M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” takes its central instrumental loop from “Straight to Hell” by The Clash, but the sample does not behave like a nostalgic quotation.
It is pulled into a completely different musical and political environment. Gunshot sounds and a cash-register effect punctuate the chorus, while the track’s lyrics turn attention toward migration, suspicion, money and the stereotypes attached to outsiders. Diplo later described the Clash sample as successful precisely because its new context changed its flavour so completely.
That is what good sampling can do.
The source remains recognisable, but recognition is not the destination.
Context changes meaning.
A melancholy guitar pattern from a British punk record becomes the foundation of a global pop track by a British-Sri Lankan artist whose work repeatedly dealt with borders and displacement.
Sampling is often discussed as ownership of sound.
Artistically, I find the more interesting question to be ownership of interpretation.
A sample can preserve the original recording while completely changing what that recording now seems to say.
