For reference, I was talking about the Dr. Carter song as some people below mentioned.
I get sampling, and there is no doubt that Swizz (or the people he works with) has a great ear for samples. I still think there is a big difference between the effort put in the Dr. Carter beat and the Dead Presidents beat--he didn't even layer drums on top, just chopped the original song. The Dr. Carter beat works perfectly, so I'm not hating!
That same sentiment describes tons of great hip hop beats. The tricky part is picking the correct samples. Here's an example of a simple sample of one song being used to create a classic beat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY8EIoMelFc