Pi'erre Bourne has made a name for himself through collaborations with artists like Playboi Carti, Trippie Redd, Travis Scott, and more, but he’s tried to stay away from a tool that many other producers use: samples. In a 2017 interview with The FADER, Pi'erre explained that his mentor DJ Burn One first advised him to steer clear of sampling in his music.
“When I moved to Atlanta, I started working with DJ Burn One, and he was like, ‘Yo, you can’t use samples.’” Pi'erre recalled. “There’s nothing wrong with samples, ‘cause that’s where I started making beats. In New York, samples is necessary. But if you’re trying to make money off that sh-t, it’s like, don’t even play yourself—make [a beat] from scratch. I’m really glad I made ‘Magnolia’ from scratch because we would be having a bunch of different conversations right now.”
Resurfacing this advice in an April 2020 tweet, Burn One explained that it came from seeing how the financials worked out for his work on A$AP Rocky’s debut mixtape, Live.Love.A$AP.
“When I found Pi’erre Bourne. I gave him the lesson I learned from the L I took on Rocky’s 1st project because of samples so he wouldn’t have to go through that,” Burn One wrote. “Told him to only whip from scratch then put him in a session to engineer Nudy. Teach a man to fish.”
Burn One produced “Roll One Up” and “Houston Old Head” from Rocky’s mixtape. The latter song contains elements of The 5th Dimension’s “High On Sunshine” and Rick Ross‘ “B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast).”
Pi'erre told The FADER how Burn One was attracted to his beats right away, even ones that used familiar elements. “The first beat I played for him was a Street Fighter beat I made. He went crazy, I knew he would, that sh-t’s hard as f-ck. He was like, ‘Yo, we gotta go to the studio!’”
While samples are a foundational element of hip-hop, the genre’s history is littered with stories of them becoming a financial detriment to the rappers and producers involved. Juice WRLD was forced to forfeit a reported 85 percent of the profits from his hit single, “Lucid Dreams,” due to an uncleared sample of Sting’s “Shape of My Heart.” Sting also famously obtained 100 percent of the royalties to Diddy’s hit, “I’ll Be Missing You,” due to another uncleared sample.
Pi'erre eventually learned this lesson the hard way last year. His Young Nudy and Playboi Carti collaboration, “Pissy Pamper,” became a viral hit last year after a snippet of the track was illegally uploaded by a fan to Spotify. Despite its success, however, they could never release the song because they couldn’t obtain sample clearance.
Catch up on all the lyrics to DJ Burn One’s biggest hits on Genius now.
