What Is Original?

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2019

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Original broadcast date: June 27, 2014. When is copying flattery, when is it thievery, and when is it sheer genius? In this hour, TED speakers explore how sampling, borrowing, and riffing make all of us innovators. Guests include DJ Mark Ronson, filmmaker Kirby Ferguson, media and entertainment expert Johanna Blakley, and writer Steven Johnson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Guy here. So one of the most sampled songs of all time is called La Di Dada
0:06.2	by Slick Rick and Dougie Fresh. But the question is why? Why has this one song inspired so many others?
0:14.2	And what's the line between being inspired by and simply copying? On today's episode,
0:19.8	we explore that line in music, fashion, and innovation. It's called What Is Original?
0:25.2	And it originally aired in June of 2014.
0:29.0	This is the Ted Radio Hour.
0:35.0	Each week, groundbreaking Ted Talks. Ted. Ted. Technology.
0:39.8	Entertainment. Design. Design. Is that really what's 10 for just a minute?
0:43.0	I've never known that. Delivered at Ted Conferences around the world.
0:46.2	The gift of the human imagination.
0:47.6	We've had to believe in impossible things.
0:50.4	The true nature of reality beckons from just beyond.
0:54.8	Those talks, those ideas adapted for radio.
1:00.6	From NPR.
1:04.4	I'm Guy Ross. And on the show today, what's original?
1:08.4	How every idea, every invention, every song is built on something that came before it.
1:15.4	Okay, party people in the house.
1:18.2	Your house will witness something you've never witnessed before.
1:22.2	And this song will make you wonder about this whole idea of originality,
1:26.0	because this song is one of the most sampled songs of all time.
1:34.6	The track is by the rapper's Dougie Fresh and Slick Rick.
1:37.4	They released it in 1984. And the story behind the song,
	...

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