"The Grey Video" (Danger Mouse "Encore" Beatles meets Jay-Z)
Everyone loves The Beatles, including rappers and their producers, so it makes perfect sense that hooks, drum beats, high hats, stabs, guitar riffs, vocal soundbites, etc. etc. from the Fab Four's vast and varied
catalog would provide an ample sampling source for hip-hop producers and remixers. RIght? Yes, but only if done legally-- provided that the owners of the copyrighted Beatles material were to give permission to the interested producer(s). And this is not something that happens easily. In fact, The Beatles' catalog is often referred to in hip-hop production circles as "the holy grail of samples," since it is so hard to get permission to sample the Liverpool lads' music for hip-hop songs.
That's why it was such in 2007 when Wu-Tang Clan announced that they had secured the first fully legit sample of the Beatles' music. They reportedly got granted permission to sample the White Album's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" for the Wu-Tang album 8 Diagrams. As it turned out, it
wasn't technically a Beatles sample clearance, but rather the go-ahead to replay the George Harrison penned Beatles tune with none other than George's own son Dhani Harrison (reportedly a major Wu-Tang Clan fan) playing the guitar bit on the track that also featured guest vocalist Erykah Badu.
catalog would provide an ample sampling source for hip-hop producers and remixers. RIght? Yes, but only if done legally-- provided that the owners of the copyrighted Beatles material were to give permission to the interested producer(s). And this is not something that happens easily. In fact, The Beatles' catalog is often referred to in hip-hop production circles as "the holy grail of samples," since it is so hard to get permission to sample the Liverpool lads' music for hip-hop songs. That's why it was such in 2007 when Wu-Tang Clan announced that they had secured the first fully legit sample of the Beatles' music. They reportedly got granted permission to sample the White Album's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" for the Wu-Tang album 8 Diagrams. As it turned out, it
wasn't technically a Beatles sample clearance, but rather the go-ahead to replay the George Harrison penned Beatles tune with none other than George's own son Dhani Harrison (reportedly a major Wu-Tang Clan fan) playing the guitar bit on the track that also featured guest vocalist Erykah Badu.Of course, The Beatles' music has been sampled many times in hip-hop (without permission) over the years, most famously on Danger Mouse's career-launching, incredibly popular (albeit totally illegal) 2004 release The Grey Album, where he liberally sampled the entire Beatles' White Album in a masterpiece mash-up that is beautifully blended with Jay-Z's The Black Album. The fact that it was an illegal recording didn't stop people from hearing it either. The album, which was sold as a bootleg, was traded and given
away in CD format and downloaded for free, thus making its way to countless iPods and music collections.













