Why Do Well Known Producers Use Samples Instead of Making Original Music?

The roots of hiphop production starts with the DJ.  The DJ would play popular records and break new records by transitioning from the familiar record to the less familiar record by matching the tempo to blend one song into another before fully transitioning to the new record.

This technique of blending would be used to introduce emcees.  DJs would select a popular drum break and have a then unknown emcee rap over the break while the dj extended the set by bringing back the drum break on 2 sets of turntables.

As samplers became available and sample times increased, hiphop producers were able to sample popular instrumental breaks, add drums and sometimes live instruments to essentially make hiphop remixes of popular songs.  Some hiphops biggest  hits were and continue to be nothing more than remixes of popular songs from decades prior.  Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records historic run in the 90’s was really nothing more than hiphop remixes of songs RnB songs from the 70s and 80s.

Notorious BIGs first hit songs “juicy” “Big Poppa” and “one more chance” remixes along with “Hypnotize” and “no money no problems” 

Kanye West employed this same technique for some of his biggest hits such as ‘Stronger’, “through the wire” and “Touch the sky”.

Cardi B “I like it” and “Anaconda” and Nikki minaj’s “Everybody” more recently employed this technique as well.

There’s also a more “underhanded” reason for these artists to employ this technique to make hit songs.

In most cases the master and at least some of the songwriting/composer publishing is owned by a major label/major publisher.  So not only do they make money from a new song using a catalog release, they also get to expose younger audiences to the song and often reintroduce the sampled song to a younger audience.

Sometimes a producer just wants to make their own version of a song that they love or want to hear how an artist will sound over the classic song.