Many years ago I had an artist friend who made collages. He would take magazines and cut the pictures out and then use either the entire image or pieces of it to create something uniquely his own. Some of his stuff was pretty cool. Like the vase made up from photos of other vases and urns.
I'm not sure what the copyright laws had to say about this. He was probably in violation of several of them. But, like most starving artists, his work remained obscure so he flew under the radar.
I'll be truthful. While I thought he was clever and I respected his artistic vision, I never really wished to own one of his pieces. I could admire something like that in a gallery but wasn't interested in looking at it every day at home or work.
I think many approach art like this. It may be unique or even peculiar but we somehow find a way to respect it even if we don't understand it. At the very least we can admire the skill it takes to realize the vision.
I was thinking of my friend recently. Trying to remember his name, if you must know. We used to have some interesting conversations about art, life, and stuff as only young people can and I missed those chats. I wondered about his opinions on todays pop culture. And you can't think of that without Hip-hop.
What would he think about sampling? And suddenly it hit me. My friend was very good at cutting up existing stuff and pasting it together to get something new. That's all that hip-hop is. Electronic cutting and pasting. Using someone else's work to create something else. Something new and relevant to the times. My friend used scissors and white glue. Todays artists use a computer. Different tools, different media, same goals.
Hip-hop has been around for decades and makes more money than any other musical genre. I'm guessing that my observations have been obvious to the faithful from the beginning and I'm a little embarrassed that it's come to me so late. But better late than never I guess.