Adding to my research of the band I also wanted to find out even more about the records, artists, bands producers and musical genres that had sampled the Amen Break and it's history and development from a B side of a soul funk record to being sampled on over 2300 tracks and counting.
In the mid-80s, sampling began to make its way on to the hip hop scene and the Amen break, as Coleman's solo became known, was rediscovered. So many years later however, the drum solo from Amen, Brother influenced a new generation of musicians.
"One of the first things that sampling allowed for was the re-use of older recorded material," says Nate Harrison, a Brooklyn-based artist and academic who made a documentary about the drum solo. "In the case of the Amen break, you could sample the drums and then replay them as if they were your own," he says.
One of the first acknowledged uses was in a slowed down form, on the song I Desire, from the 1986 debut album of New York rap group Salt-N-Pepa. A few years later it appeared on Wordz of Wisdom by another New York duo known as 3rd Bass. It also popped up on NWA's Straight Outta Compton from 1989.
In the early 1990s, British music producers on the dance music scene looked to the US for inspiration. Old breakbeats were dug out and the Amen break featured heavily in jungle music and many feel it was the backbone of the creation of this genre and also the Drum and Bass scene that evolved out of it.
Later, the break went mainstream - in 1997, Oasis used it in the song D'You Know What I Mean. The same year, it also appeared at the beginning of David Bowie's hit song Little Wonder from the album Earthling and was even used in Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good in 2006.
Over the years, it has become the most sampled drum beats of all time and the break has continued to be used in in a variety of ways in a multitude of different types of music. As well as the Hip Hop and Drum and Bass scene it has been sampled on Pop, soul, indie and rock music by such acts as Nine Inch Nails on Perfect Drug, Korn's Coming Undone and even Ant and Dec on their track When I Fall In Love! The break was even sampled on used on the theme tune for the animated TV series Futurama.
So why did these six seconds from 1969 become so popular? "There's something about the groove of that break and especially the way people chop it up of course," says Harrison. "For me, it's this perfect blend between something very organic-sounding and very robotic-sounding at the same time. "The rhythm itself is syncopated so there's lots of variations on the drums you can derive from sampling the original break. It's really conducive to chopping and rearranging. It also sonically has this punch to it that makes it unique," he says. "It's the backbone of so much music. Both hip hop and drum and bass [musicians] have made a lot of money from it."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287
In the mid-80s, sampling began to make its way on to the hip hop scene and the Amen break, as Coleman's solo became known, was rediscovered. So many years later however, the drum solo from Amen, Brother influenced a new generation of musicians.
"One of the first things that sampling allowed for was the re-use of older recorded material," says Nate Harrison, a Brooklyn-based artist and academic who made a documentary about the drum solo. "In the case of the Amen break, you could sample the drums and then replay them as if they were your own," he says.
One of the first acknowledged uses was in a slowed down form, on the song I Desire, from the 1986 debut album of New York rap group Salt-N-Pepa. A few years later it appeared on Wordz of Wisdom by another New York duo known as 3rd Bass. It also popped up on NWA's Straight Outta Compton from 1989.
In the early 1990s, British music producers on the dance music scene looked to the US for inspiration. Old breakbeats were dug out and the Amen break featured heavily in jungle music and many feel it was the backbone of the creation of this genre and also the Drum and Bass scene that evolved out of it.
Later, the break went mainstream - in 1997, Oasis used it in the song D'You Know What I Mean. The same year, it also appeared at the beginning of David Bowie's hit song Little Wonder from the album Earthling and was even used in Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good in 2006.
Over the years, it has become the most sampled drum beats of all time and the break has continued to be used in in a variety of ways in a multitude of different types of music. As well as the Hip Hop and Drum and Bass scene it has been sampled on Pop, soul, indie and rock music by such acts as Nine Inch Nails on Perfect Drug, Korn's Coming Undone and even Ant and Dec on their track When I Fall In Love! The break was even sampled on used on the theme tune for the animated TV series Futurama.
So why did these six seconds from 1969 become so popular? "There's something about the groove of that break and especially the way people chop it up of course," says Harrison. "For me, it's this perfect blend between something very organic-sounding and very robotic-sounding at the same time. "The rhythm itself is syncopated so there's lots of variations on the drums you can derive from sampling the original break. It's really conducive to chopping and rearranging. It also sonically has this punch to it that makes it unique," he says. "It's the backbone of so much music. Both hip hop and drum and bass [musicians] have made a lot of money from it."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287
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