UK rappers are plundering 00s choruses to help their tracks up the charts. Whether a cheeky ploy or a failure of imagination, it’s a marker of how the scene has grown
It’s hard to say precisely where UK rap’s current obsession with sampling 00s pop songs started, but perhaps the catalyst was the borrowed guitar licks and Lady Saw vocals that announced Headie One, AJ Tracey, and Stormzy’s Ain’t It Different back in 2020. When three of the scene’s biggest and most influential stars mine preteen one-hit-wonder nostalgia – and score a hit of their own – the idea is sure to travel.
Most would recognise those clean guitar notes as coming from Crazy Town’s 2000 hit Butterfly, itself a lift from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Pretty Little Ditty from 10 years earlier. As the old saying goes: if you can’t beat it, inquire about who owns the publishing licence, and then sample it heavily. It’s a motto that some UK drill rappers have adopted with gusto, leaving fans to question whether it’s harming or helping the genre.
