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Sounds Real Familiar
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Okay, this is pretty fascinating: In 1969, the Winstons, the one-hit-wonder band, needed a B-side to accompany their one hit, "Color Me Father." They decided to record an instrumental based on the gospel song "Amen, Brother" (you know, "A-men, Ayyy-men, AYYYYY-MEN, A-men, a-men!"), and when they did that, drummer GC Coleman added a six-second drum solo. And that obscure bit of an obscure B-side became one of the most sampled riffs in pop music history, known today as the "Amen Break." You'll hear it in everything from countless hip-hop tracks to The Prodigy's "Firestarter" and Oasis' "D'Ya Know What I Mean." Skrillex, Jay-Z, NWA, Tyler, the Creator, Lupe Fiasco, David Bowie, Slipknot... there's even a song called "If You Don't Know What to Do Just Steal the Amen Break." In fact, here's a list of 1,529 songs using the sample. Total royalties paid: Zero. There's a gofundme campaign to get some money for the Winstons' leader, who owns the copyright, but that's it. The question is, though, is whether what the sample's being used for constitutes separate, different art, and whether that should trigger a royalty or is a separate creation that sufficiently changes the original into something else. (BBC)
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