The internet is home to a lot of questionably legal breakbeat collections like Drumaddikt and Cyberworm’s Sample Blog. “Cold Sweat” by James Brown is always included in these collections. It’s beloved equally by hip-hop and drum n bass producers. The break is at 4:30.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pyijSTJ_BCo
There’s probably a whole generation of producers who have sliced and diced this beat without having heard the actual song. I’m sure the same is true of “The Funky Drummer” and “Apache.” Beyond the break, “Cold Sweat” is a remarkable piece of music, way out ahead of its time. On James Brown’s album of the same name, it’s sitting alongside jazz standards like “Nature Boy” and some boilerplate blues and R&B. Compared to those more traditional songs, “Cold Sweat” sounds like it belongs in another era entirely. It has a radically simple two-chord structure and an African-influenced intricacy to its rhythmic groove, and it still sounds pretty fresh more than thirty years later.
“Cold Sweat” was written by the Famous Flames’ bandleader Pee Wee Ellis, seeded by a bassline James Brown came up with vocally. Ellis says he got his horn line from “So What” by Miles Davis, which has been the basis for many other tunes as well.
As befits a song based on a musical quotation, “Cold Sweat” has been sampled widely. It has been a particularly rich source of inspiration for Public Enemy — they sample it on “How to Kill a Radio Consultant,” “Prophets of Rage” and “Welcome To The Terrordome.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BmmS5Odu6Ag
“Welcome To The Terrordome” is an unusually dense web of samples, even by Public Enemy standards. It includes several other James Brown samples, including “Give It Up Or Turnit A-Loose,” “Get Up, Get into It, Get Involved” and “Soul Power.” And “Welcome To The Terrordome” has itself been sampled and quoted many times, by KRS-One, Non Phixion and Ice Cube, among others.
“Cold Sweat” is so influential that Mongo Santamaria’s cover version spawned a hot breakbeat of its own. It’s at 2:21.
RJD2, composer of the Mad Men theme song, uses Mongo Santamaria’s beat in “The Chicken-Bone Circuit.”
Ultramagnetic MCs love “Cold Sweat” almost as much as Public Enemy. They use the James Brown version on “Kool Keith Housing Things.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xD4hq_UxUS4
And they use the Mongo Santamaria version in “Feelin’ It.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5XPxTD_Uxgg
Give the drummer some!
mad proprs for remixin Derbyshire. Her music needs some modern love.