Summary Of The Song 'La Di Da Di'

James Nugent
16 July 2015
The Legitimacy of Sampling
Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, two of hip-hop 's biggest legends collaborated in the early months of 1984 to create one of the most influential songs ever. Released in 1985, on the B-side to The Show, "La Di Da Di" garnered considerable media attention, making it one of the earliest rap songs to blow up nationwide. Instead of it playing on just black music radio stations, the song played on Pop music stations. The song has an everlasting legacy and influence on all genres of music, not due to the original song, but rather the hundreds of mega hits through the practice of sampling.
The practice of sampling was discovered by early 1970’s DJs who played around with manipulating vinyl on two turntables

Back to Doug Fresh and Slick Rick 's track "La Di Da Di". Over the next ten years after its initial release, "La Di Da Di" was continuously sampled. It has ended up on massive hits such as “Here Comes the Hotstepper” and “I Wanna Sex You Up”. Snoop Dogg covered the song on his debut album Doggystyle and dubbed it “Lodi Dodi”. Also, in 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. sampled the "La Di Da Di" track on his number one billboard hit, “Hypnotize”.
Overall, "La Di Da Di" has been sampled 549 times to date and is often recognized as the most sampled song ever. However, because the track has been sampled so often, the song has become a classic and is considered a hip hop masterpiece. Without all of the other artists sampling the song, it would have just been another ordinary song from two rap legends. So in this case, one could argue that sampling not only did other artists a justice, but it also did the creators of the original song

Sometimes legal issues do arise from uncredited sampling. One of the most famous cases is Vanilla Ice 's 1990 hit "Ice Ice Baby". This was a very popular song that flied through international billboards. The Vanilla Ice’s 1990 hit was the first white rap song to ever gain serious attention. The song 's hook samples the bassline of the 1981 song "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not receive credit or royalties for the sample. After much denial and a court case, Vanilla Ice finally backed down and agreed to pay David Bowie and the members of Queen royalties because they did, in a sense, contributed to the track. After the legal battle with Bowie and Queen, Vanilla Ice starting losing his