Gimme a Beat!
Ever’thang on this list gon’ be funky. The average listener may only be familiar with three or four of these artists, but in some circles, all these tracks are famous.
What do Busy Bee’s “Old School,” Double D & Steinski’s “Lesson 3,” Geto Boys’ “Do it Like a G.O.”, House of Pain’s “All My Love,” LL Cool J’s “Jinglin’ Baby,” Lord Finesse’s “Keep it Flowing,” Moby’s “Mobility,” Mos Def’s “Universal Magnetic,” Professor Griff’s “Bro Kemit Splitting Atoms in the Corporate War Zone,” Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads,” Queen Latifah’s “Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children,” Roni Size’s “Share the Fall,” Rage Against the Machine’s “Renegades of Funk,” and Young MC’s “Bust a Move” have in common? They all sample the drum break from “Scorpio,” originally on Motown session guitarist Coffey’s brilliant instrumental album Evolution (Sussex). That album still awaits its first CD reissue, but European reissue label Vampi Soul has just put out a fine Coffey compilation, Big City Funk: Original Old School Breaks & Heavy Guitar Soul.
As a song, it’s nothing, which perhaps explains why this 1970 single wasn’t included on an album until 1986 (Cliff White’s excellent compilation In the Jungle Groove). As a beat source for hip-hop, however, drummer Clyde Stubblefield’s break is crucial, sometimes cited as the most sampled music ever (here’s a pretty long but probably still incomplete list of songs using it).
Most famously used by the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, this bonanza of beats has also been sampled by Busta Rhymes, Coldcut, Double D & Steinski, Everlast, Future Sound of London, Geto Boys, Goldie, Jurassic 5, Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One, Leaders of the New School, LL Cool J, MC Paul Barman, Run-DMC, Schoolly D, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Tone Loc, Ultramagnetic MCs, and Young MC, to name just a few. Last year Bongo Rock, the 1973 album from which it’s taken, was reissued, and it’s a hoot and a half.
This 1969 B-side’s drum break contains the famous – even notorious – six seconds known as the Amen Break. 3rd Bass (“Words of Wisdom”), NWA (“Straight Outta Compton”), Mantronix (“King of the Beats”), and many more since have been built on this beat. Jungle and drum’n’bass wouldn’t exist as we know them without this sample to tweak. Amazingly, it seems to be unreissued except on shady breaks collections, but the 45 (the A-side is “Color Him Father,” a sappy “my dad’s so special” song that’s utterly forgettable) on Metromedia isn’t too hard to find.
This instrumental, featuring some funky flute and guitar solos in addition to a short drum break, comes from another Sussex album that’s never been on CD, 1974’s Salt of the Earth. It’s been sampled by the famous (3rd Bass, Eazy-E, EMF, Eric B and Rakim, Geto Boys, Ice Cube, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. ) and the infamous (Milli Vanilli, 2 Live Crew, Kriss Kross, PM Dawn). Once again, Vampi Soul has done us all a service, issuing a fine compilation of this seminal D.C. band’s Sussex period.
One of the most revered – and, of course, most sampled – items in the funk pantheon thanks to Bernie Worrell’s synth bassline. Brand Nubian, C + C Music Factory, De La Soul, Digital Underground, Erick Sermon, Fu-Schnickens, Ice Cube, Ice T, Jungle Brothers, Lench Mob, Masta Ace, MC Ren, Public Enemy, Redman, Run-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa, Snoop Dogg, Too $hort, Tupac, and X-Clan are just a few of those who’ve used this track.
The opening beats will be familiar to fans of Cypress Hill’s “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” De La Soul’s “Plug Tunin’,” Eric B and Rakim’s “Move the Crowd,” Everlast’s “Never Missin’ a Beat,” Ghostface Killah’s “Winter Warz,” Grand Puba’s “Change Gonna Come,” and Wreckx-N-Effect’s “Rump Shaker,” and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard those drums elsewhere as well. Manzel only had two 45s issued in the late ‘70s, but both were sampled, and eventually the Manzel legend grew so much that not only were those singles reissued on the Midnight Theme CD in 2004, a bunch of previously unreleased recordings were included as well, making up an irresistible package of marvelously cheesy funk/disco instrumentals.
Okay, only one sample of this is listed on the-breaks.com (Handsome Boy Modeling School’s “Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II)” featuring DJ Shadow), but go get last year’s two-CD compilation Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974 to hear plenty of sample-worthy obscurities from a high school band program that released eight LPs. “Kashmere” clearly got the nod for its hip opening drum break, but this whole album is so funky and polished you’d never guess the players were all teenaged amateurs.
Just think “doin’ it in the park/doin’ it after dark” (that’s pretty much all the lyrics, actually) and you’ll remember this 1975 chunk of classic cheese sampled by Big Daddy Kane, Bobby Konders, De La Soul, Eric B and Rakim, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Heavy D, Ice Cube, Lords of the Underground, Massive Attack, Nas, Old Dirty Bastard, Professor Griff, Ultramagnetic MCs, UTFO, and more.
From 1974’s Rejuvenation, this gleeful number by New Orleans’ funkiest has inspired Bomb the Bass, Dream Warriors, EPMD, Lord Finesse, Public Enemy, Special Ed, and Ultramagnetic MCs.
