  Music sampling is a common practice among hip-hop and electronic producers
that has played a critical role in the development of particular subgenres.
Artists preferentially sample drum breaks, and previous studies have suggested
that these may be culturally transmitted. With the advent of digital sampling
technologies and social media the modes of cultural transmission may have
shifted, and music communities may have become decoupled from geography. The
aim of the current study was to determine whether drum breaks are culturally
transmitted through musical collaboration networks, and to identify the factors
driving the evolution of these networks. Using network-based diffusion analysis
we found strong evidence for the cultural transmission of drum breaks via
collaboration between artists, and identified several demographic variables
that bias transmission. Additionally, using network evolution methods we found
evidence that the structure of the collaboration network is no longer biased by
geographic proximity after the year 2000, and that gender disparity has relaxed
over the same period. Despite the delocalization of communities by the
internet, collaboration remains a key transmission mode of music sampling
traditions. The results of this study provide valuable insight into how
demographic biases shape cultural transmission in complex networks, and how the
evolution of these networks has shifted in the digital age.
