Sampling!
Sampling is everywhere in music, spanning most genres, however the main genre that i listen to which has a lot of samples, is old school hip hop. Most if not all Hip Hop in the 80s and 90s was completely sample based, and one of the best to do it was DJ Shadow.
Dj Shadow born Joshua Paul Davis started out as a DJ for his university radio station. He dabbled with experimental hip hop beats on various releases but garnered real notice in 1996 when he released Entroducing...... His first full release of samples, and one of my favourite albums since i was a teenager.
The Album Endtroducing..... was recorded with an Akai MPC60 12 bit drum sampling machine, a ton of records from Dj shadows personal collection, and a Pro Tools rig. The whole album is completely sample based. I remember reading in a magazine when i was younger that he had tens of thousands of obscure records that he finds at local records stores, which make up the samples in his songs. Every now and then i'll notice a few samples from a song i know. Mainly he uses a fair bit of Metallica samples and the only reason i notice them is because i've thrashed that band since i was like eight.
In the song linked above titled Number song, Dj Shadow uses a sample of the bass intro of Orion by Metallica. Both great Tracks. The fact that Dj Shadow uses many obscure samples pay credit to his skill as a sampler, I don't think i've ever heard an album that quite achieves the sound that DJ Shadow got with his first album.
Entroducing..... is mainly instrumental hip hop, but as he uses such a wide range of samples from so many different genres, it gives a very unique sound to the songs.
Some other artists that he samples of note are Bjork, Nirvana, and Pink Floyd. Below is a link to see every sample used on the album.
References