Photo Credit: James Duncan Davidson

English gentleman and all round legend pop/electronic producer Mark Ronson has shown his true wit off with a stellar TED talk that is over 16 minutes of fun and insightful education on sampling.

“I immediately started watching tonnes of ted talks which is pretty much the worst thing I could do, because I haven’t mounted a successful expedition to the North Pole yet, neither have I provided electricity for a village through sheer ingenuity. I’ve pretty much waisted my life DJing in night clubs and producing pop records. But I still kept watching the videos because I’m a masochist and eventually things like Michael Tilson Thomas (American Orchestra Conductor) and Tod Machover (Composer and innovator of technology with music) and seeing their victual passion talking about music, it definitely stirred something in me and I’m definitely a sucker for anyone speaking about the power of music.”

Mr Ronson goes in to detail discussing the fifth most used sample of all time that goes by the name of ‘La Di Da Di’. It is a hip hop song has been sampled 547 times and was made 30 years ago back in 1984. He draws on the point of how capturing a lyric from this era can translate across generations quoting:

‘with it’s timeless playfulness of the original, has translated to a whole new generation’.

The UK based producer goes onto reveal that both Biggie Smalls and Miley Cyrus are two people to have played a role in the evolution of the lyrics used in this 1984 Slick Rick classic.

The most fascinating quote to be articulated by Ronson was his thoughts on sampling that could be the answer to end all debate!:

“Since the dawn of the sampling era, there has been endless debate about the validity of music that contains samples… These arguments completely miss the point because the dam has burst. We live in the post sampling era, we take the things we love and we build on them.”

Some solid viewing pleasure!