The World's Most Important Six Second Drum Loop
In 2004, Nate Harrison made a video discussing the surprising influence that a six second drumbeat has had on popular music. The Amen Break, as the beat has come to be known, has been sampled so many times by so many people that it's become part of our cultural fabric.
The brief drum solo, or break beat, first appeared on the B-side of a single recorded by the funk and soul band The Winstons in 1969. Because the break was isolated in the middle of the song, it was easy to isolate and incorporate into other songs using early samplers. By the 1980s, the drum loop was being sampled in hip hop, gangster rap, jungle, and drum and bass songs, spurring Harrison to claim that this six second clip "spawned several entire subcultures."
To learn more about how a six second drum loop came to be used for everything from producing old-school hip hop to hardcore dance music to the soundtrack for commercials, check out Nate Harrison's video below.
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