You’d be hard-pressed to find a more influential sound byte than that of the six-second drum break from the 1969 song “Amen, Brother”- known as the Amen Break. The clip was usurped by sample-based music such as hip-hop, spawned entire underground cultures such as the jungle and dub scenes, and has finally has become ubiquitous in the world of advertising. Nate Harrison’s 2004 video on the loop is interesting, using the clip to explain the relationship between creative culture and copyright, among many other things.

From the video:

Why do I bring any of this up? What is significant of the Amen Break? I’m talking about it here because I think its story is a good example illustrating the rise and subsequent problematic of digital sampling in relation to today’s increasingly stringent copyright and trademark laws.

To trace the history of the Amen Break is to trace the history of a brief period of time when it seemed digital tools offered a potentially unlimited amount of new forms of expression.

Where cultural production, at least musically, was full of possibilities by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past. To make new combinations, and thus new meanings.

The story demonstrates that a society “free to borrow and build upon the past is culturally richer than a controlled one.” To use the words of Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, copyright reform advocate, and co-founder of Creative Commons.

More resources on the Amen Break:

Wikipedia page on the Amen Break
The Amen Break and The Golden Ratio