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Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop

Landon Proctor · 7M views · 2006-02-21 · 18:09

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Overview

Nate Harrison's 2004 video history of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from a 1969 b-side that became the basis of hip-hop sampling, jungle and drum and bass. It is also a meditation on cultural ownership and creativity.

On Hacker News

A perennial HN recommendation, brought up whenever sampling, copyright or music history comes up, often described as a must-watch.

Recommended by 15 HN people across 11 months · HN mentions 2011–2026

Topics

Music performance & songsDocumentaries & storytelling
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amen breaksamplingcopyrightjunglehip hopmusic history

What people said

fred_is_fred · 2026-04 · Strong recommendation

Here's the video to watch on the history of the Amen Break. It's very in-depth and I highly recommend it. I just noticed it's 20 years old too! [VIDEO]

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securingsincity · 2025-04 · Strong recommendation

This is my favorite video on the Amen break from about 20 years ago that explains the history and more of the context [VIDEO]

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atlanta90210 · 2023-09 · Strong recommendation

17 Years ago this audio/video explained it all. Props to the artist Landon for laying down the audio to a record and playing the audio (with examples) from the record. 6.8 millions views - the Winstons will never be forgotten. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Landon Proctor, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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