For me, sampling is a high art. Most people don't see it that

The words of JPEGMAFIA burn with defiance and vision: “For me, sampling is a high art. Most people don’t see it that way, but it’s a beautiful thing. I wouldn’t know anything about music if it wasn’t for samples.” In these words we hear a defense of the misunderstood, a hymn to the fragments of sound that, when reborn, become something greater than the sum of their parts. He proclaims that sampling, often dismissed as theft or imitation, is in truth an act of reverence and transformation. It is to take the echoes of the past and weave them into a new creation, to resurrect what has been forgotten and make it sing again in a new age.

The ancients themselves practiced this art, though by other names. The poets of Greece retold the same myths in countless forms, reshaping them with new words, new rhythms, new emphases. The playwright Aeschylus borrowed from Homer, and Sophocles from Aeschylus, yet each brought forth something unique, something that bore their own soul. The philosophers quoted the words of their predecessors, not to diminish them, but to build upon them, layer by layer, stone upon stone, until wisdom itself became a towering temple. So too with sampling: it is not mere repetition, but a re-imagining, a dialogue across generations.

Consider the story of the Renaissance, when artists and thinkers looked back to the knowledge of Greece and Rome. They did not see shame in borrowing; they saw glory in renewal. Michelangelo sculpted in the style of antiquity, yet his works breathed with new life. Shakespeare borrowed stories from Italian tales and Roman histories, yet clothed them with English soul. These acts were a form of sampling—taking fragments of past brilliance and reshaping them into something radiant and new. Thus, JPEGMAFIA’s defense is rooted in this eternal practice: true art has always been a conversation with what came before.

In music itself, sampling is a bridge between generations. The early hip-hop DJs took breaks from funk and soul records, looping them so dancers could move longer, so rappers could find rhythm in their voices. Those loops became foundations, and from those foundations arose an entirely new artform. Without samples, hip-hop—the voice of the voiceless—might never have been born. JPEGMAFIA’s confession, “I wouldn’t know anything about music if it wasn’t for samples,” is not weakness but truth: for samples are teachers, carrying the lessons of old masters to new ears, showing the next generation how to create.

Yet many do not see it so. Some scorn sampling, as if originality means isolation, as if the artist must sever themselves from history to be pure. But this is folly. No artist is born from nothing. Every melody has roots in another melody; every word is shaped by words spoken before. To deny this is to deny the chain of inheritance that binds all human creation. JPEGMAFIA speaks against this blindness, declaring sampling to be not low art, but high art, because it acknowledges the lineage of inspiration while daring to transform it into something unimagined.

The lesson, O listener, is profound: do not despise the fragments from which your own creativity is built. Embrace the influences, the mentors, the histories that shape you. Do not imagine that greatness means creating from nothing—it means creating from everything, with honesty and transformation. Sampling, whether in music, in thought, or in life, is the act of honoring the past while birthing the future.

Practical wisdom follows: seek inspiration wherever it can be found. Read the words of those who came before you. Listen to the voices of elders, study the creations of forgotten masters, gather fragments from the world around you. Then, do not merely copy—reshape, remix, reforge until the work bears your voice. What you create will be both ancient and new, a bridge between worlds.

Thus, let JPEGMAFIA’s words stand as an anthem: sampling is a high art, for it is the art of transformation. It is the fire that takes ashes and makes them blaze again. It is the river that carries the waters of the past into the oceans of the future. And so too with your own life: take what you inherit, reshape it with courage, and create something beautiful that carries your name into eternity.