No, this isn’t a prayer post. It’s a music post, and I’m talking about a break beat. A break that we’ve all heard, but I never knew the history of. Amanda Marcotte, blogger at Pandagon, has two interesting posts up about Insufferable Music Snobbery™. The first takes on why so few Insufferable Music Snobs™ are women, and the second, more interesting post, is “A (hopefully) rousing defense of Insufferable Music Snobbery.” It’s more interesting in large part because it contained the following video about The Amen Break. It’s quite long, but worth watching until the end.

I saw this video Friday night while I was getting ready for bed, and quite honestly I didn’t make it to the end. Then today, I was running some errands in the car when I heard Jerk It Out by The Caesars come on. At about 1:36 in the song, there’s a drum solo that caught my attention. I don’t think it’s quite the Amen Break, but because it’s so close, I ended up coming home and digging through my music collection to find the beat in other stuff. If this is Insufferable Music Snobbery™, sign me up.

Beyond the almost match, I found the break in a bunch of early Fatboy Slim (listen to Songs for Lindy or Santa Cruz from Better Living Through Chemistry, for example). I’ve been flipping between the YouTube video and songs in my electronica and dance collection looking for the break in remixes, original work, and other random stuff. I love rhythm, and finding out how this break has evolved has been a fascinating few hours of exploration. The video was so totally worth watching.

As an aside, the video’s point about copyright law is why, when I started working for Disney, I’ve been giving as much as I can to Creative Commons, the EFF, and local independent art. The culture of creating new expression from what has come before is so important to creativity. As Nate Harrison, who made the video, says, this is as much about business and growing the business of art as it is about the art itself. After all, we pay for new experiences, not new ways to buy the same experience. This video is awesome for laying out, in clear terms, the history of “borrowing” ideas in music and art.

Give what you can to these organizations and local art galleries and independent film theaters. These folks are trying to make sure that we see a surge in creativity and creative expression. Not getting ripped off when you buy your DVDs or CDs is just an extra bonus.