Hot for Hot Pants (The Drum Break)

Hot for Hot Pants (The Drum Break)

I was going to kick off talking about various drum breaks with the granddaddy of them all, the mighty Amen, but I decided to save that one for last.  Today we're going to do a little diving into the world of Hot Pants.  I randomly chose this drum break to begin with, thinking it would be fairly simple and straightforward, but I was wrong.  The origins of this break are less cut and dry than you would imagine due to there being multiple versions of the song performed by various musicians.

1971 brought us a single from James Brown entitled "Hot Pants (She Got to Use What She Got to Get What She Wants)" which quickly shot up multiple Billboard music charts.  The aptly named song celebrates the shortest of shorts which the band saw the year before while touring in Europe.  The original version of this song has been sampled regularly and extensively in hip-hop.  Whosampled.com has listed 243 songs that have sampled it, but the only drum and bass track listed is Technical Itch and Panacea's "Semisation 2013".

Bobby Byrd, Brown's keyboardist, recorded his own version of the track entitled "Hot Pants--I'm Coming, I'm Coming, I'm Coming" and it was released in 1972.  This is the version of the song that appears to be most credited with being sampled in drum and bass, or does it?  Whosampled.com has listed only 47 songs that sample this version, none of which listed is drum and bass.

Byrd released a third version in 1987, the "Bonus Beats" version which was also a B-side.  I was unable to find the history behind this particular release, but I can tell you that Whosampled.com has connected this specific version with 892 songs, many of which include drum and bass and jungle since their inception.  The Prodigy is well-known for utilizing this drum sample in their song Charly, in both the drum and bass and breakbeat versions.  You can also hear this sampled in a number of dnb songs over the years, including but absolutely not limited to Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" (Warp, 1997), 1996's "Metropolis" by Adam F (Metalheadz), and more recently "Daktari" by Coco Bryce (2022, Critical Music).

So there you have it, a little history on one of the most famous drum breaks of all time, the Hot Pants break.  Stayed tuned for more dnb sample history in a couple of weeks!

Cheers,