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The Drum Break that Rules the Music World

January 28, 2007 in Music by Sean | 2 comments

This video has been making the rounds for a while, but it’s interesting nonetheless. It explains how “The Amen Break” sample (from The Winston’s “Amen Brother”) has been a key piece of music from gansta rap (N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton”) to virtually all jungle and drum & bass music.

It’s kind of long (18 minutes), but it’s very thorough, so true music geeks will get a kick out of it.

2 comments

February 17, 2007 at 2:51 am

S.W.

That was brilliant, and genuinely thought provoking. Some ideas are so basic to the lexicon of creativity that ownership seems tragically provoked by greed. Not in direct reference to the Amen, more of a general idea. James Brown et al should get a wee kickback for some of their more (over)used breaks too, I suppose, if consistency is to be applied. Zero-G (and many, many other sample houses) have thousands and thousands of excellent samples. Vis-a-vis a basic sample, some form of recognition would make it instantly more appealing to a cold audience. You usually like a song or album much more the second or third time through. Once a basic acceptance is established, then the permutations can reign, and therein lies the problem, right?
Where does the re-constitution become an original enough creation to merit recognition of achievement/worthiness?
Stream of consciousness but FWIW…

February 17, 2007 at 5:11 am

zarko

thank you for this – very enjoyable and thourough