Faking the Crates

Hewing to that most time-honored of journalistic axioms—"Two equals trend"—we'd like to declare that we're living in the era of the ersatz sample. Way back when, we were introduced to a whole host of R&B classics by reading the liner notes of various hip-hop albums. (We discussed, for example, how Dr. Dre led us into Donny Hathaway's sonic embrace here.) But nowadays, there are more and more artists who are taking original music and recasting is as retro, to the point that a casual listener m...