Respect The Architects – James Brown

(Photo by Jo Hale/Getty Images)

Let’s go back. Way back. The most important musician of the 20th century didn’t just change all forms of popular music. James Brown and the JB’s provided Hip-Hop with it’s sonic template.

I could write a thousand paragraphs on James Browns accomplishments both as a musician and as a man. But right now, let’s talk the Godfather and Hip-Hop. Not only can you make the case that James was straight up rapping on some of his records, but the 1-2-3-4 count of his beats would become the most sampled and important music to the budding culture of Hip-Hop. If James Brown WASN’T the record original MC’s were doing their routines over, it was a band that was certainly inspired by the JB’s. James Brown’s records have been sampled literally thousand’s of times. Think Total and Biggie “Can’t You See”, or Nas’s “Get Down”. The original MC’s all the way up to new projects like Bad Meets Evil have made James Brown “The Funky Drummer” the most sampled song in history.

Hip-Hop relies on “the beat”. James Brown invented “the beat”. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. R&B, Soul, Funk, Pop, House, Techno, and a few other genres owe a lot to James. But Hip-Hop owes it all to James Brown. Salute the hardest working man ever in show business. The first B-Boy. James Brown.

Listen to the 5 minute and 20 second mark of this song. See if you’ve heard it before.