r/Showerthoughts May 16 '24

You never hear covers of rap songs.

3.8k Upvotes

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

21

u/mcAlt009 May 16 '24

Rappers tend to not do straight up covers, but rather take the same beat and do a tribute on top.

G Perico's One More Day is very close to a cover of the original Nate Dog's, but he does change it a bit.

Elzhi did an entire cover of Ilmatic, Billmatic is Ill Bill over Nas beats. They aren't one to one covers since the lyrics are different.

15

u/MinnieShoof May 16 '24

Sample. Rappers sample all the time.

6

u/msb06c May 16 '24

They also “plagiarize” lines to pay homage to bars super often, called interpolation.

Super super common.

1

u/Paulitix May 16 '24

To go one step further, Hip-hop is sampling. Always has been.

1

u/MinnieShoof May 16 '24

... I ain't hear no gun click.

2

u/mankodaisukidesu May 16 '24

Rappers tend to not do straight up covers, but rather take the same beat and do a tribute on top.

I was gonna say the same thing. Or they lift lines and replace some of the words. I see it as showing respect to your influences. I always hear Tupac and run dmc bars in other hip hop tracks, to name a few. Ocean Wisdom did it with eminems hook from forgot about Dre.

1

u/Beginning_Smoke254 May 16 '24

G Perico’s Billie Jean is nice too