Forty Minutes Of That Drum Break

Back in December I posted I'm Not The Man I Used To Be by Fine Young Cannibals and then more recently Madonna's Justify My Love, both songs driven by a very famous drum break- the Funky Drummer, a drum solo played by the legendary Clyde Stubblefield on James Brown's 1970 single Funky Drummer (actually from the B-side Funky Drummer Part 2). Digging into My Bloody Valentine's back catalogue over the last two weeks brought me back to a B-side from 1988 titled Instrumental No. 2, the flipside to a 7" single given away free with the first 5000 copies of Isn't Anything. 

My Bloody Valentine and Madonna (with co- writers Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez) both built their songs around a short interlude track by Public Enemy from 1988's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. PE's Hank Shocklee denies that the drum break on Security Of The First World is a sample from Funky Drummer but both My Bloody Valentine and Madonna sampled Public Enemy- Kravitz denied it saying it was a drum break that was 'just lying around the studio'. Kevin Shields was getting into acid house in 1988 as well as developing MBV's guitar noise and there's a good argument that Instrumental No. 2 is the first indie- dance track, ahead of The Soup Dragons, ahead of The Stone Roses and ahead of Primal Scream. Admittedly Happy Mondays might want a word.

Anyway, the whats and wheres and who's firsts aren't what I'm here for today. I started piecing these tracks together and thought I'd try to get them and a handful of others to work together in a mix. Forty minutes seemed enough- there are literally thousands of songs that have sampled the Funky Drummer and hundreds of hip hop records including Boogie Down Productions,  LL Cool J, Eric B and Rakim, Run DMC, Beastie Boys and NWA. In fact I might come back and do a hip hop Funky Drummer Sunday mix. But in the meantime, this one is those records above and a couple of others. 

For a while Shadrach by The Beastie Boys were in the mix but it's a different drum break, more likely from Hot & Nasty by Black Oak Arkansas and I dropped Fool's Gold in too but it's not the same break either- it's a funky drummer but not the Funky Drummer. DNA and Suzanne Vega did make the cut but I don't think it's actually the Funky Drummer, it's more likely sampled from Soul II Soul, but it felt like it fitted. 

It's probably worth remembering that Clyde Stubblefield, the man whose drumming is the Funky Drummer, got nothing more than the session fee as the drummer in James Brown's band. 

Forty Minutes Of The Funky Drummer

• Public Enemy: Security Of The First World
• My Bloody Valentine: Instrumental No. 2
• Madonna: Justify My Love
• Sinead O'Connor: I'm Stretched On Your Grave
• Fine Young Cannibals: I'm Not The Man I Used To Be
• DNA and Suzanne Vega: Tom's Diner (DNA Remix)
• Radio Slave: Amnesia (Instrumental)
• James Brown: Funky Drummer (Album Version)

Security Of The First World is from side two of It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, the greatest hip hop album ever made, Chuck D, Flavor Flav and The Bomb Squad writing the book on how to splice noise, funk and rap, politics, race and music. Security Of The First World is a one minute twenty loop, the Funky Drummer, a pulverising bassline and some bleeps, that changed music. 

Kevin Shields sampled Public Enemy for Instrumental No. 2. The pitch drops a little and it sounds scratchier- maybe they sampled it from vinyl. Over the top Kevin plays ghostly guitar chords and layers of wordless vocals to create something that would inform later MBV tracks- Soon is surely born here. 

Madonna's Justify My Love was a 1990 single, banned by MTV due to the S&M, voyeurism and bisexuality on display in the video. I wrote about it earlier this month here. Madonna and Lenny Kravitz wrote and recorded it in a day according to Lenny, very quick and in his words 'authentic'.

Also from 1990 is Sinead O'Connor's I Am Stretched On Your Grave. Sinead was a huge Public Enemy fan. The lyrics are from a 17th century poem, Taim Sinte Ar Do Thuama, translated into English by Irish poet Frank O'Connor and set to music in 1979 by Irish artist Philip King. Sinead's vocal is stunning, alone over Clyde's drumming. Some bass bubbles in, there are some drum crashes and at the end there's a dramatic fiddle part by Waterboy Steve Wickham. 

In 1989 Fine Young Cannibals released I'm Not The Man I Used To Be as a single (the fourth from their album The Raw And The Cooked). They sped the Funky Drummer up and there's some house music in the chords and production. A song that bears repeat plays. Roland Gift was a star who reused to play the game. 

DNA sampled Suzanne Vega's a capella version of Tom's Diner (from here 1987 album Solitude Standing though it dates from earlier, it's on a 1984 Fast Folk Music Magazine album). DNA played it over the drum break from a Soul II Soul record. DNA pressed it up and released it without permission and it took off. Suzanne's label A&M decided to release it officially rather than sue (Suzanne liked the version) and it became a massive hit. It's not the Funky Drummer but it felt like it fitted with Sinead and Madonna and the whole 1990 drum break sampling vibe. 

Just to show that you can't keep a good drum break down, Amnesia is from 2023, a track by Berlin DJ and producer Radio Slave and a tribute to the Ibiza club Amnesia and partying under the stars in the mid- to- late 80s, something Radio Slave admits is a romanticised notion. 

I was in two minds about including the source material. Funky Drummer was released as a single by James Brown in 1970, split over both sides of the 7" with Part 2 being the source of the drum break. This is a nine minute studio version, released on a 1986 album In the Jungle Groove- surely the source for many of the hundreds of artists who followed Public Enemy's lead after 1988 who sampled it. 

Poor Is The Man Whose Pleasures Depend On The Permission Of Another

Back to 1990 today  and a Madonna single that still packs a punch all these years later- thirty six years later. 

Justify My Love was released to promote Madonna's first compilation, The Immaculate Collection. Co- written by Madonna with Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez, with Kravitz producing and contributing, it was slightly overshadowed by the video which has implied S&M, flashes of nipples (female), same- sex scenes (male and female), females in charge of and in control of sexuality, bedroom stuff- MTV predictably banned it. It was issued as a commercially available video single which added to its transgressive appeal, too steamy to be shown on the TV- buy it and watch it yourself at home. It's ahead of its time in what it portrays, certainly in terms of mainstream pop (I guess Frankie Goes To Hollywood and some others had been there before but Madonna was global in 1990) and much of what is portrayed in the video is commonplace now in pop music and popular culture. As a promotional tool, a music video and a slice of 1990, it's very, very cool indeed. 

The song is a banger, riding in on the drumbeat that defined 1990 (on this occasion a Public Enemy sample rather than the actual Funky Drummer, the drums from 1988 track Security Of The First World, sped up slightly to 132 bpm. Public Enemy threatened to sue due to its unauthorised use. Kravitz denied taking it from PE, saying it was one of those beats that was just lying around. Public Enemy took it from somewhere etc etc). The rhythm is everything, it drives it. It's joined by a deep and burbling bassline, synth chords/ drones and Kravitz on backing vocals. Madonna takes the lead, speaking breathily, unleashing her 'inner freak'...

'I wanna kiss you in Paris/ I wanna hold your hand in Rome/ I wanna run naked in a rainstorm/ Make love in a train... cross country'

She's clearly never travelled cross country in the UK. No matter how much inner freak you'd unleashed you'd think twice, thrice, before shagging in the grim, rarely cleaned toilets on the trans- Pennine service (though I do not doubt that it has happened). 

Justify My Love

It's about dominance and pleasure, sexual fantasy and pleasure in connection to permission. It sounds fantastic, the production and drums are superb- its the best thing Lenny Kravitz has been connected to, it's Madonna in absolute control, of her music, her image, her sound, her music. It could still cause a storm on a dancefloor. It's a jam. 

There were remixes including one, The Beast Within Mix, which saw Madonna accused of anti- Semitism. 'It's ridiculous', she replied, 'People can say I'm an exhibitionist but no- one can ever accuse me of being a racist'. Of the remixes the one that we'll go with is William Orbit's...

Justify My Love (Orbit 12" Mix)

Seven minutes, drawn out intro, different drumbeat, a new shuffly rhythm, typically swirly, trippy Orbit production, an organ stab and bursts of guitar. Lovely stuff that would eventually lead to William Orbit working with Madonna more closely and what would become 1998's Ray Of Light album.