XTRNL Records: The classic Amen Break and its influence on modern electronic music.

The classic Amen Break and its influence on modern electronic music.

The Amen break is a 6 second (4 bar) drum solo performed in 1969 by Gregory Cylvester "G. C." Coleman in the song "Amen, Brother" performed by the 1960s funk and soul outfit The Winstons. The full song is an up-tempo instrumental rendition of Jester Hairston's "Amen," which he wrote for the Sidney Poitier film Lilies of the Field (1963) and which was subsequently popularized by The Impressions in 1964. The Winstons' version was released as a B-side of the 45 RPM 7-inch vinyl single "Color Him Father" in 1969 on Metromedia (MMS-117), and is currently available on several compilations and on a 12-inch vinyl re-release together with other songs by The Winstons.

It gained fame from the 1980s onwards when four bars (6 seconds) sampled from the drum-solo (or imitations thereof) became very widely used as sampled drum loops in breakbeat, hip hop, breakbeat hardcore, hardcore techno andbreakcore, jungle and drum and bass (including oldschool jungle and ragga jungle), and digital hardcore music. The Amen Break was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music—"a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures." It is arguably the most sampled drum beat of all time and unarguably one of the most sampled loops in contemporary electronic music.

amen break waveform

In Modern Music -

By 1990, at the height of British rave culture, the Amen break began to appear in an increasing number of breakbeat hardcore productions. Hardcore emphasized a unique, harsh, aggressive sound that drew strongly from hip-hop and early acid house. It added a hip-hop influence with the addition of breakbeats and increased the tempo. A strong reggae and ragga influence emerged in 1991 and 1992, with uplifting piano melody loops or Jamaican reggae samples used at normal speed layered on top of frenetic 150 to 170 BPM breakbeats. This sound quickly evolved to a point where sliced and diced drum breaks in conjunction with low frequency bass lines became the important features of many tracks. This style was initially referred to as Jungle but later, as it progressed and rhythmic elements were refined, the term drum and bass became more common. Around the mid-1990s a number of IDM producers, who had been influenced by the Jungle/DnB sound, began to focus on the style and started exploring it in the context of electronica. Making "danceable" club oriented tracks was not a prerequisite. In fact, the more outlandish and obscure the manipulations, the more aesthetically pleasing the records were to aficionados—a trend that continues to this day in the form of breakcore. The Amen break can still be found in many productions and there has been a renewed interest in the "old-skool" Jungle style in recent years. Luke Vibert, one of the many IDM producers who has explored this break, has released several records under the moniker Amen Andrews, using the Amen on nearly every track, heavily sliced and edited, yet recognizable.

It is also used by some cross-genre artists such as DJ Axera and Gomanda and in many hip-hop tunes, such as N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton.[5] The first Hip-Hop producer to dismember the drum sounds of the Amen break and reprogram them into a new pattern was Mr. Mixx of 2 Live Crew on their 1987 song "Feel Alright Y'all" from the Move Somethin' album, followed by the Mantronix sample-heavy track "King of the Beats" in 1988. The Amen break has also been used by rock music acts including Oasis ('D'You Know What I Mean'), Nine Inch Nails ("The Perfect Drug"), Rammstein ("Sehnsucht") . It can even be heard in the background of car commercials and television shows such as The Amazing Race, and Futurama. One other recent example can be found on rapper Lupe Fiasco's 2007 album, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool in a song titled "Streets On Fire".