Last Tuesday at the Electric Room inside of the trendy Dream Hotel in downtown NYC, the Swedish music company Tracklib, launched the world’s first and only music service that enables music creators to discover, sample and license original recordings in minutes. Music masters EPMD, Prince Paul, Tom Silverman, Inspectah Deck, Mathematics and many others were in attendance to celebrate the official launch of the music site.
Apparently, the origin of music sampling dates back moons and has steadily gained popularity throughout the years with sample based songs frequently sitting atop the Billboard Top 100 charts, sometimes outperforming the songs they have sampled.
In many cases, the samples are not legally cleared and it often leads to major lawsuits like the infamous “Blurred Lines” dispute, for instance. This can be attributed to the complicated and expensive (and not to mention, very slow) process of legally sampling music, thus, making Tracklib simplify the process in minutes, a first in music history.
The event started off with an intimate panel consisting of music mogul Tom Silverman and Deborah Mannis-Gardener of DMG Clearances, which is the world’s sample clearance leader. Also on the panel was Steve Lobel, who has worked with Fat Joe and Nipsey Hustle, Tracklib co-founder and CEO Par Almqvist and last but not least, the founding member of EPMD, Erick Sermon, who is on the Tracklib advisory board and has been a huge advocate for the service leading up to the launch explaining to the crowd in attendance, “Yo, this is incredible,” Erick said. “They are putting creativity back into music again by having samples you can actually afford.”
“The nightmare of music sampling is finally over,” said Tom Silverman. “We have emerged from the dark ages of the music industry and instead of discouraging and suppressing sampling, we can now encourage new creators to quickly and easily use parts of original recordings to make new music.”
Par believes that this is a music producer’s dream. “We are proud to finally make it possible and humbles by the response we have already received,” he comments. “This is truly the start of a music making revolution.”
At the launch event, rap legends EPMD surprised the crowd of music makers, elite executives and journalists with a special performance of some of their biggest most legendary hits, including, “You Gots to Chill,” “So What You Saying,” and “It’s My Thing”. Super producer Rockwilder won the crowd over with a special DJ set featuring tracks he created using the new platform. His group, Young Fellas, performed an a cappella over one of his scorching hot beats, while guests Kerry “Krucial” Brothers enjoyed the show. Rising new artist, Latrice, opened the show for EPMD, performing her break out song, “Glorious”.
Guests enjoyed champagne by Luc Belaire and cocktails by 3 Kilos Vodka and Tanqueray. They were treated to passed hors d’oeuvres and parched their thirst with Cannabinoid water.
To find out more about Tracklib, please visit the website at Tracklib.com.
Shamika Sanders-Sykes
