Funky Drummer is recorded
Hip hop was born when DJs began rapping over dance records and no dance records were better suited to rapping than those that included a breakbeata drum break that could be repeated almost endlessly as an accompaniment to rapping.It is impossible to know who first employed The Funky Drummer in this fashion but it was so heavily entrenched in hip-hops DNA by 1989 that Public Enemys Chuck D.could call it out by name in Fight The Power as shorthand for hip-hop itself 1989 The number another summerSound of The Funky Drummer.Funky Drummer wasnt so much a song as it was an extended groove.
Like many of the James Brown records on which Clyde Stubblefield played Funky Drummer had its beginnings in an ad-libbed jam before a planned recording sessiona jam that the Godfather of Soul walked in on and declared ready to record.Instead of lyrics Funky Drummer features James Brown sitting back and letting the groove hold center stage while interjecting the occasional bit of shouted encouragement to one of his individual band members.When he gets to Stubblefield Brown lets it be known that he doesnt want a fancy solo but more of the incredibly funky underlying beat Dont turn it loose he can be heard saying cause its a mother.The eight bars of drumming that followed on this day in 1969 went on to become the mother of all breakbeats.
