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
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks and jaw-dropping views. And: a musician who rode the rails in his youth shares the slang he...
People might never know that quality jazz exists outside the city of Baton Rouge. Which may be true—but it’s also a pangram. This is part of a complete episode.
Related
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.