In 1988, MTV began an all-rap segment.

It was an immediate success, showing that the audience for rap, like the audience for mainstream rock, now reached across barriers of color and class.

But out of Los Angeles came a group with a video MTV refused to play.

Their raps were heavy with tales of gang warfare and misogyny.

They called themselves N.W.A., Niggas With Attitudes.

Accused of fomenting gang violence and sexism with their records, even warned by the FBI for their anti-police lyrics, these so-called gangster rappers, including future stars Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, maintained they were simply depicting life as it's lived on the streets of Los Angeles.

While some rap producers seemed intent on testing the limits of decency, from the suburbs of Long Island came De La Soul.

Their Three Feet High and Rising album brought melody and humor to rap music and a more optimistic world view that grew out of their suburban experience.

Being here made us see just a different light.

I mean, people in the Bronx might have seen, you know, crime on an everyday basis and might have seen problems within the community on an everyday basis.

I think being out here just basically opened up our minds.

We wasn't, like, cluttered with all the noise and all the crime and all the, you know, all the, I guess, things that every other rapper's talking about, yeah.

The first album, you know, it was strictly on some experimentation.

You know, that's the level it was, you know.

We had our set theories, our set concepts we wanted to do, but if something happened, if you spilled milk on the turntable and it sounded dope, it just stayed.

That's the way we operated.

But the first album reminded a lot of people of Woodstock, the 60s and all of that, and a lot of people felt that we were bringing back that era, which, I mean, we had nothing, yeah.

I didn't know anything about it myself, you know.

But if it reminded people of that, cool, you know, it's not a problem.

I'm glad, you know, it brought back some memories for people and they can get into our music behind that, you know.

They had their own visual aspect of what De La Soul was all about, but hippies, we were not, you know.

People think they diss my person by stating I'm darkly packed.

I know this, so I point at Q-Tip and he state black is black.

Sampling from across the musical spectrum was another feature of De La Soul, but a million dollar lawsuit by the Turtles, although settled out of court, would make them and others more cautious.

They've made such insignificant changes to the sound recording that it is still infringement as far as we're concerned, and they have violated our exclusive rights in the sound recording.

Now you have to clear everything, whether it's a holler or a whole entire bar of music.

You know, your lawyer already, you usually sit down with your lawyers at the beginning of your album, you know, the lawyer who works at the record company or whatever, and they'll tell you, well, at this present time, you know, what's his name, Herb Alford don't like rap no more.

He don't want you to sample from him.

Don't touch his stuff, or Herb Alford's asking for $8,000 up front.

Do you want to pay that?

You know, they'll let you know what's going on.

You get like basically this big sheet of who not to mess with, or you know if you're going to mess with him, you got to pay　some dough, and it's on you to use it or not.

First, you get your record, your rag groove, or whatever sound that you choose to sample.

Just, you know, try not to sample anything that's going to get you sued.

Place your record on the turntable.

While rap pioneers like Grandmaster Flash had used turntables twisted by hand to play short bursts of a record, groups like De La Soul used modern electronics to capture a small piece of a song.

Go to get your level.

Sample is cut.

Go to edit sample.

To the channel you assigned it to, turn your levels all the way up, and proceed to edit to a sample to where you want to start it.

And there you have it.