Stuck In A Sample Loop
drawing a parallel between somali music's post-war collapse and western music's corporate decay
If I were to ask the average person, they probably wouldn’t be able to describe Somali music to me. It isn’t widely listened to outside of our community, except for a few curious outsiders who may have discovered it through compilations like Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa, curated by Vik Sohonie & Nicolas Sheikholeslami.
The pulse of Somali music lies in its layered percussion, weaving through verses rich with poetry. The once-dominant kabaan now fades into the background, its warm strings replaced by the sharp, synthetic tones of the synthesizer. On rare occasions, a Somali song breaks through to the mainstream. Most recently, Nimco Happy’s Isii Nafta took TikTok by storm, its infectious upbeat melody turning it into a global hit.
Still, what stands out most to me about Somali music is how it has largely remained unchanged for decades. Its golden era unfolded in the 1970s and 1980s when Siad Barre’s authoritarian government invested heavily in the arts and Somalia’s rich musical tradition. Propaganda songs bolstered national pride as war raged on with Ethiopia, and by the late ’80s and ’90s, war had spread within the country’s borders, causing all of Somali social life to come to a screeching halt. As institutions crumbled under the weight of a brutal civil war, the music that once filled the airwaves was drowned out by the sounds of exodus and devastation.
Leaving Somalia meant leaving everything behind; there was no space for vinyl or CD collections when running for your life. Yet, the resilience of the Somali people ensured the music would find its way back. At the Somali mall, which isn’t really a mall, but a small cluster of stores all owned by Somalis, my family would find CDs filled with familiar songs, each one a thread connecting us to our lost home. Displaced Somali singers & DJs found new stages at weddings and social events. They’d cover old favorites or play pirated versions of songs that once filled the airwaves. Even now, much of the new music is built on decades-old tracks. In this way, Somali music serves as a time capsule, holding onto the symphonic rhythms of better days.
When a society collapses, it makes sense that its cultural pulse weakens. Without strong, well-funded institutions to nurture and preserve art, much of it fades into the shadows of history. Somali music is now a ghost of its former self, trapped in a loop of what it used to be. In stark contrast, Western music has always been marked by forward progression, constantly evolving, shifting, and reinventing itself. A song from 1970 hardly sounds like a song made in 1990. Yet, in recent years, Western music, American music in particular, feels like it’s at a standstill. Today’s mainstream music seems stuck in a cycle of repetition, relying on nostalgia, reboots, and formulaic trends. This eerily mirrors the stagnation we Somalis experienced after the fall of our institutions, as our culture stalled and froze in time.
The recycling and rehashing of tried-and-true formulas hasn’t gone unnoticed by Western music fans. The frustration of listeners often echoes across social media. Lately, everyone seems abuzz with talk of this or that singer “reheating nachos,” a term that has emerged from the music industry’s obsession with reusing old sounds instead of creating something fresh. Take Lady Gaga, for example, who was recently accused by critics of recycling her old sound in her latest song Abracadabra. Ironically, this was largely welcomed by her fans, as her older music is still her most riveting. What’s interesting is that her earlier work was already criticized for its similarities to past hits, most notably how Born This Way seemed to borrow heavily from Madonna’s Express Yourself. Yet, despite these Madonna comparisons, Gaga has managed to blaze her own trail in the music industry and create a sound that is uniquely hers. But if even she is looking backward and reheating her old material, what does that say about the future of Western music?
One can’t blame Gaga entirely, though. Pop music today increasingly sounds alike, and it’s not just a matter of perception. Many have pointed out that most pop songs rely on the same four-chord progressions, creating a sense of sameness. But the issue goes beyond just the chords—it’s tied to how the music industry itself has evolved over the past few decades.
Some point to the “loudness war” as a major factor shaping popular music today. With the rise of CDs and MP3s, music has become progressively louder. Vinyl had a physical limit to how loud a song could be, but with advancements in technology, those barriers have been completely shattered. The subtle variations in tone and texture once carried by instruments are now drowned out. It no longer matters whether those variations were recorded; the mastering process often obliterates them. Today’s songs are a relentless wall of sound, flattening all nuance. It’s like painting on a canvas with only four colors. The lack of variation leaves all the songs sounding remarkably similar, a result of the limited palette. This produces music that prioritizes immediacy over longevity, blending together in a way that makes it instantly catchy, but also easily forgettable.
Another factor contributing to the limited palette in modern music is the rise of programmed drums and pre-packaged instrument samples. Making music has never been easier, thanks to a surge in accessible software that has lowered the cost of producing a song. You no longer need an expensive studio—just a laptop and a microphone can suffice. This accessibility has given birth to entire genres, like "bedroom pop," a DIY style of music that reflects the home-recording culture. Bedroom pop is defined by its lo-fi aesthetic, often using simple, unpolished production techniques. Artists now have the ability to record songs in their bedrooms and upload them directly to the internet without the need for expert sound engineers or producers. Billie Eilish’s success is a prime example—her first hit, “Ocean Eyes,” gained traction after being uploaded to SoundCloud. The track was created entirely using stock sounds in Logic, and while it stands out because of Eilish’s unique, tender vocals, musically, it follows a familiar formula. With many artists relying on the same stock sounds and samples, it’s becoming harder to tell one song from another. While the music industry embraces these innovations because they reduce studio costs, this convenience doesn’t necessarily benefit the listener.
This brings us to one of the biggest factors: sampling. Lately, there’s been a growing fatigue around it, but sampling originally emerged as an innovative and exciting way to create music. In its early days, it was an art form. Producers would dig through crates of obscure, often out-of-print records, chopping up sounds in unexpected ways to build something new. Early hip-hop and electronic artists pioneered this technique, layering samples to create fresh, dynamic tracks. Sampling bridged often disparate musical cultures and time periods, blending them together to create something relevant for younger generations. De La Soul did this with their 90s track “Transmitting Live From Mars (Interlude),” which includes a sample of the first four bars of The Turtles' ‘60s classic “You Showed Me” looped over a French lesson creating an interesting sonic experience. Sampling allowed artists to build soundscapes even if they didn’t have the technical expertise or money to do so.
Although sampling eventually became a standard practice, its innovation wasn’t initially welcomed with open arms. The lack of legal frameworks made it hard for the original artists to benefit, leading to significant protests. For example, The Turtles ended up suing De La Soul for using their song without permission, demanding nearly $2 million in damages. Similarly, Lou Reed, whose song “Walk on the Wild Side” was famously sampled in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?”, made sure he walked away with the lion's share of the profits made off the song. However, once the law caught up to this new form of music-making, sampling quickly became an integral part of the music industry.
It is easy to see why sampling has been embraced by artists and industry executives alike. Studio time is costly, and rather than hunting down the perfect session drummer or guitarist, artists found it easier to sample the work of musicians who had already done it well in the past. Entire careers have been built on this method, with Kanye West being one of the most notable examples. His ability to flip samples, such as his famous use of Ray Charles’s “I’ve Got a Woman” in “Gold Digger,” demonstrated his genius in taking something old and making it feel entirely new. While producers like Quincy Jones were known for their multi-instrumental prowess and rich history of creating original music, today’s producers often don’t need to know how to play an instrument at all. The ability to find and flip a sample has become a more crucial skill in the current landscape. Take a song like “Big Energy” by Latto, for example—it prominently samples “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, which in turn samples “Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club. So, the song is essentially a sample of a sample. It doesn’t stop there, on Drake’s most recent album, there’s a track called “Spider-man Superman” that contains a sample of “The Real Her” from his sophomore album Take Care, which itself includes an interpolation of “Miss Me” from his debut album Thank Me Later, creating an endless, recursive chain.
Samples of pre-existing songs aren’t the only way sampling is used in the music industry today. There’s an entire cottage industry of musicians who specialize in creating instrument samples that artists and producers can purchase online. New technology allows any sound to be transformed into a sample, opening the door for creative possibilities. For instance, Hans Zimmer, known for his cinematic compositions, often uses samples to layer complex textures and enhance the emotional impact of his film scores. Zimmer’s approach is masterful, blending organic and synthetic sounds to create something unique and immersive. Unfortunately, many new artists and producers, lacking in-depth musical knowledge, often rely on these ready-made samples without pushing the boundaries of innovation. Instead of transforming sounds into something new, they end up relying on the convenience of stock samples, leading to a more formulaic approach to music-making.
Despite the “loudness war” and the innovations in sampling and technology, artists over the past few decades have still managed to produce some truly remarkable tracks. So, if those factors aren't the full explanation, what is it about today's musical landscape that makes everything feel so dated? What’s causing the sense of stagnation, despite all the advancements in sound and production? This brings us to the elephant in the room: the single most disruptive shift in the music industry over the last decade—the complete adoption of streaming. The streaming era has completely turned the music industry upside down, shifting how we consume music entirely. The analogy of streaming itself is a rather austere one. An artist's individual work is now just a small part of a larger stream, a drop in the bucket. Something they’ve spent months or even years perfecting is reduced to a single piece in this vast mechanism. For the small price of $9.99, you can listen to everything from The Beatles to Bhad Bhabie, all within the same timeframe, without missing a beat.
The incentives for artists to spend hours in the studio perfecting their sound have been completely warped. Streamers view the music on their platforms as mere content, so the quality of the music itself doesn't matter. They are agnostic to the artistry behind it, only concerned with how it can generate value. Albums are deprioritized in favor of playlists, and songs are compressed to blend seamlessly together. New artists can’t even monetize their songs until they’ve reached a threshold of 1,000 plays, and even then, they earn a mere $0.00067 to $0.01 per stream, depending on the platform. All of these factors incentivize artists to treat their music more as a business than as a form of artistic expression. Instead of creating music that might genuinely reflect the times or resonate with today’s challenges, artists rely on formulas because familiarity guarantees interest. Technology, which could be used to push boundaries and genuinely innovate, is instead leveraged to recreate past trends leaving us with nothing but pastiche.
What makes this situation even more problematic is that musicians aren’t just competing with other artists; they’re now competing with AI-generated music. Streamers are using AI to churn out music that shortchanges the very artists they platform. The most troubling aspect of this trend is that AI is trained on preexisting catalogs, which means artists are competing with water-down versions of their very own music. In a sense, AI is nothing more than highly sophisticated plagiarism, and with legislation failing to keep up with this innovation, artists are left with the short end of the stick. Between AI-generated music and sampling, in essence, we are all just reheating the nachos of 60s and 70s musical pioneers.
It’s almost cruelly ironic how Western music, once a beacon of innovation, now mirrors the stasis of Somalia’s music. Somali artists transitioned from using the kabaan and acoustic instruments to synthesizers largely out of necessity and resource scarcity. Similarly, Western artists are increasingly relying on technology to create their music, not out of creative choice, but due to the constraints imposed by corporate greed and the limitations it places on artistic expression. It seems that Western music, too, has been paralyzed, but this time by the silent warfare of corporate plunder. The systems that once propelled creative evolution have rotted from within, and now music, too often, feels like something disposable. Streamers promised us a world of endless choice, but instead, we got a sleight of hand. The powerful algorithms of their platforms deciding for us what we can consume. A promise of abundance, only to leave us with a hollow feast.
While this all seems entirely bleak, all hope isn’t lost. The erosion of music’s value by technologists is not an irreversible fate. Music has always been the heartbeat of culture, not a fleeting commodity, not just “content” to be consumed in a passive scroll. What we are witnessing is part of a larger trend—a reflection of how society has devalued all labor, where even the most dedicated artists now compete not only with hobbyists but with AI-generated slop. The work of artists is being overshadowed by the ease of automation.
It is up to both artists and listeners to resist the world that technologists are trying to impose upon us. Valuing our labor means more than just recognizing our individual worth; it requires the building of movements that can challenge the current power dynamics. This means advocating for collective bargaining, supporting the formation of a labor party that prioritizes the rights of all workers, and fundamentally reframing the narrative that technologists have so carefully constructed about the value they are supposedly creating. We must rewrite the story that has been told about technology's role in the arts and demand that the true value of music, art, and culture be acknowledged.
Music has always been a mirror to its culture, and today’s music reflects a culture in stagnation, debilitated by corporate greed. While there is always a chance for renewal, we have to ask ourselves if we are going to settle for reheated nachos or if we are ready for a fresh plate.
That’s all for this week! This is a bit of a departure for me as I typically don’t write about music, so please leave a comment with any thoughts. As always thanks for reading. Till next time!