Amen Break - Six Seconds that Changed the World

A breakbeat or ‘break’ is when, in a song, all vocals and instruments stop playing and the drum and percussion is left to play for a few bars on its own. The Amen is a six second breakbeat from the song ‘Amen, Brother’ by the band The Winstons in 1969.

Back in those days, songs were released on vinyl and there was an A-side and B-side. On the A-side was the primary song and B-side, or underside, was another release. Amen, Brother was released on the B-side with the A-side featuring the single ‘Color Him Father’. When Amen, Brother was first released, there was nothing really quite exceptional about it. Color Him Father went on to win a Grammy Award for the Best R&B song in 1970, and Amen, Brother was just another song. However, Amen,Brother, or specifically the six-second drum loop was resurrected 15 years later with the advent of the Sampler.

Ironically, the first Sampler ever created was in 1969; the same year Amen, Brother was released. The Sampler is a piece of technology which, in a nutshell, allows for and promotes the abusing of music. The Sampler takes musical recordings and allows for the user to mash them up. However, it wasn’t until the 80’s that sampling took a digital form, making samples more accessible and easier to mash-up. It was also around this time that the Amen break made its re-emergence in a hip-hop song called ‘Straight Outta Compton”, resulting in it becoming a staple of hip-hop culture, and many others to follow.

Since then, Amen has gone rather mainstream, appearing in Toyota commercials, theme songs such as Futurama and Power Puff Girls, Oasis songs and really too many to give credit to here. The Amen is so ingrained in our musical psyche that one would expect the original creators of it to receive monetary recognition. Aka, Copyright. However, this has not been the case.