Sample Source
1956–1988
James Brown is the most sampled artist in the history of recorded music. Clyde Stubblefield's Funky Drummer break alone appears in over a thousand released recordings. The full JB catalog — King Records 45s, Polydor LPs, the JBs sessions — is the foundation of hip hop, funk, and electronic music. Every record has something usable. Most of the lesser-known catalog tracks are completely unsampled.
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Start Digging →Funky Drummer (1969) is the most sampled recording in history, primarily for Clyde Stubblefield's 16-bar drum break. "Amen, Brother" by the Winstons is technically more sampled, but the Funky Drummer break appears in a broader range of genres. Other heavily sampled JB recordings include Cold Sweat, Think (Marva Whitney version), and the JBs' Doing It to Death.
The People Records catalog (early 1970s) contains JBs instrumental sessions that are less thoroughly sampled than the King/Polydor releases. Marva Whitney's King Records output, Vicki Anderson's recordings, and Bobby Byrd's solo work are all JB-adjacent and similarly structured. The Solid Smoke reissues and small-label JBs offshoot recordings are particularly underexplored.
Search Discogs by artist "James Brown" and filter by label for King (early), Polydor (1970s), and People Records. The JBs as a separate act have their own Discogs page. Sort by year to navigate the catalog chronologically — the 1969–1974 period is the most densely sampled. CrateDrop's Funk/Soul filter with Funk style and years 1965–1978 will surface James Brown and contemporaries.