Are you a fan of hip-hop? Of jungle? Breakbeat? Broken beat? Drum n’ bass, trip-hop, dubstep?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you have definitely heard some sampled, spliced-up, sped-up, looped or otherwise manipulated variation of a six-second drum solo from the 1960’s called the “Amen Break.”

Performed by a funk and soul outfit named The Winstons, this highly-pirated version is actually a sped-up rendition of an earlier gospel classic, proving that the recycling did not start exclusively with the birth of the sampler.

However, with appearances ranging from N.W.A. to Shy-FX, the emergence of sampler-based music allowed this simple loop to pollinate and permeate the landscapes of several burgeoning music cultures simultaneously.

The below twenty-minute video does an admirable job of not only tracing the origins across genres, but also discussing the impact of lax copyright enforcement on overall creativity and musical evolution.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out.