“Jungle is going to come back hard, mark my words, it might be 5 years from now but we will witness a new great age of jungle in england,” so tweeted Zomby yesterday, before getting heavy into praise for the music style: “btw jungle like all good styles isnt a exercise in extremism toward brostep amens, its about stylish execution of elements to make u lose it.” The ‘amen’ that Zomby refers to is the Amen break, the drumbeat building block for all jungle. This fascinating short audio documentary from 2004 tells the story of the Amen break, detailing its evolution from a six second drum sample from a 1969 soul B-side called Amen, Brother (for which the band The Winstons never received a penny) to become an integral part of our “collective audio unconscious”. If you’re at all interested in jungle, hip hop, breaks or how copyright law that privileges The Man over the musician has a death grip on the music industry, this is an absolute must-watch/listen.
