NPR interviews DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow (stage name for Josh Davis) is a music producer/DJ who has been one of the more important figures in sampling, the art of manipulating and reworking pieces of largely unheard music into a functional collage so to speak. His debut album Entroducing is widely considered to be the first album using only sampled music (the term ‘trip hop’ was also first used in printed form to describe his single “In/Flux” in 1994). Josh recently spoke with NPR’s Guy Raz, covering his approach to sampling, how sampled artists view the work of artists such as himself, and other thoughts.

Josh describes sampling as a collage, taking bits of pieces from the unfamiliar and creating something new, “actually having it articulate something.” There are times when he chooses a more haphazard approach to discovering material, but for the most part, considers it a ‘period constrained’ search, opting to avoid many records prior to 1966 (it needs to be “something that you could not your head to”). Josh also discusses the reaction of various artists he has sampled, some viewing it in the positive light of reintroducing an original artists’ music in a different context, while with others, it is more of a back-and-forth process to overcome the resistance.

Read the full interview HERE.