Musical Borrowing
An Annotated Bibliography

Individual record

[+] Cusic, Don. "From Zap to Rap: Digital Sampling, Rap Music, and the Folk Tradition." The Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 54, no. 4 (1991): 139-43.

According to Charles Seeger, folk music represents the epitome of plagiarism. Since rap music relies so heavily on digital sampling, rap and folk music are therefore linked through similar processes of musical borrowing. The explanation for such borrowing is not plagiarism but a new definition of creativity: creativity as synthesis of existing materials. Rap and folk music are also extensions of oral traditions, which value synthesis over novelty.

Index Classifications: 1900s, Popular

Contributed by: Felicia Miyakawa



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