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Amen break


The Amen break is a 6- to 7-second (4-bar) drum solo performed by Gregory Sylvester "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 and breakcore, drum and bass (including oldschool jungle and ragga jungle), and digital hardcore music. The Amen break has been sampled frequently from 1985 to the present day, in hip-hop, ragga, drum'n'bass, jungle music and various other forms: "a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures." Because of the Amen break, "Amen, Brother" is by far the most sampled track in the history of music, having been sampled at least 2,239 times.


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Wikipedia

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