Important convo coming. Lizzo is speaking out on the way sampling has been weaponized against the culture that created it. During her appearance on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, the Grammy winner explained why she sees sampling as the heartbeat of hip hop and why current laws distort its legacy.
Get this, she reflected on how the art form first came alive through resourcefulness. “The first time people started sampling was who? It was rappers in the 80s and 90s,” she said, noting how young creators without access to big studios dug through their parents’ vinyl stacks to build something new. “They created the genre of hip hop through sampling records in their parents’ vinyls. Hip hop was born, and it was this beautiful thing.”
But according to Lizzo, that innovation has since been twisted into something criminalized. “I just feel like the theft of it all, putting theft on Black culture, that’s the part that kind of turns me off,” she explained. “Hip hop’s medium was sampling. Sampling is a Black art that bred hip hop. Hip hop was born from sampling. And now sampling is synonymous with theft.”
She didn’t hold back on calling out the broader system either. “It was policing Black art,” Lizzo said, stressing how copyright law has long been used to restrict rather than empower Black artists. While she agreed there should be protections in place, she pushed back against how far the rules have gone. “When you’re suing people off of a vibe, it’s like, man, that’s the vibe of my song.”