From Hardcore to Halftime: The Many Lives of a Breakbeat

Breakbeats have powered drum and bass since the very beginning. As part of the latest D&B::UK explorations into the history and future of the genre, this piece traces the journey of these chopped-up drum solos. From hardcore and jungle to the full spectrum of modern styles, breakbeats remain at the heart of the music.

What Is a Breakbeat?

At its core, a breakbeat is a short section of drumming, often a solo, lifted from a funk, soul or rock record and looped or manipulated to form the rhythmic backbone of a new track. For producers, especially in the early days of jungle and drum and bass, these breaks were a way to inject live energy into machine-driven music. By isolating these fragments, usually just a few bars long, they created something raw and kinetic that drum machines struggled to replicate.

Breakbeats gave producers groove, swing and, most importantly, variation. Even when sampled and quantised, the nuances in the original playing such as ghost notes, subtle timing shifts and offbeat shuffles still came through. It is this human feel that made breakbeats the defining building blocks of early hardcore, jungle and beyond.

The Foundations: Amen, Think and Funky Drummer

While hundreds of breakbeats have found their way into drum and bass, three in particular shaped the genre’s foundations: the Amen Break, the Think Break, and the Funky Drummer Break.

The Amen Break

Perhaps the most sampled drum loop in history, the Amen Break comes from Amen, Brother, a 1969 B-side by Washington D.C. soul group The Winstons. The six-second drum solo, performed by Gregory Coleman, begins at 1:26 into the track and has been repurposed thousands of times across hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, and beyond.

Originally rediscovered and popularised in the 1980s through the influential Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilations, the break gained traction among hip hop DJs and producers before becoming a staple in UK rave culture. By the early 1990s, it was the rhythmic signature of hardcore and jungle.

Its impact was enormous. “The Amen Break is the cornerstone of jungle,” said Goldie in a 1996 interview with Muzik Magazine. “You chop that up, twist it, layer it, suddenly you’ve got this weapon. It became our guitar riff.”

Despite its widespread use, neither Coleman nor The Winstons received royalties for the sample. In later years, this led to a campaign to raise funds for Coleman’s family, spearheaded by fans and artists who felt the genre owed him a debt of gratitude.

The Think Break and Funky Drummer

The “Think Break” originates from Lyn Collins’ 1972 track Think (About It), produced by James Brown. At just under two bars long, the loop features a snappy snare and crisp hi-hats, with a rhythmic vocal interjection (“Yeah! Woo!”) that became iconic in its own right. Its raw, almost cheeky character made it a favourite among early jungle DJs.

Then there is the “Funky Drummer” break, played by Clyde Stubblefield on James Brown’s 1970 recording of the same name. More subtle in swing and shuffle, it found favour in both hip hop and jungle for its expressive kick-snare interplay. Though less aggressive than the Amen, its offbeat rhythm and tight snare rolls offered producers a different type of groove to work with, especially in more musical or jazzy styles.

Each of these breaks became more than just rhythmic foundations. They carried history, soul and texture, and when manipulated, they gave birth to entirely new sonic forms.

Breakbeats in Hardcore and Jungle

By the turn of the 1990s, UK rave culture was in full swing. The tempo was climbing, and so was the energy. Hardcore producers began slicing up funk breaks and pushing them to 150 beats per minute and beyond. This marked a significant shift from house and techno’s four-to-the-floor sensibility. The music was raw, chopped and syncopated, something altogether different.

A defining moment came with We Are I.E by Lennie De Ice, released in 1991. Built around the Amen break, deep sub-bass and a toasting vocal, it is widely cited as a forerunner to jungle. “It changed everything,” said DJ Hype in a 2013 Mixmag retrospective. “You suddenly had this weight and this shuffle, it wasn’t just rave anymore. It was jungle.”

At clubs like Rage at Heaven in London, where Fabio and Grooverider pushed boundaries on Thursday nights, the term ‘jungle’ began to stick. “We’d be playing these chopped-up breaks,” Fabio explained in an interview with the Financial Times, “and people would start shouting ‘jungle!’ from the dancefloor. That’s how it started.”

What followed was an explosion of creativity. Producers began to stretch and warp the Amen in new directions. Some layered it over itself. Others filtered and reversed it. Edits became sharper and more complex. What began as a six-second solo became a bottomless source of rhythmic invention.

Breakbeats Across Drum and Bass Subgenres

As jungle matured into drum and bass, breakbeats remained central to the sound but were treated in increasingly diverse ways. From the clinical precision of techstep to the warm fluidity of liquid, each subgenre used the same raw ingredients to express something different. The Amen was still present, but its role evolved from chaotic centrepiece to sculpted texture.

Techstep and the Rise of Precision

By the mid-1990s, drum and bass began to splinter into darker and more controlled directions. Techstep emerged as a reaction to the ragga influence and looseness of early jungle, favouring mechanical rhythms, dystopian atmospheres and aggressive bass design.

Producers like Ed Rush & Optical, Trace and Dom & Roland were at the forefront. They took the Amen and other classic breaks, cut them into tightly controlled fragments, and layered them with heavily processed hits. The feel shifted from wild and improvisational to clinical and deliberate.

Techstep artists approached breakbeats with a focus on precision and impact. Rather than allowing loose groove, producers dissected the Amen and other loops into tightly edited fragments. Snares were layered to sharpen the attack, and percussion hits were reconstructed to maximise impact. The result was a musical style built on surgical clarity and hard-edged power.

The result was a sound that retained the DNA of early breakbeat music but pushed it into a colder, more synthetic realm. Tracks like Bacteria by Ed Rush & Optical or Dom & Roland’s Soundwall are key examples, technical, militant and meticulously engineered.

Liquid and the Return to Musicality

While techstep drilled down into rhythm science, another movement was forming that brought back emotion, melody and soul. Often called “intelligent” drum and bass in its earliest phase, it eventually settled under the broader banner of liquid.

Breakbeats remained essential, but they were smoothed out and blended into more musical arrangements. Artists like LTJ Bukem, Makoto, Seba, Calibre and early Hospital Records acts used live-feel breaks such as the Hot Pants break, the Apache or the Soul Pride loop. These were usually kept closer to their original form and lightly edited rather than brutally chopped.

Photek, one of the most technically refined producers of the 1990s, reflected on the breakbeat’s evolution in a 1996 interview with Muzik Magazine: “Everyone uses the same breaks. It’s very rare to find a new break which is really worth using. They’re drying up.” His comment captured the shift in attitude at the time. Rather than battering the Amen into submission, many producers began searching for subtle ways to manipulate rhythm, allowing space and silence to play a role. This approach shaped everything from Bukem’s rolling atmospheres to the skeletal grooves of minimal drum and bass a decade later.

Liquid opened the door to a more emotional connection with breakbeats. Where techstep chased intensity, liquid sought elegance. The Amen was still used, but often filtered or tucked behind soft keys and subby basslines, as heard in early High Contrast or Nu:Tone tracks.

Halftime, Minimal and the 160 Revival

In the 2010s, breakbeats began to reappear in stripped-down, experimental forms. The halftime movement flipped the script, slowing rhythmic perception to half-speed while keeping tempos high. This gave space to deep sub-bass, textures and sparse, thudding kicks.

Artists like Sam Binga, Fracture, Skeptical and Homemade Weapons embraced this format. Breaks were used sparingly, often cut into small motifs or reversed hits. The Amen and Think breaks were still sampled, but their structure was often dismantled completely.

Meanwhile, a younger generation was turning heads with high-speed breakbeat experimentation. Artists such as Sully, Coco Bryce, Dwarde, Tim Reaper and FFF brought a rawer, looser approach, blending jungle energy with influences from footwork, hardcore and breakcore. Rather than relying on nostalgia, they reimagined the breakbeat as something with fresh potential. As UKF noted in 2020, Tim Reaper had already built a formidable reputation for pushing the classic rave sound into new directions.

One of the most interesting developments is how these artists use modern tools to push old breaks into new territory. Coco Bryce often records his drums to tape, giving them a warped, decayed feel. Sully combines live drum sequencing with dense sampling to blur the line between analogue and digital.

SHERELLE, known for championing 160 BPM and beyond, told Mixmag: “The Amen is part of our heritage. But the way people are using it now, chopping it at 170, layering it with jungle tekno, flipping it at 160, it’s constantly evolving. It’s never just one thing.”

This new wave of producers is not bound by traditional genre lines. Whether in footwork, jungle techno or breakbeat hardcore, the break remains the unifying force. The Amen, Think and Funky Drummer loops are not relics. They are living, mutating forms still shaping the sound of dancefloors worldwide.

The Modern Producer's Toolkit

While the classic breaks are still sampled directly from vinyl by purists, many modern producers work with high-quality digital rips, processed stems, or even recreate breaks from scratch. The tools have changed, but the approach still demands creativity and care.

In software like Ableton, Logic, or Bitwig, producers slice breaks into individual hits and resequence them entirely. Some apply pitch shifting or timestretching, while others use granular synthesis to smear the transients or transform snares into ambient textures. Layering is key, with different kick and snare samples added beneath the original break to give it weight and clarity.

Resampling is another common technique. This involves bouncing the break down after initial processing, then feeding it back through saturation plugins, distortion units or hardware samplers like the Akai S950. It gives the drums a crustier edge, reminiscent of early jungle without simply copying it.

This attitude captures the ethos of many contemporary breakbeat artists. It is not about preserving the break as a museum piece. It is about stretching its possibilities in every direction.

The Ethics and Legacy of Sampling

The legacy of breakbeat culture is not just musical, it is also political. Many of the most iconic breaks were performed by African-American drummers in the 1960s and 1970s, and for decades, they received little or no compensation for the use of their work.

The Winstons’ Gregory Coleman died in poverty in 2006, never having earned royalties from the Amen Break. In response, fans and musicians raised over $24,000 in donations for surviving band member Richard Spencer, who had always maintained that the break should have been protected.

This raises ongoing questions about sampling, copyright, and fairness. Some labels now attempt to clear samples or pay tribute to the source material in their liner notes. Others rely on processed or re-recorded versions of classic breaks to avoid legal complications.

Despite the legal grey areas, there is widespread respect for the original creators. Breakbeat culture thrives on acknowledgement, homage and lineage. Many producers, particularly those in the modern jungle revival, see themselves as caretakers of a tradition, not just users of convenient loops.

Why Breakbeats Still Matter

Breakbeats are more than just rhythmic tools. They carry history, feel and intent. A single drum fill, played fifty years ago, can still electrify a dancefloor in 2025. That continuity connects generations, linking pirate radio to Boiler Room, dubplates to digital stems, and cassette culture to Bandcamp exclusives.

The breakbeat also resists standardisation. In an era where grid-locked production and robotic quantisation dominate electronic music, breakbeats still offer unpredictability. No matter how many times they are chopped, pitched or processed, they retain a sense of human movement.

They are, as SHERELLE put it, “our DNA”, a living, breathing force within the music.

From hardcore to halftime, the journey of the breakbeat is far from over. It continues to twist, scatter and punch through speakers in new forms, reminding us that the future of drum and bass is still built on the shoulders of a perfectly timed snare.

Breakbeats are more than samples. They are threads that run through decades of musical evolution, connecting generations of producers, DJs and ravers. Whether spliced into dark rollers, chopped into 160 experiments or rolled out in liquid soundscapes, these rhythms continue to shape the future while honouring the past. As long as there is drum and bass, the break will live on.