History

G. C. Coleman played the drums. Four bars. Six seconds, maybe seven. A break buried in the B-side of a 1969 single.

Then nothing. Seventeen years.

In 1986 two men in New York, Breakbeat Lenny and Breakbeat Lou, put “Amen, Brother” on the first volume of Ultimate Breaks & Beats. They slowed the break down. It came out heavier. Meaty. That same year Salt-N-Pepa used it on “I Desire.” One of the first.

Then it spread. Hip-hop took it. British jungle producers sped it up, sliced it, stacked it. Through the nineties it ran faster and faster. Now it lies in layers under modern music. Everywhere.

Coleman died in 2006. Homeless. Poor as a church mouse. Richard Spencer doubted he ever knew how far his drums had travelled.

The Winstons were never paid for it. In 2015 two British DJs started a fund for Spencer, the bandleader. It raised £24,000.

£3.0581039755/sample.