What's That Sound? This stuff is really fresh...

Sampling: Derided by some as theft and a shortcut to music making. Hailed by others as the most significant art form of the 21st Century.

At NuFunk.net, we're choosing to celebrate this cultural ram-raiding in an occasional column. 'What's That Sound?' will appear sporadically to look at samples, their origins, who's using them and who made them in the first place.

First up: Kraak & Smaak's funked-out club smasher 'One Of These Days'.



It's unrelentingly groovy and guaranteed to fill a dancefloor, whatever kind of room you're playing to. But where does that infectious boogie-inducing vibe come from?

Have a listen to 'No Trouble On The Mountain' by Richard 'Groove' Holmes and see if you can hear any similarities...



Hmmm.... *strokes chin* Interesting no?

'No Trouble On The Mountain' appears on Holmes' 'New Groove' album, which changes hands on vinyl for around $40 nowadays. There is a re-issue CD, released in 2003, which is more readily available. The whole album is cracking, so I recommend you pick it up.

Finally for this first edition of 'What's That Sound?': a classic sample, familiar to just about anyone who has ever heard a DJ scratch.

Here it is in action on Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit', in the hands of the legendary GrandMixer DXT (around 2.53):



Yeah, that's right: "Ahhhhh, this stuff is really fresh." And here's where it originates - Fab 5 Freddy's 'Change The Beat', which came backed by a female vox version. Listen to the final few seconds, 'cos that's where you'll strike gold:



Pretty cool huh? And not as rare as you'd think. Plenty of copies are still for sale on the interwebs, search for Celluloid Records, cat. no. 156. If that's too much bother, the sample is on about a million scratch vinyls and the entire track appears on more than three gazillion hip-hop compilations (roughly).

That's all for now. Any suggestions/ideas/future samples you'd like researched/sourced, please drop us a line at the usual address: blog@nufunk.net

Until next time, keep your fingers dusty and your grooves clean.