Watching: The Amen Break

I came across a really interesting video a little while ago (pretty well just audio really) about the history of the Amen break. It's a six second drumbeat (a.k.a breakbeat a.k.a break) from the song Amen Brother by The Winstons, recorded in 1969.

This video looks at the way it became almost a standard sample in hiphop tracks through the 80's and 90's (including NWA's Straight out of Compton) and then as sampling got more sophisticated became the foundation for almost all Jungle music and was eventually taken over and used by big business in advertising. Lots of really interesting stuff about copyright as well.

It's about 18 minutes long but it's really worth checking out. It was made by Nate Harrison in 2004.