The Amen break is a drum break that has been widely sampled in numerous music genres. It comes from the 1969 track "Amen, Brother" by the soul group the Winstons, released as the B-side of the 1969 single "Color Him Father". The drum break lasts about seven seconds and was performed by Gregory Coleman. With the rise of hip hop in the 1980s, the break was widely sampled and became a staple of drum and bass and jungle music. It has been used on thousands of tracks of many genres, making it one of the most sampled recordings of all time. Neither Coleman nor copyright ownerRichard Lewis Spencer received royalties for its use; Spencer said it was unlikely Coleman, who died homeless and destitute in 2006, realized the impact he had made on music.
The break
The Amen break is taken from "Amen, Brother", an instrumental interpretation of the gospel standard "Amen" recorded by the American soul group the Winstons. The Winstons recorded it in early 1969 in Atlanta, Georgia as a B-side for their 1969 single "Color Him Father". About 1 minute and 26 seconds into "Amen, Brother", the other musicians stop playing and drummer Gregory Coleman performs a four-bar drum break. For two bars, he plays the previous beat; in the third, he delays a snare hit; in the fourth, he leaves the first beat empty, following with a syncopated pattern and early crash cymbal.
Bandleader Richard Lewis Spencer said he directed the break, but Phil Tolotta, the only other surviving member of the band, credited it solely to Coleman. Though "Color Him Father" became a top-10 R&B hit and won a Grammy award, "Amen Brother", received little notice at the time of release.
Sampling
In the 1980s, with the rise of hip hop, DJs began using turntables to loop drum breaks from records, which MCs would rap over. In 1986, "Amen Brother" was included on Ultimate Breaks and Beats, a compilation of old funk and soul tracks with clean drum breaks intended for DJs. Salt-N-Pepa's 1986 single "I Desire" saw one of the earliest uses of the Amen break. A number of releases in 1988 took it into the mainstream, including "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A and "Keep It Going Now" by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. In "King of the Beats" by Mantronix, the Amen break is "chopped up, layered and processed so that the drums became central to the track rather than simply a rhythmic bedding". The Amen break was widely sampled in British dance music in the early 1990s, especially in drum and bass and jungle. It has since been used on thousands of tracks, making "Amen, Brother" one of the most widely sampled tracks in history. It has been widely used across genres, from rock bands such as Oasis to television theme tunes such as that of Futurama. According to WhoSampled, a user-generated website cataloging samples, the Amen break is the most sampled track in history, appearing in over 2000 tracks.
Royalties
The copyright owner of "Amen, Brother", including the Amen break, is Winstons leader Richard Lewis Spencer. Neither he nor drummer Coleman received royalties for the break, and Spencer was not aware of its use until 1996, when an executive contacted him asking for the master tape. Spencer condemned the sampling as plagiarism, and said: " heart and soul went into that drum break. Now these guys copy and paste it and make millions." However, in 2015, he said: "It's not the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm a black manin America and the fact that someone wants to use something I created - that's flattering." Coleman died homeless and destitute in 2006. Spencer said it was unlikely he was aware of the impact he had made on music. In 2015, a GoFundMe campaign set up by British DJs Martyn Webster and Steve Theobald raised £24,000 for Spencer.
