Seven Iconic Electronic Music Lyrics

The sample: MJ Cole – ‘Sincere’ (1998)

“Don’t do it
… Be sincere… I’m crazy…”

There are probably thousands of better known examples of sampled lyrics in dance and electronic music, but ‘Sincere’ by MJ Cole gets our vote for one simple reason: hardly anybody realises it began life as a sample. Proving that lateral thinking is sometimes the best approach, Matt Coleman built the track around vocal snippets from a sample pack and then had the lyrics re-recorded by session vocalist (and Tina Turner tribute act) Nova Casper (credited as Caspar Nova on the release).

Those banal lyrical fragments certainly wouldn’t win any literary awards, but they define the track so perfectly that it’s hard to imagine they were ever intended for any other purpose. In the end, ‘Sincere’ proves the point that sometimes all you need is a simple sampled lyric to create a masterpiece, and that the source of the sample is secondary to its recontextualisation in the track; the source could be anything from a sample pack to an acapella or even a spoken interlude mid-way through a recording of a Moodymann DJ set, as in the case of Oliver $’s ‘Doin Ya Thang’:

The possibilities are limitless when it comes to sampled hooks. Look at Joy O sampling an old interview with Source Direct for ‘Ellipsis’, The Prodigy jacking a Kool Keith line for ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ or A Guy Called Gerald sampling a phrase by comedian Peter Cook (“Some kind of voodoo rage…”) for ‘Voodoo Ray’.

The dreaded R&B acapella may have become a cliche thanks to recent overuse, but for proof of its effectiveness look no further than Burial’s ‘Archangel’. Compare and contrast ‘Archangel’ with its sample source, ‘One Wish’ by home movie director and occasional R&B singer Ray J.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that it’s all about context.