2009 was a phenomenal year for sample-based music. Looking at the list of U.S. number-one singles of 2009 to date, it’s astonishing to see that no less than 6 out of 13 are based on samples:
- Crack a Bottle by Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent
- Right Round by Flo Rida feat. Kesha
- Poker Face by Lady Gaga
- I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas
- Whatcha Say by Jason Derulo
- Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys
And that is only the tip of the iceberg – many of this year’s best-selling albums, and countless others, are heavily sample-based. We truly believe that the WhoSampled community is doing something important (and really fun!) by documenting, sharing and discussing all of this incredible activity, past and present.
We’ve quietly launched the site just over a year ago, and what a year it’s been! The database, which started with just a couple of hundred samples, has recently crossed the important 10,000 samples mark, and hundreds more are being added every week. It’s good timing to have a quick pause for breath and tell you a little bit more about what we’ve done so far.
- We’ve been focusing hard on improving the moderation process to allow for all this incredible amount of contributions to be added efficiently to the database. We now have over 30 fantastic moderators from all over the world, who take care of processing everyone’s submissions – you can always see a list of our moderators on the About Us page
- We’ve recently added cover songs to the site, and the response has been great – we already have thousands listed!
- We added new buttons that allow you to easily share your finds on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace – you can find them on top of every sample, cover and artist page
- We’ve added the option to browse the database by genre, meaning that if you only want to look at Hip-Hop or Electronic artists, you now can
- We did a slight design facelift and added all sorts of small improvements across the site
For ongoing updates on what is happening on the site, make sure you become our fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. As always, we would be very happy to get your thoughts and suggestions on how we can improve, so please get in touch if you have any!
We’d like to thank all our moderators, contributors and visitors for making all of this happen. We all still have a lot to do of course, but we can definitely be proud of what we have achieved so far! Let’s tell the world about what we are doing, and spread the word!
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