Rap Battle: How Gilbert O'Sullivan changed hip hop forever

RTÉ News​

21-06-2025

Gilbert O'Sullivan's song 'Alone Again (Naturally)' was released in Ireland and the UK in early 1972.
At the same time, though, on the other side of the Atlantic in New York (and, it should be said, completely disconnected from Gilbert O'Sullivan) there was a new musical movement taking shape.
Eventually developing into what we now know as hip hop, the genre was initially referred to by some as 'disco rap' – which does tell you a lot about its origins. Because much of the scene developed out of DJs taking popular disco and funk records and messing around with them on turntables – slowing them down, speeding them up, looping parts of them, mixing different records together. And, in doing so, they creating something that sounded totally different.
And because disco wasn't very lyrics-heavy, there were also big gaps in these creations, which ended up being filled by the likes of beat boxers and then rappers.
And this all started out as an underground movement – it would be individual DJs crafting these things, often on the fly at block parties and night clubs, and they were constantly developing new sounds and finding new techniques that would give different results.
This scene continues to develop over the course of the 70s and, as mixing and recording technology improves, it allows for the sound to become more elaborate. That means you go from a DJ blending two records together on their turntable to pieces of music that perhaps contain a beat from one song, some strings from another, a hook or a refrain from somewhere else altogether, a small snippet of backing singers from another song – and all looped. And then a rapper adds their original vocals on top of that.
And in a lot of ways you can argue that this practice of taking existing music and re-working it is quite similar, in spirit at least, to the folk tradition that was also thriving in New York at the time. That also saw artists borrowing tunes and even lyrics from traditional and new songs, incorporating them into something new, or putting a twist on them, and making their own song out of it.
But then money comes along, and things start to change...
Yes – because all of this "borrowing" of beats and music is fine when you're talking about what is essentially an informal and fairly niche movement like this. In the early days artists probably didn't even know their music was being used like this and, even if they did, it's not like anyone was making much of a profit off it.
But as hip hop develops into a fully-fledged genre through the 70s and into the 80s, record labels start to take notice, and money starts to be made, things start to change.
For example, The Sugarhill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight', which came out in 1979, is seen by many to be the first mainstream hit from the genre. But the music from that song is basically two existing tracks mixed together – Chic's 'Good Times' and Love De-Luxe's 'Here Comes That Sound Again'. And The Sugarhill Gang's management initially released the song without crediting anyone else - until Nile Rodgers happened to hear an early version in a nightclub, threatened to sue, and got his name added to the credits.
Though in that case at least the music was actually an interpolation rather than a sample – in other words they recorded new music that sounded the same, rather than just playing the original and rapping over it.
And that idea of copying other people's compositions isn't new – so there was some kind of precedent there for dealing with it when it happens. But in the 70s and even into the 80s, actually sampling from another song is still new, people didn't really know how it should be dealt with.
Because it goes without saying that, if someone copies another song's tune entirely, there's a copyright issue there. But if they take a two second long fragment of a song and loop it – to the point that it's not even recognisable – does that count as copyright infringement too? What if it's one of 20 such samples in a song? What happens then?
So the arrival of sample-heavy hip hop creates this kind of no-man's land where other people's work is being used left, right and centre – entire songs are often built up of existing pieces of music that are cobbled together – but the creators of those pieces aren't getting credited, or compensated in any way.
The Beastie Boy's 1989 album 'Paul's Boutique', for example takes samples from 105 songs – with one track alone having samples from 24 other songs. Most of those were used without permission.
So where does Gilbert O'Sullivan come into this?
In 1990, a rapper called Biz Markie is working on his third studio album – and one of the songs he plans to put on it is called 'Alone Again'.
And in it, he loops the piano part from the intro of the Gilbert O'Sullivan song of a similar name and then, in between rap verses, he sings 'alone again, naturally' in the chorus.
So it's very clear where he got the inspiration for his track from – and, in fairness, his label did write to Gilbert O'Sullivan to ask for his blessing in using the sample from his song.
O'Sullivan told them he wanted to hear the song before he will give it his blessing, so they sent it to him. He then listened to it, decides he doesn't want his sample to be used, and turns down their request.
But despite that Biz Markie decides to leaves the track – and its sample - on the album, which is released in 1991.
Maybe he thought that would be the end of it – his 'Alone Again' song follows a very similar template to the big hit on his previous album 'Just a Friend', which was based on a song called 'Got What I Need' by Freddie Scott. Scott wasn't credited on that track and that didn't seem to result in any lawsuits.
But O'Sullivan clearly had a different attitude to Scott - and sues Biz Markie's record label. The court rules in O'Sullivan's favour – saying the unauthorised use of song samples constitutes copyright infringement.
The label is ordered to pay $250,000 – and forced to halt sales of the album, which is obviously costly too.
And what really goes against Biz Markie is the fact that he asked for permission first – and when that wasn't given, he went ahead and used it anyway. So he couldn't really pretend to be ignorant of the need to get the original artist's approval.
He also seemed to get a particularly hardline judge in Kevin Thomas Duffy. He quoted the Bible in his ruling – and even referred the case to the criminal courts, because he saw Markie as a thief... though no criminal case ever took place.
Gilbert O'Sullivan's case wasn't the first attempt by an artist or record label to go the legal route to resolve a row around sampling – there would have been plenty of cases settled out of court, some cases would have been tied up in the courts at the time. But O'Sullivan's is the first one to secure a ruling.
And so it became the industry precedent – and it set the bar for everything that came after it.
So what impact did it have on the music industry?
Well one immediate impact it had was the name of Biz Markie's next album – which he called 'All Samples Cleared'.
But more significantly it really had a chilling effect on the practice of building songs out of countless samples – because suddenly there was a significant price to be paid if you did so without permission. And as it had been officially deemed copyright infringement, the copyright holders would have a right to be compensated for any use, and they have the right to refuse.
If you look at that Beastie Boys album 'Paul's Boutique', with 104 songs sampled – some of those samples were approved but many weren't, and it's estimated that it would have added millions of dollars to the cost of the production if they had to pay for each of them. Realistically, that album never would have been made if the ruling had come a few years earlier.
And you see the style of hip hop production shifting very quickly – from that sample-heavy example of 'Paul's Boutique' in 1989, to a much lighter approach by the likes of Dr Dre with 'The Chronic' in 1992.
He tended to use only a handful of samples, often from artists he knew were okay with their stuff being reworked, and then he'd add in his own instrumentation around that. And that kind of became the new template for hip hop – which continues all the way through to today.
And even though the ruling was made more than 30 years ago, there are other ways that it's continuing to shape the music industry.
How?
Well two consequences – one perhaps intended, the other probably unintended.
The intended one is that we're now seeing more people being given a credit on modern pop and hip hop songs.
Beyoncé got a lot of criticism for the fact that her Renaissance album had a total of 104 writers credited across its 16 tracks... one song in particular, 'Alien Superstar', has 24 writers credited.
And part of that is because Beyoncé collaborates with a lot of writers and artists. But part of it is because she also uses lots of samples in her songs and now, when you use a song sample, the creators of that song get a credit on your song. So you might have cases now where an artist uses three samples in a song, each one from a song with two writers. And that means you have to add six names to your writing credits.
Among the 'Alien Superstar' credits, for example, are Richard and Christopher Fairbrass. Most people won't know who they are – but they probably will know some of their music. Because Richard and Christopher Fairbrass are better known as Right Said Fred, and their song 'I'm Too Sexy' was the inspiration for the chorus of that particular Beyoncé song. So they both got a writing credit (and a few quid too).
The other unintended consequence of the Biz Markie ruling is that pursuing writing credits has kind of become a sub-industry in its own right.
There are now a number of companies who's whole business model is to buy up the rights to the music of niche or obscure, older artists. They then hunt down cases where their songs were sampled without permission, and file lawsuits looking for compensation.
And sometimes the samples are so small, or they've been so heavily reworked, that they're nearly unidentifiable – so they use special software to analyse songs to find potential samples. In other cases it takes them getting the stems from the original recordings so they can listen to the various tracks in isolation and identify what the parts are made from.
And, surprise surprise, Paul's Boutique is one of the albums that's been targeted by these types of companies. And it may not even matter how long ago the sample was used without permission - because as long as new versions and special editions of an album keeps getting released, the statute of limitations on a case keeps getting reset.