A drum break is a section of a recording where the drummer plays alone — no melody, no bass, no vocals. In hip hop production, these isolated sections became the building blocks of an entire genre. Here are the breaks that have been used more than any others, and the records they came from.
The foundational breaks
—Funky Drummer — James Brown (1969). Clyde Stubblefield's 4-bar break is the most sampled drum recording in history. Used in hundreds of hip hop tracks, most famously in Public Enemy productions.
—Amen, Brother — The Winstons (1969). Six seconds of drumming by G.C. Coleman. Used in almost every drum and bass and jungle track ever made. Also appears extensively in hip hop.
—Think (About It) — Lyn Collins (1972). The "woo yeah" vocal sample and the drum break appear together in more hip hop tracks than almost any other recording.
—Apache — Incredible Bongo Band (1973). The bongo-driven arrangement and powerful drum section became the baseline for early hip hop breaking records.
—Impeach the President — The Honeydrippers (1973). Roy C. Hammond's drum break is one of the most recycled in hip hop. Appears in tracks by Jay-Z, Nas, and countless others.
Jazz breaks that built boom bap
—A Love Supreme — John Coltrane (1965). Elvin Jones's drum patterns have been sampled in jazz-influenced hip hop from Pete Rock to Kendrick Lamar.
—Maiden Voyage — Herbie Hancock (1965). Tony Williams's drumming on the Blue Note recordings is among the most sampled in jazz-to-hip-hop production.
—Spectrum — Billy Cobham (1973). Cobham's jazz fusion drum work contains some of the heaviest breaks in any jazz recording.
—Song for My Father — Horace Silver (1964). The rhythmic drive of Roger Humphries's drumming appears in dozens of hip hop productions.
Funk and soul breaks
—Cold Sweat — James Brown (1967). Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks's two-drummer arrangement produced multiple usable breaks.
—Synthetic Substitution — Melvin Bliss (1973). The break has been sampled in tracks by Nas, Biz Markie, and dozens more.
—Ashley's Roachclip — The Soul Searchers (1974). One of the most sampled soul breaks, appearing in tracks from Eric B. & Rakim onward.
—The Big Beat — Billy Squire (1980). The snare crack on this rock record appears in more hip hop than most soul breaks.
—When The Levee Breaks — Led Zeppelin (1971). John Bonham recorded the drum track in a stairwell; the room sound is unlike any studio recording and has been extensively used in hip hop.
How to find unsampled breaks
Every break on this list has been sampled many times over. The breaks worth finding now are the ones nobody has found yet — and they exist in the same genres and eras as the classics. Northern soul 45s from the late 1960s, regional funk pressings from small labels, obscure jazz sessions on non-Blue Note imprints. The same rhythmic qualities that made the canonical breaks useful exist across thousands of unsampled records.
CrateDrop lets you dig through these genres randomly, filtering by the same eras that produced the classics. The WhoSampled link on every result shows immediately whether a record has been used — a blank page means uncharted territory.