One of the great things about music is that, like fashion, it lives of trends. Every two or so years something slowly rotates and without you even noticing you're suddenly listening and appreciating types of music (…wearing types of clothes) that you never would have imagined.

Like in fashion (or any other aspect of life) there are those who refuse to innovate, who find their comfort zone and decide to stick to it - it's not up to me to judge whether this is coherence or fear of change, but either way I strongly support the evolution and change of taste; I listened to rock for the better part of my life and nowadays I hardly listen to anything with a guitar in it (except when I'm feeling nostalgic), and this will probably change again.

Behold! It's suddenly ok again to wear denim on any part of your body and hip-hop is back on top (in Europe at least - don't think it really ever left the top overseas). Conveniently for my article, hip-hop is probably the best example of a genre that digs deep into musical history to reinvent what it finds, like a designer doing research in vintage shops and archives. It was maybe the first genre to start using samples of songs from completely different genres to create something utterly new - this has since been done in every possible genre.

Here's three famous examples - can you recognize in what famous songs they've been sampled?

1. Just Brothers - Sliced Tomatoes

2. Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby - This one's easy!

3. Labi Siffre - I Got The Blues - This one's very hard!

 Written by Andrea Ratti

 Soundcloud

 Facebook Page