Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop

This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample 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. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

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[Dick Roberts]

LOL alright I'm sorry dude really not trying to sound like an ass, but how the hell were you doing a documentary on jungle/drum & bass when you didn't know the sample that the whole genre is based on?

[Miranda Hicks]

All I hear is the PowerPuff Girls theme song...

[MorpheoMC]

futurama

[Isaac Foster Friedman]

Maybe that's the point...and if he hadn't been creating the documentary he never would have been directed to this video?

[Isaac Foster Friedman]

dumbass

[Brendan Wolfe]

Seriously? Thanks captain obvious. That's like saying, "all blues is stolen because someone used a 1-4-5 before". All music since the dawn of time, after the first person banged on something and liked the sound of it, has been taking what you hear, see or experience and making something new out of it. That Drogonetta person is a douche BTW. There might be a lot of waste of space button pushers out there, but people like daft punk or Amon Tobin are very much artists and musicians.

[Avi Leidner]

the original beat pattern recorded,of course was copied. The Winstons did not invent the pattern,nor in all actuality the sound it assumed after performing it in a studio,the producers and engineers in which recorded drums in ways that were not original either,any more than the mixing,or sweetening of the production master, going on to a not original process of record pressing mastering, and eventually a reused device - the B-Side. Original, without precedent, cause? (see video response. Amen)

[warhawkx1]

Eh man The Original beat pattern CAN be Copied If WE Forget about the past and for someone who has never heard this it would be an inevitable human trait that Our Ears enjoy that kind of timing and sound of beat so wether it was previously made but taking the exact sound of the beat kick it self would be stealing and NOT that Pattern we would still have figured that out. So Does it really matter that the Beat Timing was taken You Decide but that would be going a little far.

[theskystretchesblue]

We're on two different pages, so let's just leave it at that. Peace out.

[DragonettaUnchained]

And quite frankly, it's STEALING that stifles creativity. People are less open to sharing their musical ideas with others because a lot of them are afraid of getting ripped off. The courts are full of these kinds of stories. Stealing stifles creativity because when people can't share ideas, the magic that comes from that sort of thing cannot and will not happen.