Hip Hop Songs You Never Realized Were Sampled from Video Games

Impact

The enclosed supercut was put together to showcase rap songs that derive their beat from a video game. My first thought was, "I love video games and I’ve got some racial-cultural version of Stockholm syndrome with rap from growing up as a white kid on the AAU basketball circuit. This will probably feel great."

I watched it, and it did feel kind of great, at first. As this video drones on, the beats seem less inventive and less interesting. In fact, by the end of the video, the most interesting part was mere recognition. I have enjoyed the majority of these beats earlier in my life, when I had no conscious realization that the samples were reruns from video games I had played.

 

Now I'm thinking intensely about the psychological effects of nostalgia on my artistic criticisms. But instead of creating some original thought, I took a mimetic cue and decided to borrow.

"Stare at a photograph of someone you dated long, long ago. The emotional reaction you'll have is positive; even if this person broke your heart, you will effortlessly remember all the feelings you had that allowed your heart to be broken. This is real nostalgia: You are looking at something that actively reminds you of your past…but you're probably not judging the quality of the photo…You probably aren't concerned with overrating the true inventive prowess of whoever snapped the photo. The picture is just a delivery device for the memory." – Chuck Klosterman, "Nostalgia on Repeat" from Grantland.com

If you’re wondering whether you would have enjoyed this article more with an original though in place of Klosterman’s analysis, give it up. It’s a dangerous road with a horrific ending in which you think The Words is a good movie and plagarism is a great idea.