DRUMS WEEK 2025: Despite being much maligned, the 80s were an incredibly interesting and vibrant time musically speaking. The dust was beginning to settle on the punk phenomenon, and that can-do spirit was infiltrating new forms of music, in both the US and the UK.
Young musicians were forming bands, but with synthesisers, drum machines and turntables at the heart of their sound. A phenomenon began to emerge, thanks to a new technology which was becoming more affordable with the passing of each year.
The concept of sampling was nothing new. The idea of borrowing sounds to use in your work can be linked back to ‘Musique Concrète; often referred to as ‘found sound’, the concept gained traction with experimental composers in the 1940s, continuing to influence composers as diverse as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the amazing collective of musicians who worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, in the late 50s and early 60s.
The idea was simple - record a sound to tape, chop it up using a razor blade, and turn it into something completely different. Experimental? Definitely, but also incredibly inspirational, giving rise to the machine regarded as the first sampler of its kind.
The Mellotron looked like a traditional music keyboard, but lurking beneath the keyboard was an extraordinary mechanical device for playing pre-recorded analog tape on demand, at the pressing of a key. The ultimate end was a machine with its first inbuilt sample library, which many of us know from its famous early outing providing the haunting flute sound at the beginning of Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles.
With the digitisation of this technology, samplers evolved. It became possible to record short sections of audio, which could then be manipulated digitally. Although earlier devices required a degree of audio dexterity which was akin to keyhole surgery, gone were the days of tape and razor blades! By and large, the more money you had, the better the sampler you could buy, and the more audio you could record.
Initially, sampling devices could only capture a couple of seconds at a time, but by the late 80s, it was possible to capture around 45 seconds extending to minutes, should you decide to limit the sampling quality, or work in mono rather than stereo!
It didn't take long for musicians, and particularly those working in hip-hop, to realise that they could capture a drum loop from an existing recording and repurpose it for their own work.
The idea of stripping a drum track from a full mix was still a pipe dream, so you were reliant upon finding a track - where the drums played a form of solo - without other instrumentation to get in the way. Two notable examples became the go-to breakbeats.
Clyde Stubblefield was one of the drummers who formed part of James Brown’s band, becoming known as the ‘Funky Drummer’, after the track of the same title.
Recorded in 1969, Funky Drummer was split into two parts due to its length, with a classic drum breakdown at the end of the whole track. Despite the various noises and grunts from James Brown, which pepper this audio, it was possible to extract a single bar of drum loop, complete with its vintage sound, timing and unique feel.
From the mid-80s onward, the Funky Drummer breakbeat became the most prolific sample in history, and is still regarded as one of the most used of all time.
Its usage was also incredibly diverse, with numerous outings from predictable hip-hop and rap outfits, such as Public Enemy, Run-DMC, NWA, Dr Dre, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys and Grandmaster Flash. As the underground infiltrated the mainstream, artists such as George Michael used the loop on more than one occasion, notably on Freedom! ’90. The breakbeat even had an outing on the novelty hit by The Simpsons (feat Jazzy Jeff): Deep, Deep Trouble.
![Bart Simpson - Deep Deep Trouble [Remastered] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qF-DVr74eVQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Despite its initial popularity, it’s still very firmly in use with current artists. Emeli Sandé, Ed Sheeran and Aphex Twin have all used the same breakbeat, several years after its initial popularity may have waned.
One of the technical challenges of sampling during the late 80s and early 90s, was that any change in sample speed would effect tempo and pitch simultaneously. Despite being a digital technology, its behaviour mimicked traditional vinyl and tape, with the speed and pitch intrinsically interlinked.
It's this technical deficiency that played an enormous role in a second drum loop and breakbeat, that became wholly omnipresent during this period, particularly in the drum and bass movement of the 90s.
Amen, Brother was a little-known B-side from the American soul band the Winstons. Much like Funky Drummer, a unique 6 second drum break occurs in the song, as all of the band members stop playing, leaving drummer Gregory Coleman to perform his 4-bar drum solo. It was too tempting to be ignored by many of the same artists that we are using the Funky Drummer breakbeat.
Despite its original rap connotations, the loop became synonymous with Drum and Bass, as this style of music tended to move at a faster tempo. What became known as ‘The Amen Break' was radically increased in speed, with the accompanying pitch moving upwards. It would not be uncommon to hear the breakbeat played at speeds in excess of 160BPM.
The effect of this loop, in production terms, would be to increase the frequency of the kick drum in the loop, leaving the perfect slot in the lower frequency band to employ relatively pure and heavily compressed synth bass sounds.
Sine, triangle and square wave patches, containing less harmonic content, provided a bass which would have your car axle shaking in seconds, and it invariably did, along with the rest of the vehicle!
Given that Clyde Stubblefield and George Coleman are two of the most sampled drummers on the planet, you would think that they spent their latter years enjoying the riches of their sampling success.
Unfortunately, from the eighties to the early 90s, sampling law was ineffective at best, and vague in its implementation. It was deemed that an artist could sample ‘an unrecognisable portion of a work’ without the need to declare the sample or indeed pay the original artist. Unrecognisable to who? It was the musical equivalent of digging your head in the sand. What was clearly on the horizon was a whole industry relating to copyright usage of samples and artist remuneration.
Despite the extensive usage of these drum loops, neither of the original drummers got paid for their extraordinary playing, and its enduring popularity and usage.
Clyde Stubblefield's answer to this completely unjust situation, was to release a sampling CD of his own, which contained the very loop which made him so famous. There were many other loops on the CD too, and he would have at least received some financial reward for his great playing.
By the end of the 80s, sampling copyright cases started to emerge, and by 1991, a significant case brought between Grand Upright Music Ltd and Warner Brothers Records, had a significant impact on the shape of sampling law to come.
At the current time, any sample usage now has to be declared, before a track can be released. Of course, this does not prevent some artists from trying to hide the original sample in their mixes to avoid paying the original artist, but the law is clear on this point now, it just came 40 years too late for the Funky Drummer and the original Amen Brother.
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