Bollywood Breaks

well, you can't really forget Addictive by Truth Hurts, sampling Thoda Resham Lagta Hai(?) by Lata Mangeshkar, a proper Bollywood number. it's notable for being a massive hit that Dre and Quik made absolutely no money from coz they asses were very successfully sued by the original composer. you can probably include almost anything by Timbaland from his late 90s bhangra period (i remember reading shitloads on reviews of Missy's SO Addictive where people, most notably Ben Thompson in Mojo, rambled on about the "gamelan" sounds in Get UR Freak On - there weren't any, it was bhangra clothears!), Erick Sermon's "React", which I think I read sampled a Bollywood track about a woman killing herself (didn't really fit the mood when you heard the translation), Tweet's Call Me... shit there's so much of this stuff...

I presume that Thoia Thong is the R Kelly track you're referring to, Woebot? Great tune.

Timbaland and Magoo's Indian Flute and Erik Sermon's React are indeed also great examples. I guess that if what Stelfox is saying is the case, when they say "Whatever she said, then I'm that" on React, the "that" means suicidal! There's always been a Goth element to the Def Squad's music.

I wondered if the Truth Hurts court case had perhaps put an end to the trend, but I guess the example of the Black Eyed Peas track given by Woebot suggests that the sound has moved into the realms of "recreation" - buy a loop and do a cover version to keep the lawyers at bay.

A mate has got Lata Mangeshkar's big CD box set thing, called the Gold Collection or something. It's absolutely brilliant.

I thought you were talking about this Bollywood Breaks

I did too, Atomly!

But on the other/actual theme of this thread I'd also bet Big Pimpin' sampled bollywood..

hint said:

I wondered if the Truth Hurts court case had perhaps put an end to the trend, but I guess the example of the Black Eyed Peas track given by Woebot suggests that the sound has moved into the realms of "recreation" - buy a loop and do a cover version to keep the lawyers at bay.

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actually these are legally known as "interpolations" - dre is famous for using them from the chronic and on.

means that the BEPs just had better lawyers/more watchful label mgmt.

(but god, they suck more in every other identifiable way)

hint said:

Timbaland and Magoo's Indian Flute and Erik Sermon's React are indeed also great examples.

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london/colombian reggaeton group La Raza do a version of Indian Flute which they introduce by saying that timbaland jacked the melody from an old colombian folk song - so might not actually be indian/bollywood at all. don't know if this is true though... (if you want to hear it i think it's the last or second last song of the PA by them available to download here www.scandalbag.com/downloads.html)

ripley said:

But on the other/actual theme of this thread I'd also bet Big Pimpin' sampled bollywood..

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Big Pimpin' actually sampled an Arabic tune - tried to Google it just now, but without success. There's a copy of the original on a Jay-Z CD devoted to the songs he sampled (name also escapes me now).

And Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle are both completely amazing, agreed. Anyone got any further Bollywood recommendations (anything haunting is good) for a relative neophyte?

"big pimpin'" samples an egyptian pop song. see this for an interesting perspective on it:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/484/cu2.htm

i'm about to mash the original together with a loop from the jay-z version. it sounds pretty wild. look for that on riddimmethod.net soon.

"indian flute"--interestingly enough--doesn't actually employ a sample: timbo hired a philly-based dhesi singer to get on the hook. he treats her voice, however, as if it is a sample, filtering it to give it a kind of distance from his own performance. a bit weird (and orientalist) if you ask me, despite the nice gesture of inclusion and such. but definitely catchy.

not sure about the colombian connection, though i can imagine some melodic overlap: ain't nothing new under the sun.

also, although there is (a great deal of) overlap between bollywood and bhangra, they aren't exactly the same thing, though they may as well be for hip-hop, dancehall, and other sample-based producers. problematic?

That Jay-Z article is a little vague. The whole area is a mine field but heres how i understand it.

The law relating to sampling are pretty clear cut - if you use any part of a recording that is in copyright without the permission of that copyright holder, you are in breach of copyright. With todays technology it's pretty easy to tell if thats the case by matching the waveforms on a computer.

Thats the principle - as with all these things, the copyright holder will only go after you if the spoils are worth the effort ie. if its a hit you will get sued, if it's a 500 copy white label you may get passed over. Although copyright lawyers are more aggressive in the USA than in the UK.

The law relating to a new performance of a copyrighted composition (eg covers or parts of the original worked into a new composition) is much hazier. People will say its to do with the number of bars used, or the element of the original (melody often cited as being more important than rhythm/bass), but thats not correct. Each case is decided on its merits and its basically down to the plaintiff to convince the judge that the defendant has consciously & deliberately plagarised them. In cases where part of the original has been used in a new composition thats very hard, and extremely hard if its just the music thats in question (lyrical plagarism being much easier to prove). The bottom line is that you cant copyright an idea - copyright must be on something tangible, like a recording, written lyrics or sheet music.

BTW, the two main bhangra sample CDs are Studio India and Vindaloops - most bhangra producers I've spoken to use these for their breaks/loops. Dodgy copies are usually available on ebay for buttons if anyone wants to check them out.

Years ago my housemate was chucking them a pile of Bollywood LPs away and I couldn't let him do it, but i've never really sat down and listened to them properly until now. Unfortunately i've just got into eBay (finally!) and the reason i've listened to them was to put MP3s up with the descriptions. There's so many weird and psychedelic tracks on there that i'm beginning to kick myself for selling them!

Here they are anyway!

I hope somebody gives them a good home, they're really making me smile!

*contemplates ripping all the best tracks to MP3*

*can't face it*

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this trend is Foxy Brown's "Hood Scriptures" from her (awesome) <i>Broken Silence</i> album.

all right - i finally got around to making and posting that mashup of the jay-z track with the abdel-halim hafez composition that timbaland "bit" for the beat. i also try to engage some of the legal/musical/political issues inherent to the production. hope you dig.
http://riddimmethod.net/?p=23

A.R Rehman is the man for new skool bollywood music.

all about 60's/70's bollywood stuff - amazing beats they came up with!

but for me it has to be classical indian music - there is an absolute wealth of stuff to be sampled...for some reason the west only picks up on punjabi stuff...probably due to the south asian diaspora primarily coming from that region...but...thats a drop in an ocean...

sufi influenced dubstep on hotflush to come im sure ;-)

As i've had so much fun listening to my Bollywood MP3s on my headphones all week i've stuck them all together into one big 14 minute MP3 for you all to enjoy!

Here you go!

If anybody can recommend any more stuff along these lines (whacked out psychedelic Indian disco) please do! I'd love to hear more...

Many thanks for posting this up Ash Ra.I managed to bag a few Bollywood Soundtracks about ten years ago.A record shop in Southall High Street was selling off all its vinyl for £1.50 a go and I picked up stuff mainly on the strength of the cover art! I did get some amazing music though,including a couple of bits that are on your comp.At the time I tried to drop some of it into a DJ set when I was playing to a load of white students at a house party and they thought I was crazy.Seeing how this stuff is being utilized by producers and the prices it now fetches on Ebay,I can conclude that the last laugh belongs to I!
I will have a look through the stuff I have and post some recomendations.