Lizzo was the most recent guest on Gillie and Wallo’s Million Dollaz Worth Of Game podcast, which eventually touched on themes of Black art and its existence under much older entertainment industries. At one point of the conversation, she brought up the integral hip-hop art form of sampling and how copyright laws and other regulations serve to hinder Black expression rather than protect it.
Specifically, the MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING singer and femcee evoked rap’s history to make her point. Lizzo brought up Biz Markie’s issues with sampling and how his album disappeared from store shelves due to the “Alone Again” dispute and the earlier origins of sampling in hip-hop.
“The first time people started sampling was who? It was rappers in the ’80s and ’90s,” the “About Damn Time” star expressed, according to Billboard. “They were sampling records because they didn’t have access to big studios, they didn’t grow up learning how to play bass and stuff like that. They created the genre of hip-hop through sampling records in their parents’ vinyls and stuff. There were no sampling laws back then. It was all a free-for-all. So they was just outside, just like, ‘OK, this is just what it is.’ And then hip-hop was born, and it was this beautiful thing.”
“I just feel like the theft of it all, putting theft on Black culture, that’s the part that kind of turns me off,” Lizzo continued. “Hip-hop’s medium was sampling. Sampling is a Black art that bred hip-hop. Hip-hop was born from sampling. And now sampling is synonymous with theft. […] The origin of sampling laws were racially motivated to me because it was policing Black art.”
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Lizzo Collaborations
Elsewhere, though, Lizzo is diving deeper into her hip-hop bag. She will be one of many big guests on the upcoming album from Cardi B, Am I The Drama? It comes out in just a few hours on Friday, September 19.
We will see if she has other collaborations on the way, whether it’s for her pop and R&B sensibilities or in a hip-hop context. Either way, hopefully there’s more.
