crate-digging
n.— «What it is, however, is a feel-good mash-up of beats, scratching, jazz, swing, rock—and one of the most eclectic collections of vocal samples ever. Compiling these somewhat strange recordings, or crate-digging as it’s known in DJ culture, is second nature to San.» —“Kid Koala becomes a kid again” by Hans Ongsansoy in Vancouver Canada.com Oct. 31, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When an international team of scientists traveled to a research station in Antarctica for six months, the language they all shared was English. After six months together, their accents changed ever so slightly — a miniature version of how language...
One way to make your new business look trendy is to use two nouns separated by an ampersand, like Peach & Creature or Rainstorm & Egg or … just about any other two-word combination. A tongue-in-cheek website will generate names like...
The meaning is rather broader than that implied in the quote. It doesn’t refer specifically to the process of compiling records from samples, it’s more the actual process of searching for old vinyl records, in order to sample them. Wikipedia has it about right.