this drum beat right here changed hip hop forever [Music] not just hip-hop but it changed pop rock and dance music too [Music] the drum break from funky drummer by James Brown has been the basis for songs across genre making it one of the most popular samples of all time but there are millions of drum beats to sample out there so we want to know why do so many artists choose this one [Music] in fact when it was released in 1970 funky drummer didn't even crack the top 50 charts it wasn't until 15
years later that the drum beat started appearing in hundreds of songs so was it all a coincidence or was Clyde stubblefield's drumming just that good this story is about how a 20 second drum loot became one of the most popular sounds in music history Ella and I are going to take what we've learned and make our own song using the funky drummer beat but before we do that we want to discover what made this beat so special in the first place as Questlove said in the 2011 interview funky drummer has
done miracles for hip-hop adding when you talk about the most perfect beat it's not even that funky drummer wins in a technical aspect but in an artistic aspect it's hands down the most perfect beat you can Loop everyone I know as a producer that's gotten their start in hip-hop production they all have their story about the first time they heard funky Drummond [Music] the story of funky drummer starts with the funky drummer himself the late Clyde Stubblefield born in Chattanooga Tennessee the s
elf-taught Stubblefield served as Brown's drummer from 1965 to 1971 and appeared on tracks like cold sweat Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud and of course funky drummer to learn more about Clyde's double field I talked to Joey B Banks a drummer from Madison Wisconsin who was mentored by Stubblefield himself how did you meet Clyde Stubblefield when I was uh 15 years old I started hanging out and doing local Jam sessions in the Madison area I just sat in and jammed and he was there and he approa
ched me and uh he's like you got it you got it man you got it you keep going you keep doing what you're doing you you know he always from that point on in my life he was just kind of an advocate you know for a young black drummer you know because it was only like two of us in the whole city of Madison what made Clyde's double feel so special as a drummer and what should people remember about his drumming I think his biggest influence obviously was the originality of his music I mean his beat his
beat was like before him nobody had ever heard anything like like his beat um and I think his pocket which is unparalleled is is just you know most of the recordings you hear with James Brown there's no we're not using click tracks he's just it's just solid on the mark everybody he would come in lay down his drum tracks the band would come in and lay down their track after that's how Clyde worked funky drummer was made on November 20th 1969 at Cincinnati's King Studios towards the end of an exh
austing tour Clyde Summerfield was only 18 at the time and said his part was something he put together to just pass time away in fact even as the beat grew in popularity Stubblefield wasn't the biggest fan he described it in a 1994 interview as boring really boring and so simple so blah still the 20 second solo toward the end of funky drummer would be immortalized for decades to come but why to understand how funky drummer became so popular we need to talk about the beginnings of hip-hop music t
hank you it all started in New York City during the 1970s specifically in the South Bronx where people got together at block parties to listen to music and dance and the music was led by an emcee on the mic and a DJ on the turntables DJs like cool herc and Grandmaster Flash would play funkin Soul records for the crowd they quickly learned that the drum breaks were the most danceable parts of a song so they innovated by playing the same record on two turntables that way the DJ could rewind one re
cord while the other played to create an infinite drum Loop [Music] DJs began Craig digging for Funk and soul records with danceable drum loops and because the loops were instrumental it gave space for MCS to wrap on top of the beat when hip-hop artists began recording their own songs this practice continued and sampling became one of the foundations of hip-hop music to get a better understanding I sat down with Bandy c a djn producer from New York City who got his start during the 1980s the ori
ginal hip-hop producers most were DJ and that is because the DJ knew how to control the crowd music so I think from a DJ side if I'm looking at the music to make a b I'm I'm listening to the track but I'm not just listening to the beat I'm listening to maybe the guitar I'm listening to other parts because that sampling came in we might take the the Beat from this the the the shout James Brown said from the very beginning the the guitar riff as we listen go all that riff and then we'll pull that
riff out and then you know and then you're just basically making this gumbo of of what your creativity will offer and um and then you put it together James Brown knew that artists were looking for drum bricks to sample and in 1986 he released the compilation album of his old tracks called in the jungle Groove on the first side of the record was funky drummer and on side two was the funky drummer drum solo looped for three minutes this changed everything and the Funky drummer break became a go-to
for hip-hop producers looking for a steady Groove when how did you find it I found it the way that almost DJs found beats and that is in a parrots record stack that's how it started if anybody tells you anything else they're lying by the end of the 90s the drum break had been sampled by artists in other genres too like Sinead O'Connor and George Michael [Music] Montgomery became a popular tool for artists making break beat dance music producers would speed up the break like in this song by Aphe
x Twin theme song for The Powerpuff Girls it's important to mention that some people mix up funky drummer with another popular drum sample called the amen break that break comes from the 1969 track Amen Brother by the Soul band The Winston [Music] both breaks were featured in the compilation album Ultimate Breaks and Beats when sped up in some dance music tracks the two breaks can sound similar why using funky drummer specifically became so popular from like a Beat lead sample standpoint funky d
rawing works because of the way he's using the space it's not a whole bunch of drums going on and not a bunch of parts going on but the ghost notes the Ghost Notes add so much flavor to whatever is happening you know it's like that special little seasoning on top or you know it's the sprinkles or still whatever that just that it's the Emeril Lagasse bam right I want to break down what makes this solo what it is first the left hand Quest love said in an interview Stubblefield has a marksman's lef
t hand unlike any other drummer in the 20th century adding the thing that defines him that sets him apart from other drummers are his grace notes which are sort of like the condiments of what spices up the main focus the main focus is the snare hits on two and four the ghost notes are played in between those main hits on 204. he's a Groove without any Ghost Notes [Music] now here's the Groove With The Ghost Notes [Music] the thing about the beat is that it's bare hi-hat kick snare that's all he'
s playing that open space is why so many artists have sampled it because it offers so much room to play around with third and lastly his repetition he doesn't deviate from the pattern and maintains it for eight bars following the instructions Brown gave them [Music] what do you think made Clyde stubblefield's drumming like a really good match for hip-hop as much as Clyde made hip hop hip-hop made claw if that makes sense in terms of the time because what happened in my estimation is had it not h
ave been for the grassroot DJs pursuing Beats his transcended the regular beats so all of a sudden it was like the cheat code to move a crowd if it hit his beat you know what I mean so funky drama became bigger than just the beat itself it became like this movement according to Who sampled funky drummer has been sampled over 1 700 times but even though Clyde Stubblefield laid the groundwork for all of this music he didn't get the credit he deserved the reality is he never saw any royalties from
the songs that sampled his drum part because he wasn't credited as a songwriter James Brown was although Stubblefield tried to capitalize on his Resurgence in hip-hop with solo albums like the Revenge of the funky drummer he would never be able to truly live off the success of his beloved drum break but that doesn't mean that artists influenced by Stubblefield and his work didn't look out for him where they could shortly after Prince passed away in 2016 it was revealed that the Purple Rain icon
paid about eighty thousand dollars in the drummers costs as Stubblefield had survived cancer in 2000 and coped with kidney diseases since 2002. What mattered mostest double field wasn't the money but being credited and recognized for his work I'm the world sample's number one selfless drummer so hey I haven't got a penny for it yet though but me dude is super humble super kind loved everybody signed us autographs Cloud Stubblefield peace of love I mean he's he was he was just a genuinely good gu
y and and in some ways good to a false although Stubblefield passed away from kidney failure in 2017. his legacy as a drummer still lives on with funky drummer continuing to be an integral part of that the drum break still gets sampled with everyone from Nicki Minaj to Ed Sheeran's shirt sleeves using stubblefield's drum part under your eyes there's even a documentary in the works about stubblefield's impact called give the drummer some which he was able to be a part of before he passed in 2011
Stubblefield got on stage with Chuck D and The Roots to perform fight the power on The Late Night show and epic method the cover normally Chuck V would wrap over a sample but that night he had the real funky drummer by his side foreign now that we've learned about funky drummer LA and I are going to attempt to make our own song inspired by the funky drummer sample okay this is the approach that I would take I feel like we could totally take like do you listen to Pink Panthers or do you know who
she is okay Pink Panthers is like this she flew up on Tick Tock she's like a UK drum and based pop girly she's very talented she's like songwriter um and has a very gentle floaty voice [Music] want to do a funky drummer slash Pink panther-ish Pink Panthers uh Slash house type [Music] without stubble feel it's safe to say that hip-hop wouldn't be what it is [Music] his drumming provided the foundation for a genre that still continues to borrow from him and even though he never truly had the chanc
e to reap the reward of that there's no denying the mark he left behind before you go I want to let you know about fight the power how hip-hop changed the world a new PBS series hosted by hip hop Legend chutti it's about how hip-hop became a global movement that spoke truth to power check out the link in the description below and let them know soundfield sent you [Music]
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