NYAB Event - “Bass! How low can you go?” Exhibition

“Bass! How low can you go?” Exhibition

Leila Heller Gallery (Chelsea)

This event has ended.

Hip Hop artist Simon Harris’ 1989 Number One hit song “Bass (How low can you go?)” was based on a sample of Public Enemy’s foot-stomping, metal crunching 1987 song “Bring The Noise,” which, itself, was covered by notorious thrash metal band Anthrax in 1991. In Bass (How low can you go?)”, Simon screams “Turn it Up!” and “Yeah, Boy!”, each phrase sampled from Public Enemy’s legendary frontmen Chuck D and Flavor Flav. “Bring the Noise” remains one of the most sampled rap songs of all time.

Rap in a sense resembles contemporary art or even art at large. Musicians and contemporary artists mix, record, remix, sample, scratch, voice over and let the brushstrokes spin! The essence of hip-hop and rap is based on sampling older songs, with the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, being the number one sampled king of music. Contemporary art’s master kingpin is Andy Warhol and, also, to a large extent, the Italian Masters of the second half of the last century. “Mankind has become furious in the fast lane and art allows us to dream but also to reassess the reality of the world we live in,” says Shariat. “The same way that we delve back into history to better understand the present and predict the future, artists find inspiration in the works of previous generations.”