Smart sampling

Modern record companies find themselves spending a great deal of time and money clearing samples. But there is an elegant solution: they can simply buy the rights. And because the most sampled songs are obscure soul and funk numbers from the 1960s and 1970s, this can be surprisingly cheap.

A good example of the practice is provided by Tuff City Records of New York, which purchased the rights to The Honey Drippers’ 1973 track Impeach the President largely because so many of its artists had sampled the song. This turned out to be good business: the record has been sampled by more than 100 performers, and Tuff City finds itself in a no-lose position. If the sampler is signed up with the company, it has no royalties to pay. If an artist from another label wishes to sample Impeach the President, they have to pay Tuff City.