Sunday Music: When Discovery Becomes A Policing Service

It was 2000. I was in college. Somebody’s floormate, who I had spotted and cornered because he was wearing unreasonable headphones, was giving me a CD. He was from the northern Midwest somewhere, if memory serves me correctly, but had a parent or somebody who he spent a lot of time out west with, in the previous handful of years.

We’d talked for a few, in the hall outside of a mutual class, about underground hip hop. He told me had some of his vinyl on campus, and a growing Napster library thanks to the ethernet connect, and he was going to make me a mix, which he was now making good on.

I put it in my discman, with my far less fancy headphones, and one of the first songs, transferred from vinyl (which I’d later figure out because he had it sped up/pitch shifted up some) was this song. If you don’t know it, make sure you jump in about a minute, it’s got an extended intro on it in this version:

I knew about Madlib already. The Lootpack album, which was released in 1999, was not on my radar yet. The west coast energy was immediately recognizable, without being Dr. Dre g-funk smooth, but also not without just the right amount of Heiroglyphics stoner + Alkaholiks tipsy mixed in.

The beat was rough around the edges. The vocals were rougher, both in trying to fit too many words into too little space (which was a thing at the time, so interesting how it manifested in different parts of the country too, but that’s a post for another day), as well as in the Cali version of beating “whack emcees” that was, I guess, just distinctively the non-east coast version, which is a nuance if you lived this moment I bet you can still hear.

The song kind of blew my mind. I ended up putting it on a ton of mix CDs I made for others, or just to play over the sound system before and after sets at shows we were playing. The whole record it was from too, it went into steady rotation in my life. Mostly because of the way the songs and the album were stitched together. Madlib is and always was onto something else entirely.

At the time, it was really hard to pick out samples. The obvious one in this song came from KRS-One. Proper east coast stuff. And, properly canon at this point in my life. I was obsessed with KRS and how he could merge styles and voices. Plus, the park jam energy. Even if Rakim and Kane were better lyricists, you could feel the live/party potential KRS tracked. He was the ultimate sampler of live vocal styles in my mind.

So “Whenimondamic” is playing, I knew the “cause when I’m on the mic I like to speak freely” KRS line, but the rest was a mystery. I wanted to know where it came from, I knew - or at least was pretty sure - they weren’t playing the instruments, but how were you supposed to find out?

Today I’d just go to WhoSampled, and we’ll get there in a minute, but in 2000, music discovery was an endlessly weird experience, full of rabbit holes and dead ends. Pause for half a second and think about this. I was a northeaster PA kid, at a college in New England, meeting a midwestern kid who spent time on the west coast, who had acquired underground records from various parts of the country I had never heard, and because we were both audio nerds, he could transfer from those formats to rip a disc for me that would push along my own taste for, apparently, decades to come because I am still thinking about it.

Because when Stones Throw put out an updated version of the video, my first thought was, I love this song so much, and I never found out what that core sample was. So I went to WhoSampled, looked it up, and this is where it gets too cool.

Have you ever heard of John Phillips or the movie Brewster McCloud? I haven’t. Actually, I have heard of John Phillips, he was part of The Mommas and the Poppas, but I definitely don’t have a copy of the soundtrack to Brewster McCloud in my collection. Anywhere. But Madlib somehow heard it and grabbed this snip, most clearly heard at the beginning (and you really should play this, it’s a wildly cool 1 minute and 11 seconds that I can’t even imagine how it fits into the plot of what must be an interesting piece of 1970 film history).

Unpack the music discovery angle a layer further. Me today, a mix CD 25 years ago, a Madlib beat 26+ years ago, a movie soundtrack 55 years ago, and all of it distinct and unique in the experiences and relationships to the artifacts themselves. That is magic. That is, so cool. That is what great art does to your mind - it gets you excited, and excitable, and - like you just have to share it with somebody else, like I’m doing with you here.

Up to this point, I just wanted you to hear a cool song and the sample at its core.

But beyond this point, I’ve got a concern.

About a week ago, on November 19th, 2025, Spotify announced that they had purchased WhoSampled. There’s a history of samples and artists and commercial issues that, in particular, has hindered a lot of music discovery, especially from the hip hop community, but all styles in the post-sampler era, at this point.

It’s not a new anxiety, but this is a big one. WhoSampled was a rabbit hole vehicle for me. I’m sure it got a few people in trouble with uncleared samples, or songs used without permission, i.e. did Madlib or his label in 1999 track down John Philips or the rights holders to Brewster McCloud to request and receive permission to use “I Promise Not To Tell” in their song? I don’t know. But what if that song suddenly wasn’t allowed to exist anymore because a lawyer thought it shouldn’t exist?

I’m scarred by this. I know what happened to De La Soul and a bunch of other projects (De La wasn’t on streaming ever, until 2023, based on a lack of sample clearances from 1989). I know how weird it is with Madlib, too, in general (see all of his Medicine Show mixes, many of which seem to be on and off streaming platforms for these reasons). The very idea of what makes him great though, is how his creative practice of digging and collaging hasn’t ever been drastically limited or thwarted by bureaucracy, and now it might. How will people discover him, then? It’s a serious question and a concern I have.

I don’t want to lose this music. I don’t want to lose this discovery. I don’t want to lose that connection between what can be discovered and what makes it interesting, in many cases, a generation or more outside of my lifetime and experience. The internet freed this up. I don’t want the internet to take it away.

The medium of playing these songs never had the enforcement mechanism embedded in it. It’s weird for Spotify to own the enforcement mechanism, and have shareholder responsibilities, that I can’t help but worry are conflicting. Not because I don’t want artists to get paid - I do want that - but because I don’t want too many lawyers interfering with my art.

Maybe this is what finally pushes me all the way back to physical collections. Maybe this is what finally breaks the era of sampled music we’ve been living in for 40+ years. Maybe, both? I have a ton of CDs I haven’t given away or gifted for this reason. My De La lesson in life has loomed large on me. If I thought the internet could forget or ban it, I held onto a copy. I’m not regretting that right now.

I know what sticks to me. I know what’s stuck with me. I know and recognize the role the technology has played in my experience.

I know that whatever way this evolves next, great art exists like a secret we tell each other about. That’s special. Having the internet, with its infinite shelf space to save and explore has been a remarkable experience. But, when I see transactions like Spotify buying what could turn into a policing service, I worry that era might come to an end.

It’s not good and it’s not bad.

But I love finding fun music and reading up on details to tell my friends.

I’m with numerous other music people online saying this one scares me.