Benutzer:E.b.lizard/Ha-Sample

Part of the waveform for the Amen break, including the crash at the end

The Ha-Sample is a sample that has been widely sampled in popular music. It comes from the 1991 track "The Ha-Dance" by the House group Masters at Work, released in 1991. It has been used in at countless tracks of electronic music, primarily in Ball culture and House music. The sample is a distorted vocal sound, that sounds like a ???

Origin

Masters at work were a House music and Hip hop duo from New York City, N.Y., consisting of of "Little" Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez. Kenny Dope sampled the titular “ha” from the train scene in the 1983 movie Trading Places. In the scene, characters Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy[Murphy|Eddie Murphy]) and Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) chant the sound as part of their disguise. The character of Louis Winthorpe III is wearing blackface. The movie has been repeatedly criticized for its racism, also due to this particular scene. Producer Kenny Dope said he wanted to turn the sound turn the sample “into something harder,” and that it took him about two hours to produce the entire track.

Significance

The track has become one of the most lauded and defining tracks in the history of ballroom culture. The sound of the "ha" on the fourth of a 4/4 beat lends itself to dramatic dance poses of vogueing and ballroom dance. The song has been chopped up, sampled, and remixed so many times that it’s impossible to imagine the genre without it.(Vulture)

Sampled in

The sample has been used in countless released and unreleased tracks, the website who sampled counts in at least 63 officially released tracks. Some of the are:

Adore by Cashmere Cat feat. Ariana Grande (2015) Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell by Das Racist (2010) Level Ya Pussy Up by Aja (2017) Kingdom

Sampling

Vorlage:ListenIn the 1980s, with the rise of hip hop, DJs began using turntables to loop drum breaks from records, which MCs would rap over. In 1986, "Amen Brother" was included on Ultimate Breaks and Beats, a compilation of old funk and soul tracks with clean drum breaks intended for DJs.

See also

• Breakbeat
• Funky Drummer

Further reading

• Ryan Alexander Bloom: Live Drum & Bass written. Hudson Music, New York 2018. 
• Gerwin Eisenhauer: Welcome to the Jungle. Dux, Germany 2005. 

External links

• A Tutorial on Cutting Up a Breakbeat Using a Tracker. PedagoNet.com, abgerufen am 16. August 2012: „The tempo for the Amen, Brother breakbeat is approximately 136 BPM.“ 
• The Amen break on freesound.org
• Video of an audio installation about the Amen break's history by Nate Harrison (archive.org mirror, Youtube mirror)
• Amen break on whosampled.com

Category:Breakbeat