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NBC Busted for Sampling

by Winston "Stone" Ford

I usually don’t watch Saturday Night Live, but last Saturday night I found myself in a hotel room in Columbia, SC watching it because honestly there wasn’t anything else better on TV. Anyway, the show featured LeBron James and Kanye West and for the most part proved to me that SNL still isn’t worth my time. The only thing that’s actually good on SNL lately have been the Digital Shorts produced by Andy Samberg. The one last Saturday was mildly funny and the song was actually pretty good, but the beat used was actually sampled from a British group by the name of Aphex Twin and NBC didn’t clear the sample, forcing them to pull all references to the skit from NBC.com, YouTube, and future broadcasts.

Compare the two YouTube videos:

SNL – Iran So Far

Aphex Twin – Avril 14th (sampled loop comes in at 1:27)

Hip-Hop sampling at its finest. But this time the sampler is NBC/Universal, who spends millions of dollars and hundreds of lawyers to stop the very same thing from happening. Karma is a bitch.

  • http://wmdeez.wordpress.com nation

    motherfuckers will shut anything down… it was time they got a taste of their own medicine

  • himalaya

    that’s a damn good sample tho…

  • http://www.alisbasement.com Ali

    I don’t really consider the SNL skit hip-hop, so I’m not sure what your angle was there for referencing it as such, but I think hip-hop needs a little break from the bad press. This was a r&b/soft rock song produced by a major corporation, NBC, and they messed up, not hip-hop.

  • http://thecouchsessions.com Stone

    Man, I never blamed hip-hop for anything and I don’t really see this as being bad press for hip-hop. I was just saying that whoever did the SNL skit sampled, which is the fundamental basis of classic hip-hop, and Universal (who owns NBC) who signed off on this, is guilty of the same thing that they had a hand in killing off in the mid 90s. Again, Karma is a bitch.

  • NY_NYer

    ^^^^^^^^
    CORRECTION, “Stone” – Universal does not own NBC. NBC bought much of the entertainment division of Vivendi/Universal (including Universal Pictures, Television Studios, Universal Studios Theme Parks and Universal Home Video). NBC|Universal, which is owned by GE is a COMPLETELY SEPARATE entity from Vivendi/Universal, which owns Universal Music Distribution, the music distribution company behind The Island/Def Jam Music Group, Interscope/Geffen/A&M Records, Universal/Motown/Republic Records, etc.

  • http://startjihad.blogspot.com riyadh

    Aphex Twin isn’t a group, it’s Richard D. James. As far as the skit goes, I didn’t really think it was that funny so who cares. I do hope Richard gets some money from NBC, though.

  • http://www.alisbasement.com Ali

    didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing you of dissing hip-hop, but I was looking for a clarification, so thanks.

  • http://www.dannyswain.com Danny!

    Columbia? You should’ve hit me up, Stone!

  • http://thecouchsessions.com Stone

    Aww damn man, I thought you lived in Savannah! Wish I wouldn’t known cause I was hurtin’ for stuff to do last Sat.

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