bread 'n butter

I don't consider myself a true hip-hop head. I dabble. I try to pick the best stuff off the top and wait for my trusty sources to sift through the rest and tell me what's worth my time. If I checked up on everything Nah Right posted, I'd literally drown in it.

I'm a sucker for old school hip-hop and especially the samples used therein. There's something about the art of crate digging - scavenging for all these amazing, semi-forgotten records, finding the right one just for the right drum part, or the just the right few bars, and re-appropriating it for something totally new and inventive that just amazes me.

So, I know that I'm going to spend a lot of time with this list of The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Samples Of All Time, presented by Kon and Amir over at Complex.

Every song is accompanied by a full stream of the track, along with a quick rundown by Kon and Amir, and a full stream of one essential hip-hop song that uses that track as a main sample.

I'm on #50 right now. It's David Axelrod's "Holy Thursday," which was sampled by Swizz Beatz on "Dr. Carter." It's gonna be a long night...