What was the first sample of James Brown ever used?
The last thing James Brown was ever going to express when grappling with his hip-hop stature was humility.
As far as he was concerned, he invented it. Being in the business for 30-odd years, the ‘Godfather of Soul’s voluminous recording output found itself essential rotations and soundtracks to scores of Black households from the 1950s through to the late 1970s, standing with totemic command as the creator and last word in all things funk.
Soon enough, the young kids soaking up Brown’s downbeat grooves and vocal commands began to offer DJs like Grandmaster Flash or Kool Herc novel ways of isolating the drum breaks and looping with the innovative two-turntable set-up among the South Bronx block parties, growing to pull in breakdancers and MCs for extra performative flair across the 1970s. Hip-hop was born.
“I like [rap] all right,” Brown told SPIN in 1988. “It’s the next thing, but it’s all from me, and I deserve recognition for that.”
He wasn’t wrong. Widely understood to stand as the most sampled artist in history, ‘Mr Dynamite’s presence was all over hip-hop as the new school cohort got their hands on the latest sampler hardware. Along with bottling Brown’s Black power attitude, everybody from NWA, Run-DMC, Eric B & Rakim, De La Soul, and Public Enemy all eagerly rifled through their Brown records to lift Clyde Stubblefield’s closing beat on ‘Funky Drummer’ or ‘The Grunt’s sax bleat with The JBs, just two of thousands of samples that shaped hip-hop’s sonic language.
“I have a lot of musical heroes, but I think James Brown is at the top of the list”, Chuck D revealed to Mojo in 2002. “Absolutely the funkiest man on Earth… In a Black household, James Brown is part of the fabric – Motown, Stax, Atlantic and James Brown.” The old soul legend more than embraced his late-career surge in underground primacy, dropping 1986’s In the Jungle Groove and specifically collating all the rummaged numbers heard on the day’s hip-hop hits.
Yet, one act beat hip-hop to the sampling punch, having pilfered some Brown far before any of the old or new school rap community ever grappled with the ‘Sex Machine’ singer’s exhaustive back-catalogue.
So who first sampled James Brown?
There’s no doubt that Brown was being spun at the New York block parties via Kool Herc’s pioneering DJ loops as early as 1973, but concerning a sample on record, we have to jump to the world of San Francisco’s avant-garde.
Recorded during October 1974, anonymous art collective The Residents poured their dissatisfaction with rock and pop’s perceived stylistic conservatism into a near 20 minute collage of deconstructed cover songs popular in the preceding decade or so of Billboard Hot 100 hits. Naturally, Brown got a look in.
Featured on the ‘Swastikas on Parade’ half of 1976’s The Third Reich ‘n Roll, The Residents nab a horn blast from an original King Records 45 rpm of 1965’s ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’, a good eight years before Schoolly D borrowed ‘Get Up Offa That Thing’s drums for ‘Gangster Boogie’s Philly hit.
Brown would pull The Residents in his direction once again in 1984, the eyeballed incognitos covering ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ as a stand-alone single, as well as attempting a reimagination of the entire Live at the Apollo concert on the same year’s George & James album.
