Music

SAMPLED: Kanye West - "Clique" ft. Jay-Z & Big Sean

by Jeremy Mersereau

SAMPLED is a column that examines the production of a contemporary Rap/R&B/Hip-Hop or Pop song. From where did a loop, sample, or chopped up vocal originate? We look at the original song with some historical context, and then review the modern-day production that samples the original. For better or worse, this is the process by which a huge portion of contemporary pop music is assembled. On a weekly basis, SAMPLED aims to approach it case-by-case, and examine the dividing practice of using samples in the creation of music. This week’s edition guest written by Jeremy “Soul Brother No. 83,678” Mersereau.

This week, the sample in question comes from the Most Sampled Man in Show Business, Mr. James Brown himself. Released as a single in 1974, here’s “Funky President (People It’s Bad)”:

We don’t really need to go over the history and ongoing legacy of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business (actually a misnomer; everyone knows the hardest working man in the biz was Lloyd Rubenstraum, Interscope’s IT guy, 1967 – 2009 RIP). However, we definitely do need to address James Brown’s importance to sampling culture. Not to put too fine a point on it, but hip-hop as a whole probably wouldn’t exist without Soul Brother No. 1. The drum breaks in James Brown songs have been used in countless landmark hip-hop and R&B recordings over the last 30 years, including most of the formative songs from hip-hop’s infancy, like “It Takes Two” and “Fight the Power.”

1970’s “Funky Drummer” is, if not the most important drum break in music history, at least tied with The Winstons’ “Amen Brother” in terms of influence and usage. Maybe not too surprisingly, James Brown never took very kindly to his discography being plundered on a regular basis, and even entire forests of royalty checks did little to soften his opinion on hip-hop producers using his music for their own nefarious ends:

“I’m the most sampled and stolen. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine, too … I got a song about that … But I’m never gonna release it. Don’t want a war with the rappers.”

If I was Brown, I can’t say for certain I would’ve been happy about inspiring a genre that would eventually lead to Soulja Boy and Kreayshawn. But it’s not every musician who can say their music’s so good, even their hits have hits. Not everyone who’s got the funk can boast that their rhythms are the foundation for a whole genre and culture.

No, not even you, weird dude from Jamiroquai.

“Clique,” probably the best song from G.O.O.D. Music’s Cruel Summer, makes use of “Funky President” throughout its running time. Producer Hit-Boy doesn’t go overboard with the funk; it’s used more as a signifier of hip-hop “realness” than anything else, like in many modern hip-hop productions. That’s how big a figure Brown still casts over the genre: it can’t be a complete hip-hop production without at least a little James Brown sampling. Regardless of whatever negative feelings that Brown had about producers appropriating his work and hip-hop culture in general, he’ll always be Sample Brother No. 1.