machine Learnings. To subscribe to this and other Billboard newsletters, click here.
Universal Music Group (UMG) is facing a lawsuit that claims a 1992 Mary J. Blige hit featured an unlicensed sample from a 1973 funk song that’s famous for being sampled in dozens of other tracks, including releases from Biggie and Tupac as well as a recent Doja Cat tune.
In a complaint filed Thursday (April 4) in Manhattan federal court, Tuff City Records accused Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) of copyright infringement over Blige’s “Real Love,” which spent 31 weeks on the Hot 100 in 1992 and reached a peak of No. 7 on the chart.
The allegedly-copied song? “Impeach the President” by the Honey Drippers — a legendary piece of hip-hop source material with a drum track that’s also been sampled or interpolated by Run-DMC, Dr. Dre and many others. Most recently, it was featured in Doja Cat’s 2023 track “Can’t Wait.”
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In the complaint, Tuff City’s attorneys say they have “advised defendant repeatedly of the presence of the uncleared sample” in “Real Love” but that Universal has done nothing about it.
“Defendant has repeatedly refused to engage plaintiff in substantive negotiations to rectify the foregoing, let alone agreed to compensate Plaintiff for the past infringement or on an ongoing basis,” wrote Tuff City’s attorney Hillel Parness in the complaint.
Blige herself is not named in the lawsuit nor accused of any wrongdoing.
In a bizarre wrinkle, Tuff City claims that UMG Recordings — a subsidiary of UMG and the owner of the master to “Real Love” — has already reached an agreement regarding the use of the uncleared sample on the sound recording. But they say the music giant’s publishing arm has refused to do the same as it relates to the underlying composition.
“Defendant’s refusal to cooperate with plaintiff is difficult to reconcile with the fact that plaintiff reached an agreement with UMG Recordings,” Tuff City’s attorneys write.
Tuff City, which owns a large catalog of old songs, is no stranger to copyright litigation. Over the past fifteen years, the company has sued over tracks by Jay-Z, Beastie Boys, Christina Aguilera, Frank Ocean and others, typically alleging that they featured unlicensed samples or interpolations.
That process has not always gone smoothly. In 2014, a judge dismissed a case over Jay-Z’s “Run This Town” on the grounds that any alleged sample was “barely perceptible” after multiple listens. In 2018, another judge ordered Tuff City to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees spent by Beastie Boys defending a case that was “clearly without merit.”
The new case is also not the first time Tuff City has sued over “Impeach the President.” Way back in 1991, the company sued Sony Music and Def Jam over claims that producer Marley Marl had illegally sampled the track on LL Cool J tracks “Around the Way Girl” and “Six Minutes of Pleasure.”
At the time, the lawsuit was a novel legal attack on sampling, which had long been at the core of hip-hop but had rarely involved paying for licenses or seeking authorization. In a 1992 article, the New York Times warned that Tuff City’s lawsuit over “Impeach the President” could fundamentally change hip hop, forcing rappers and producers to clear every element used in their albums — a formidable idea at the time.
“A single rap album can include dozens of samples, from single drumbeats to full musical phrases,” the New York Times article reads. “Finding the copyright owners, negotiating fees or royalties and gaining legal clearance is time consuming and can add tens of thousands of dollars to the production costs.”
Tuff City’s case eventually settled on confidential terms, but it proved to be a sign of things to come. In the years since, federal courts have ruled that nearly any amount of sampling of sound recordings counts as copyright infringement. As a result, labels and artists today attempt to clear almost any direct sampling in their songs and will typically remove those elements if a deal can’t be reached.
Of course, Blige’s “Real Love” came out just months after Tuff City filed its case against LL Cool J, and well before such practices had become universal. It’s unclear why the company waited more than 30 years to sue over it, but copyright law has a so-called “rolling” statute of limitations that allows for such long-delayed actions.
A spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee are facing a lawsuit over allegations that they illegally sampled from classic 90s song “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” — a case that claims the artists “simply lied” in order to “avoid paying a larger licensing fee.”
In a lawsuit filed March 8, the company that owns the rights to “Scatman” accuse will.i.am (William Adams), Daddy Yankee (Luis Ayala Rodríguez) and others of “clear-cut copyright infringement” over their use of Scatman John’s ear-catching 1995 track in their own 2022 song “Bailar Contigo.”
The current owners of “Scatman” (Iceberg Records AS) claim that they granted a “limited license” allowing the superstars to use the underlying written music, but explicitly warned that a license to actually sample from the sound recording would cost more. The case claims the artists agreed to those terms, but that their “assurances turned out to be pretense.”
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“After comparing the tracks, it is apparent that the derivative work and the song are so strikingly similar that defendants have used the sound recording of the song, rather than just the composition, as agreed,” attorneys for Iceberg write in their lawsuit. “Defendants simply lied to plaintiff about not using the sound recording in order to avoid paying a larger licensing fee.”
The new case highlights the distinction between sampling (the use of an actual recording of an artist’s performance) and interpolation (the use of the same music but re-performed by the new artists). Sampling licenses require paying the owners of both the master and publishing copyrights to a given song, and thus typically cost more than interpolation licenses.
In the case of “Scatman” and “Bailar Contigo,” Iceberg claims it inked an interpolation deal with the Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee in October 2022 in return for 75 percent stake in the publishing rights to the new song and a 5 percent income stream from the new recording. But Iceberg, which also owns the master to the song, says the contract “made clear” that the agreement was not a sampling deal.
“Rights to the recording of the original work (so called master rights) are not subject of this approval and require separate licensing,” the 2022 agreement purportedly read.
But when the song was released in November 2022, Iceberg’s lawyers say it obviously included a sample, not just an interpolation: “Although it appears that defendants attempted to manipulate the sound recording slightly to hide their infringement, the work remains so strikingly similar to the song that it could not have been created without using the song’s sound recording.”
Reps for both the Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee did not immediately return requests for comment on the allegations. In addition to naming will.i.am as a defendant, the lawsuit also named Black Eyed Peas members apl.de.ap (Allen Pineda Lindo) and Taboo (Jaime Luis Gomez); it did not name not Fergie, who left the group in 2018.
Faced with only being able to secure an interpolation deal and not an outright sample clearance, artists will sometimes re-record a song in ways that sound very similar to the original recording. But that practice can ruffle feathers with the owners of masters, and has led to disputes in the past.
Last year, Rick Astley filed a high-profilelawsuit against Yung Gravy over the rapper’s breakout 2022 hit that heavily borrowed from the singer’s iconic “Never Gonna Give You Up,” alleging that the new track — an interpolation that sounded a whole lot like an outright sample — broke the law by impersonating Astley’s voice. In that case, Gravy cleared the underlying music (which Astley does not own) but failed to secure a license to sample the master.
The lawsuit, premised on Astley’s likeness rights, raised big questions about sound-alike songs and sampling, but the dispute was settled on confidential terms in September.
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Ahmad Jamal, a legendary Jazz pianist who released a bevy of songs heavily sampled in the Hip-Hop sphere, has died after combating prostate cancer according to reports. Ahmad Jamal remained an active and curious musician well into his 80s, including a Kennedy Center set he expertly performed two years ago.
Ahmad Jamal (formerly Frederick Russell Jones) was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pa. According to biographical accounts, Jamal began playing piano at the age of 3 and became a professional player at 14. Shortly after high school, Jamal’s touring career began and his travels led him to Islam, thus changing his name to Ahmad Jamal and keeping with the Muslim traditions of prayer.
In 1951, Jamal’s recording career would officially begin, culminating in his touring nationally and around the world behind the success of the At the Pershing: But Not for Me album. Jamal was also known as a prudent investor and used his fortunes to make investments across Africa. In 1962, Jamal stepped away from music for more than two years, returning to recording with the release of three albums in 1965, including the acclaimed Extensions album.
In 1973, Jamal released an instrumental version of the theme song for the 1970 film M*A*S*H*, a song originally known as “Suicide Is Painless” by The Mash and featured on the film’s original soundtrack.
The American Jazz Masters award, National Endowment for the Arts gave Jamal an American Jazz Masters award in 1994. In 2007, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named Jamal a Living Jazz Legend. In 2017, Jamal was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by The Recording Academy.
Jamal’s music was famously sampled by Hip-Hop acts such as De La Soul, Pete Rock, Nas, 9th Wonder, Earl Sweatshirt, and countless others over the past two decades and more. Jamal’s last official recording was 2019’s Ballades album.
According to a report from the Washington Post, Jamal’s daughter, Sumayah Jamal, confirmed the passing of her father.
Ahmad Jamal was 92.
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Yung Gravy should be enjoying the fruits of his virtual track “Betty (Get Money)” that’s all the rage on social media. However, the Rochester, Minn. rapper is facing a lawsuit from 1980s hitmaker Rick Astley for an unauthorized imitation of the British singer’s voice.
Deadline reports that Yung Gravy, 26, sampled Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” track from 1987. According to the suit, Astley, 56, approved the sample of the original but did not authorize Gravy to hire a performer to imitate his voice.
The suit was filed in Los Angeles and states that only the instrumentals to “Never Gonna Give You Up” were licensed and that Astley’s voice was a “resource that needs to be carefully managed.”
The outlet obtained the legal filing which cites Yung Gravy and producer Dillion Francis “conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song.”
Also named in the lawsuit is Nick Seeley, better known as Popnick, who performed the vocal impersonation.
According to Astley’s filing, the impersonation upended a future collaboration with another artist who wanted to use Astley’s vocals.
Yung Gravy has not made a public response to the lawsuit.
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The art of sampling is taking something previously recorded and rendering it anew by chopping, looping, and other techniques that are the hallmarks of Hip-Hop production. Producers Madlib and Mark Ronson joined forces with The Coca-Cola Company for an innovative EP cleverly titled Recycled Records.
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The Recycled Records campaign launched back in December, putting Oxnard, Calif. native Madlib (Lootpack, Madvilliany, Freddie Gibbs) and London’s Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Wale, Lady Gaga) in charge of sampling a bevy of sounds from a number of recycling centers that are turning used clear plastic bottles into new containers for a bevy of Coca-Cola products.
For years, Sprite, Fresca, and Seagram’s used a distinctive green plastic for their products, and as we learn in a short film narrated by the legendary MC Lyte, those bottles can largely only be used once. With Coca-Cola transitioning to clear bottles, recycling is now easier than ever thus creating less impact on the environment and giving the bottles new life.
The campaign produced the unique seven-track EP full of original tracks from Madlib and Mark Ronson, all of which are sonically different than the other and show off an amazing range of sounds between the pair. Fans can also try their hand at sampling the sounds and producing their own beats using the same library of sounds the Loopdigga (Madlib) and Ronson employed on their respective outings.
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“Sampling is an artform which is constantly regenerating. The tiniest sound, whether from an old record or from the world around us, can inspire an entire piece of music. I learnt from my heroes, DJ Premier and Q-Tip, who all made incredible albums from sampling, and it’s stayed an integral part of my work up until today,” Ronson added in a statement.
Madlib adds, “A great sample doesn’t have to come from other music, it just has to make you move. The thud of a plastic bottle going through a recycling facility is, in its own way, a piece of art, it has the ability to transform. Being able to take sounds from the recycling process that are so different from what I’ve used in the past, and flipping it into a whole new format, is a great example of the versatility of sound. Now any cat has the opportunity to make some dope sounds of their own.”
As the short film highlights, the most random sounds were used to create the samples, including the fizz of a bottle opening, the whirr of a forklift in motion, and the steady hiss of a factory conveyer belt. These music masters used all of their skills to flip these sounds into serious head-nodding bangers.
The campaign is part of Coca-Cola’s wider efforts in waste management under its World Without Waste operation.
To learn more, please visit this link to get more information on Recycled Records and to create your own original soundscape. Kudos to The Coca-Cola Company for its effort in protecting the planet by reducing waste on a global scale.
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