ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that an essential, often ignored, yet defining characteristic of sample-based music is the exponential “staging” effect expressed as a manifestation of making records using—segments from—phonographic records. The poetics of the process put the samplist in the unique creative position of selecting, manipulating, and juxtaposing fully staged mastered objects, not simply mixing recorded elements. Hip-hop scholarship has thus far prioritized aspects of the musical domain in analysis (musical borrowing) over the material mechanics of how sonic layering functions in the context of sample-based music making. Through a combination of aural and literary analysis, as well as auto/ethnographic strategies, the findings here illuminate nuanced understandings of how the dimensions of height, depth, and width in phonographic objects interact with each other, new recorded elements, and the voice of the MC. Conway's “Biscotti Biscuit” functions as an illuminating case study, providing an applied context that exemplifies the resurgence of the characteristically sample-based boom-bap aesthetic in contemporary Hip-Hop. The chapter engages with the historical processes, aesthetics, and development of beat making; the evolving theory of “staging,” applied to sample-based music production and its narrative implications; and a critical examination of engineering/mixing processes as they relate to hip-hop aesthetic priorities.
