Tighten Up Your Knowledge on the Samurai Break

Tighten Up Your Knowledge on the Samurai Break

#drumandbass #drumnbass #dnb #jungle #musichistory #drumandbassmusichistory #samplehistory #drumandbasssamplehistory #drumandbassproper #tallygtuesdays

This week I had planned to write about the Tramen break, but soon realized I bit off more than I could chew.  The Tramen (coming soonish to a DnB blog near you) is comprised of three different drum breaks, one of which I will discuss here.  The Tighten Up break, also known as the Samurai break, has a short and fairly simplistic history.

The song “Tighten Up” has been performed by numerous bands and vocalists over the years, one of which was James Brown.  While Brown had written hundreds of songs during the course of his decades-long career, 832 to be exact, he did not write “Tighten Up”.  Archie Bell of Archie Bell and the Drells and Billy Butler did.

“Tighten Up” was one of the first songs that Archie Bell and the Drells ever recorded.  It was recorded in 1967 and released in 1968 to much acclaim, soon being picked up by Atlantic Records and eventually becoming one of the most popular and influential funk tracks of all time.  The Texas State University Tornados was the band that developed the instrumentals for the track during their live shows and they were the band in the original recording.

James Brown of course picked up the song and recorded his own version, but it wasn’t released until 1993.  The timing of the release of this recording was absolutely perfect because it started to be sampled in 1995.  Both Source Direct and Photek sampled it that year: Source Direct having sampled it in “Snake Style” and Photek in “Seven Samurai”.  Photek’s track, however, carries much more significance in that it became a primary sampling source for use in drum and bass, thus taking on the sometimes-used title of the Samurai break.  Another commonly used recording for sampling this drum break is another live recording by James Brown.

There you have it:  a quick history of the Tighten Up break along with why it is sometimes referred to as the Samurai break.  I’ll be back in a few weeks with the next installment of drum and bass sample history.

Cheers,

Tally G