There has been a very large use of "samples" (i.e. either excerpts or actual beats/melodies)of previously recorded songs in rap since it began in the 80s and then in Hip Hop Soul in 90's and 2000's. James Brown's "The Funky Drummer" is an obvious and perhaps the most common example. While a lot R&B songs easily provide a natural basis for recycling in a

rap or hip hop tune, others older songs that have been used were not as obvious or even seem

unlikely to appear in a rap song as a subcategory of the broader R&B category.

A couple of examples: EPMD's Strictly Business uses samples of "I Shot the Sheriff"

by Eric Clapton.

and their "Your a Customer" uses samples of "Fly Like an Eagle"

by the Steve Miller Band.

"Notorious B.I.G." by Notorious B.I.G. and Lil' Lim is built on a sample

Duran Duran's "Notorious".

There are also other songs that do seem like an easily natural fit as rap "samples" but

are used in particularly creative or interesting ways.

Examples, in my opinion: DJ Quick's "Tonite" was much more successful

on the charts than the song it samples and is built on,

"Tonight" by Kleeer.

R. Kelly's low key sarcastically (or may cynically) comedic album track "Only the Loot Can Make Me Happy"

is built on the melody to "Happy" by Surface

and Snoop Dogg's "Wasn't Your Fault" is a comedic

use of Cherrelle's "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On."

What unexpected and or particularly creative or plainly enjoyable use of samples do you know of?

Justice-Civilization.

They put 3 different damn songs together. Genius.

But my all time favorite is the way Swizz Beatz sampled "Dance" by Justice for "On To the Next One" for Jay-z. It's the part during the chorus where they say "under the spotlight", and he just took the "Under the spot-" part and slowed it down, and it sounds like "on to the next one" is being said. Genius.

J Dilla made a career out of this. Not a fan of sampling but he reconstructed his use of sampling into making them totally different songs.

Probably why folks sing his praises to this day.

Anything by Public Enemy.

I liked the way George Michael slowed down James Brown's Funky Drummer beat and stuck it in Waiting For That Day.

Those are admirable comments.

The most interesting Public Enemy use of a sample is Queens "Flash Gordon" (from the 1980 movie)

that was used in "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic".

That is a tune on "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back".

On second thought, maybe that is not the most interesting sample in

a Public Enemy tune but it is one of the funniest (boastful) and cleverest uses of a sample.

I've been having a blast listening to this site that has compiled all of the samples and sources it can, whosampled.com . I was particularly looking up what Prince Paul and De La Soul used during their run together as well as The Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow and many others. The org's namesake has been interesting to search through, if there is a better site than this let us know.

p.s..... One track that has caught my fancy is this obscure track by Maggie Thrett which was used in De La's Jenifa Taught Me ( Derwin's Revenge )

Nobody Video - http://youtu.be/EzlThqNOe1Y

[Edited 3/31/12 8:13am]