This 6 second drum break from the middle of a 1969 tune by the Winstons called “Amen Brother” spawned numerous sub-cultures and genres. Pretty insane to think a tiny drum break could do something like that? Anyway this break is so damn awesome they’ve made an 18min documentary about its origin & history.
I think it’s always a bit overboard when people try and say “without X we’d never have Y” because let’s face it someone else would’ve come up with that shit.
Plus I really dislike drum n bass and that particular drum break is annoying to me so maybe I’m just bitter lol
Drum’n’Bass is not something I listen to at home but I catch some of it’s top producers now and again at clubs…that music on a great sound system is friggin incredible. The bass sounds & feels amazing and the snare and hi-hat rhythms are intricate as all hell…it’s great.
I once read a quote a while back…
“Drum’n’Bass…the smart mans dance music”.
There’s a heap of DnB I dislike such as the stuff that trys to be too heavy or industrial…but the stuff I do like I like very much.
The amen break rules but let’s face it, it’s another case in history of a black man’s music being bastardized and mass produced on an almost epic scale…
Without it, Alec Empire would be sucking dick to buy the latest leather pants wearing a nice coif.
The amen break rules but let’s face it, it’s another case in history of a black man’s music being bastardized and mass produced on an almost epic scale…
Without it, Alec Empire would be sucking dick to buy the latest leather pants wearing a nice coif.
HAHAHAHA!!!
It has indeed been mass produced…but a lot of those productions have been incredible. The quote at the end of the documentary pretty much nails it on the head I thought.
The amen break rules but let’s face it, it’s another case in history of a black man’s music being bastardized and mass produced on an almost epic scale…
Without it, Alec Empire would be sucking dick to buy the latest leather pants wearing a nice coif.
That is most certainly true, plus ‘funky drummer’ by James Brown is another one that has made the rounds. See the song ‘Blue’ by LaTour for a good example of that one.
On the converse early hip-hop ‘borrowed’ a bit from Kraftwerk so it all goes around.
On the converse early hip-hop ‘borrowed’ a bit from Kraftwerk
A bit??? They pillaged the Trans Europe Express beat, snare & hi-hat! hahahaha…Kraftwerk kicked up a stink though unlike the Winstons who didn’t really give a hoot.
As cool as Kreftwerk were I’ll take Planet Rock over Trans Europe Express any day off the week!!!
very interesting, thanks for posting this. I knew I’d heard that beat in so many different songs that I thought perhaps it must have been a preset in a drum machine, but then I realized that it sounded too much like real drums to be a drum machine, so I thought it had to be a preset sample in one of those early hip-hop samplers like the E-MU SP-12 or something.
There is another documentary called RIP: A Remix Manifesto that explores the copyright dilemma in much greater detail, making kind of the same point at the end that this guy did, that culture benefits from having a healthy public domain extract and use ideas from. It’s worth checking out.
There is another documentary called RIP: A Remix Manifesto that explores the copyright dilemma in much greater detail, making kind of the same point at the end that this guy did, that culture benefits from having a healthy public domain extract and use ideas from. It’s worth checking out.
Cool will have to check it out.
Have you seen the Dub Echoes documentary film??? That’s pretty awesome too…obviouly it goes in depth about the remix/dub culture King Tubby & co spawned…features Adrian Sherwood and a ton of other brilliant producers…here’s the trailer for it…
One of my first “songs” I arranged on a bootlegged copy of FL Studio was a clumsy DnB joint where I actually tried to sequence the Amen break with preset drum samples.
[reply]There is another documentary called RIP: A Remix Manifesto that explores the copyright dilemma in much greater detail, making kind of the same point at the end that this guy did, that culture benefits from having a healthy public domain extract and use ideas from. It’s worth checking out.
Cool will have to check it out.
Have you seen the Dub Echoes documentary film??? That’s pretty awesome too…obviouly it goes in depth about the remix/dub culture King Tubby & co spawned…features Adrian Sherwood and a ton of other brilliant producers…here’s the trailer for it…