I was talking with a co-worker the other day about the importance of friends. Aside from providing companionship, sharing experiences, and talking to that girl's angry friend at the bar, a true friend is someone who will tell you when you're being stupid. Something like answering a phone call from your ex, or drunk dialing your mom, or deciding that your rap name will be spelled like ""Florida"" but pronounced like ""flow rider."" Everybody needs a friend who will stop you and say ""I love you, man, but ‘Flo Rida' is a stupid fucking stage name.""
But, whatever Flo Rida lacks in true friends, he makes up for in samples of European dance music. Flo Rida's songs ""Right Round"" and ""Sugar,"" both singles from his newest album, ""R.O.O.T.S.,"" feature cuts from Dead or Alive's 1984 hit, ""You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"" and Eiffel 65's ""Blue (Da Ba Dee),"" respectively.
This isn't especially new or shocking. Sampling has always been a part of hip-hop, from the Sugar Hill Gang to Vanilla Ice. Although Flo Rida isn't the first to feature a cut so prominently, I'm wondering if it might be part of a larger trend in music of reevaluating what creativity in music actually looks like.
An obvious example of this is the growing popularity of Girl Talk. His multi-layered combinations of vocals and beats from disparate sources not only makes for a damn good dance party, it challenges some obvious assumptions about originality. Is Girl Talk making music if he never actually produces any original material? Can you be a musician when your only instrument is a laptop?
Other artists are simply trying to build a more collaborative music community. Jay-Z has been involved, directly and indirectly, in some interesting collaborations. His 2003 The Black Album was mixed together with instrumentals from the Beatles' White Album by Danger Mouse to make The Grey Album. This sparked not only a legal battle with EMI over the rights to the Beatles' music, but also a series of color-themed Jay-Z mash-up albums. This year's Grammys also featured Jay-Z collaborating with Chris Martin for a performance of Coldplay's ""Lost,"" perhaps sparking the popular mash-up album Viva La Hova by Mick Boogie and Terry Urban.
But what do these different examples highlight? The common feature is that all of these artists change the context of the music in order to make it more meaningful, more relevant, or perhaps simply more interesting. When Girl Talk lays Biggie vocals over Elton John piano, or when CSS sings Grizzly Bear's ""Friends,"" the music takes into account both the value of the original song and the meaning represented by the change in context.
So maybe Flo Rida isn't just a bad stage name. Maybe it's a re-contexualization of the 400-year history of our nation's 27th state. With phonetically incorrect spelling.
Want to rap under the name Ark N. Saw? E-mail Dale potential hooks at dpmundt@wisc.edu.
