From Slave Songs to G-Funk: How Great Taste Travels Through History

Sam traces the lineage of Dr. Dre's music back through five generations of musical tradition. It starts with slave songs — the things people would sing in the fields. Those songs evolved into gospel music. Gospel became the foundation for Motown, which was one of the first times black music crossed over into the mainstream. The Supremes, and artists like them, built on that gospel tradition to create something new.

George Clinton was a studio musician at Motown. He learned the craft, mastered the form, then felt something in his soul that Motown could not express. He broke the rules, adding psychedelic funk to create Parliament — music that was still clearly Motown-influenced but wilder and stranger. Then Dr. Dre came along and sampled Clinton constantly, creating G-Funk: gangster funk. Even early NWA tracks like "Express Yourself" were basically covers of 1970s songs with Dre rapping over the beat.

Sam uses this chain to illustrate the difference between good taste and great taste. Good taste is mastering the tradition. Great taste is mastering it and then breaking the rules to say something new. Early Kanye and early Dre started by basically covering old songs — that is good taste. Then they started chopping samples, pitching them up, reassembling them into something that had never existed before. That leap from archivist to innovator is the progression Sam is mapping out.