before they were sampled...

in lieu of the normal sunday mixes (and because i'm up this late after studying and now want to bullshit), i give you something different. 


do you guys ever hear a song on the radio, wrinkle your eyebrows and go, wait a minute, i've totally heard this song before? i do that all the time. and then you basically figure out who the artist stole their rhythm/melody/beat/vocals from. 


i think its interesting to note where the songs came from. even more interesting is how the general public casually ignores the original source. the mainstream artists everyone knows and loves borrows from really good, really unknown music, and no one particularly cares to dig a little deeper.


*steps off soapbox* anyways...





the eighth track from stevens' 2010 release, the age of adz features a seemingly heartbroken sufjan crying out "why does it have to be so hard?" amongst glitchy sound effects and high-pitched flutes. though the album was stevens' most successful work to date and cracked the billboard top 200--in the top 10, at that--the track wasn't popularized until just a few months later. 





mac miller sampled the sing-songy vocals lurking in the background for one of his biggest singles. needless to say, there's probably a zillion people who still have no idea who sufjan stevens is.





diplo and switch's lovechild features vybz kartel and probably the catchiest beat ever. the reggae artist is made up of two generally unknown white producers, yet they still managed to catch the attention of one of the biggest pop stars in eternity, who apparently wanted to switch--no pun intended--up her sound for her fourth album.





beyonce's pseudo-anthem garnered 121 million views on youtube, and gave ammo to youtube comedian glozell to confuse "girls" with a fuzzy animal known for straddling nuts in their jaws.





of course, everyone remembers duckie from "pretty in pink" losing his lily white mind to this song in the record store. apparently, two of the biggest rappers in eternity caught on as well, sharing duckie's love of the soulful gem.





jay-z and kanye west, AKA "the throne" came up with the most creative title for a song ever. the first name of the guy whose song you're sampling? genius.





preachy, dark, and almost creepy, depeche mode's cut from the 1990 album violator was bound to get sampled eventually. but who woulda thunk this?

buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, now upgrade it. then hand it over to a formerly dreadlocked rapper trying to switch up his image and try a little something new.