As fans of hip hop, we know what it means to hear a song and hear a familiar sound, only to then end up in an endless mystery loop of figuring out what the sample is and where it came from. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t. That conundrum has finally come to an end.
In a recent appearance, Travis Scott was seen speaking about Spotify’s SongDNA feature, which helps you cut to the chase. The feature lets users dive deeper into the song’s origins (or DNA) to figure out what other songs are related to it.
It helps unravel questions like “Where does this sample originally come from? At what point does the sample start in the song? What other songs, writers, composers or producers are associated with the song?” The answers are, of course, surprising and revealing at the same time. While it is a great source of excitement for fans, for music producers it is an especially helpful tool that can help navigate inspirations and innovations embedded within their favourite pieces of music.
Of course, a rapper-producer like Travis Scott is a fan of it. “I saw Song DNA on Spotify last night,” Scott said. “By the way, this sh*t is f*****g crazy,” he added as he spoke about how it gives fans the ability to see who is working on what and how helpful it is for artists.
In case you’re still confused about what the feature does, here’s an example that links Travis Scott to artists like George Clinton & even Justin Bieber! Case in point is Travis Scott’s ‘Hyaena’ song that samples Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’ linking him to George Clinton (who was a co-writer on the song) as well as Travis’ contemporaries like Mike Dean and WondaGurl.
At the same time, ‘Hyaena’ also links Travis Scott to Justin Bieber because Bieber’s ‘Die In Your Arms’ also samples Melvin Bliss’ ‘Synthetic Substitution’ which was a song that came out in 1973. Basically, you can find connections between different music pieces you never knew existed, and go on a sonic exploration of your own. It is a great way to discover artists — both old and new, in an instant, with the option to save those discoveries to your library. What a neat little trick! So, do you think you’re going to be using it a lot?
