One of the defining points of hip-hop is a competitive nature which fuels stylistic evolution. Soon producers were loading up their samplers and playing 808 kicks no longer as drum samples but as full-on booming bass lines. The 808 kick, with its long sustained sine tone, was perfect for this. And using the sampler, you can take a single sound and then play it like a pitched instrument across your keyboard.

With the arrival of the sampler, artists started to sample the 808 kick drum rather than using the original real machine. This laid the groundwork for countless producers to experiment and expand on the basic principal and make it into something new.

The TR-808 introduced a new synthesized drum sound which changed the very concept of the drum kick. Well, modern producers are more inspired by the principal and structure of the 808 kick drum–a short click followed by a sustained, deep tone– than an actual 808 these days.