I'm reminded of a fairly famous quote commonly attributed to Pablo Picasso.

"Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

There was a book I once read called "Steal Like an Artist" that sums this up quite nicely.

You will never create "truly original" music, unless that music is something literally no one can relate to. When you create music, you're creating on the backbones of every artist that ever inspired you. And if you're creating music you like, chances are you're relying on a small subset of artists you REALLY like.

When you steal, steal from so many sources at once, no one else will even think you're stealing. Make that theft as transformative and unique as humanly possible.

In a nutshell, the book says, steal one thing, and you're a knockoff artist. Steal many things, and you're a visionary.

Sort of like DJ Shadow and his first LP 'Endtroducing.' That album completely changed my perspective on what sampling was the first time I heard it, and I always go back to it to study it. I even tried to rebuild 'Midnight in a Perfect World' back in high school, 10 years ago.

Yeah, art is built on the shoulders of giants and I'm not sure there are a lot of original ideas anymore. So much of it is derivative in some fashion.

Frigging lit to meet another fan of his work. I consider him one of the greats, a pioneer of his era. I discovered him admittedly through Fixed Income, first on Battlefield Hardline, then in this retro clothing and costume shop that was called the Cat's Meow.

The fact that I remember these things when I can hardly remember what day it is or what I ate for breakfast tells you all you need to know about the impression it left on me!

I wouldn't say there are no original ideas yet, but the very fact that you and I are most likely speaking of western music and music theory certainly limits the scope of possibilities. I don't see it as a problem for anything but copyright circumnavigation.

DJ Krush is great too. I really dig his first LP 'Strictly Turntablized.' Lots of really great scratching on it. That whole era of Mo' Wax had some killer releases. Ninja Tune was on fire too with Funki Porcini and Mr Scruff.

Also, Mr OIzo's 'Analog Worms Attack' is one of the best debut instrumental LP's of the 90's to me.

Yeah, I feel you on the memory part. Lots of trivia up in my noggin too! 😂

I really love the scales that the Middle East Arabic nations use. Half scales, that have different timbres, some of which sound so alien to us in the West. 😻

I've never looked into the Eastern side of the equation that you're alluding to, but now that you mention it, I'm extremely curious as to the differences in Copyright Culture.

Did he said that - word by word? Because i think he meant it different ... he can not meant" borrow" and/or "stealing" literally - if, it would make no sense, like his art for a lot of people ;)

A lot of art is derivative as fuck, from music to painting to lyrics, the whole art world is full of copy cats, imitators, or people influenced to start off because of other people's material.

As the saying goes, 'There's no such thing as an original idea."

the saying says that? fuck sayings ;) Everyone knows its bad to steal

Sounds a bit frustrated - r u?

I am. it hard for a pure, unadapted idea to appear in works now of days...

If you sample a piece of a famous song and streaming bots detect that, your song may be taken down. You will not get a million-dollar sue because you are not Drake, they will not take action against you... If you are mildly relevant like these influencers from YouTube, they can ask for royalties. Sometimes you must ask the RIAA to get permission to use a sample and avoid problems in the future. So don't worry, you don't have 300 million plays per month, they have nothing to lose.