Somewhere buried inside thousands of hit records, a handful of musicians created sounds so perfect, so rhythmically alive, that the entire modern music industry built itself around them. Most of those musicians never saw a meaningful royalty check. Some died without knowing the scale of their influence. Their names were rarely, if ever, printed on the records that borrowed their genius.
Sampling has always carried a complicated moral weight. Popularised in early hip-hop and now used across all genres, it is the art of taking and reworking a recording into a new context, breathing fresh life and a different approach into an older piece of music. The tracks below are the ones sampled most, documented most, and in many cases, credited least.
1. “Amen, Brother” by The Winstons (1969) – The Six Seconds That Built Genres
The drum break comes from the 1969 track “Amen, Brother” by the American soul group the Winstons, released as the B-side of the single “Color Him Father.” The drum break lasts seven seconds and was performed by Gregory Coleman. The Amen Break has formed the rhythmic basis for entire genres, like drum and bass and jungle, been used in TV commercials, and is even used in the theme from Futurama.
The Winstons received no royalties for the sample. The bandleader, Richard Lewis Spencer, was not aware of its use until 1996, after the statute of limitations for copyright infringement had passed. Coleman died homeless and destitute in 2006. Spencer said it was unlikely he was aware of the impact he had made on music. In 2026, “Amen, Brother” was selected by the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for its “cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.”
2. “Funky Drummer” by James Brown (1969) – The Beat Nobody Paid For
Its drum break, improvised by Clyde Stubblefield, is one of the most frequently sampled recordings. A 20-second drum loop that would go on to be sampled on over 1,300 songs, from Public Enemy and Beastie Boys to George Michael, Britney Spears and Ed Sheeran. In 1986, the tracks “South Bronx,” “Eric B. is President” and “It’s a Demo” sampled Stubblefield’s drum break, helping popularize sampling. The drum break was then used by hip hop acts including Public Enemy, N.W.A, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and in the theme music to The Powerpuff Girls.
Stubblefield did not see royalties for any of its uses, even the original – legally, he was an employee, so the royalties and credit went to James Brown. As Stubblefield did not receive a songwriter credit for “Funky Drummer,” he received no royalties for the sampling. He passed away in 2017, and the fact remains that a musician who created one of the most memorable pieces of music of all time ended up dying in relative poverty, and was never properly compensated financially for his talent and innovation.
3. “Think (About It)” by Lyn Collins (1972) – The “Yeah! Woo!” Heard Everywhere
Released by US soul singer Lyn Collins in 1972, “Think (About It)” was a James Brown production, played by his revolutionary early 70s band the JBs. Whether it be the snare sound, the tambourine loop, the vocal stab, or any other bits of Lyn Collins’ performance, “Think (About It)” contains some of the most important samples in hip hop, dance, and pop production history. With an estimated 3,316 uses, Lyn Collins’ “Think (About It)” has become a favourite amongst producers, used by the likes of Madlib, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, and even Beyoncé.
The very sound and character of UK hardcore, jungle and drum and bass has been at least partly defined by just a few breakbeats, and “Think” can be thought of as a foundational building block of UK dance music. James Brown was well known for taking credit for the musical contributions from his band and singers, and Collins may also have contributed lyrics or melody to “Think.” The feminist lyrical content of the intro doesn’t sound like something Brown would write. Collins passed away in 2005, and the number of surviving members of his band goes down every year.
4. “Change the Beat (Female Version)” by Beside (1982) – The Scratch That Launched a Thousand Records
This 1982 track is known for the famous “Ahhh, this stuff is really fresh” vocal snippet, which has been scratched into numerous hip-hop records and DJ sets worldwide. Producer Bill Laswell and manager Roger Trilling claim they recorded the sample to mock a record executive who would respond with “this stuff is really fresh!” when he heard a new song he liked. Roger Trilling recorded the imitation through a vocoder and it was attached to the end of this B-side.
What gets sampled is a vocodered phrase used as a scratchable sound. Turntablists and producers use this tiny vocalised phrase as a percussive or scratching device, and it has become a DJ tool translated into sample form, appearing in thousands of tracks. You’ve heard it in Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,” Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop.” The sample’s origins – a throwaway joke at an executive’s expense – make it one of music’s more quietly absurd ironies.
5. “Apache (Jump On It)” by the Incredible Bongo Band (1973) – The National Anthem of Hip-Hop
Sometimes called “the national anthem of hip-hop,” this 1973 track was a staple at block parties and DJ battles. It’s been sampled by Missy Elliott, Sugarhill Gang, and Nas. Apache features a long percussive break and found new success in sampling by Afrika Bambaataa, The Sugarhill Gang, LL Cool J, The Roots, and Nas. Its bongo-heavy opening is one of the most recognisable sounds in the entire history of the breakbeat.
The song has spanned genres, being used variably in electronic and alternative music by Moby, Goldie, J Majik, and The Future Sound of London. The Incredible Bongo Band itself was essentially a studio project assembled specifically to record percussive instrumentals for the film “Bongo Rock,” giving the track an almost accidental quality. Its creators could not have anticipated that a single drum pattern would outlast nearly everything else from that era of recording.
6. “Synthetic Substitution” by Melvin Bliss (1973) – The Unknown Backbone of Hip-Hop
Producers prize this track for its clean, isolated drum break and percussion hits. It checks both boxes that matter to samplers: musical usefulness and sonic cleanliness, and has shown up in many classic hip-hop tracks. Melvin Bliss recorded the track as an obscure funk single in 1973, and it spent nearly a decade in near-complete obscurity before DJs started pulling it apart for its uniquely dry, open drum sound.
Melvin Bliss’s “Synthetic Substitution” consistently appears in the top ten most-sampled tracks in music history according to WhoSampled’s data. Despite the sample appearing in hundreds of rap and electronic records, Bliss himself remained largely anonymous to mainstream audiences throughout his lifetime. His name is far more familiar to crate-digging producers than to the general public, which captures the strange invisibility that defines so many of these stories.
7. “Impeach the President” by the Honey Drippers (1973) – The Snare That Defined an Era
The drum pattern from “Impeach the President” is dry, roomy and easy to loop under rap vocals. Recorded by Roy C. Hammond’s group the Honey Drippers, the track was a regional funk single built around one of the most copied snare sounds in hip-hop history. That particular snare crack ended up embedded in records across multiple decades and genres, far beyond anything its creators imagined when they pressed the original vinyl.
The Honey Drippers’ “Impeach the President” consistently ranks in the top ten most-sampled tracks of all time according to sample databases. Like several other entries on this list, the people behind it never received compensation proportional to the track’s cultural footprint. The song’s title became something of an accidental punchline over the decades, resurfacing in political contexts, while its musical DNA quietly powered entirely unrelated hits.
8. “La Di Da Di” by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick (1985) – Hip-Hop’s Most Borrowed Moment
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s off-kilter track on popular music. Countless bars from nineties hip-hop tracks paid homage to “La Di Da Di,” and it continues to be a popular choice for artists today, from Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus. Songs that sampled it include Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize,” Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ,” Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop,” and Kelis’s “Millionaire,” to name but a few.
Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” is technically the most sampled hip-hop track in rap history. The track was never a huge commercial hit on release, but it circulated ferociously through DJ culture and became a kind of shared vocabulary for rap producers. Unlike some other entries here, the artists behind it were at least known within hip-hop circles, though the scale of borrowing from the track still largely went unacknowledged in liner notes.
9. “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve (1997) – A Hit That Belonged to Someone Else
Released in 1997, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was The Verve’s biggest hit. The whole song is based on a sample from “The Last Time,” played by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, which was itself a cover of the song first released by the Rolling Stones in 1965. Initial consent was given by Decca Records, but when the song became such a big hit, the band was sued by Allen Klein who owns the rights to the original Stones version. To avoid any further trouble, The Verve gave in and donated the rights to the song to Allen Klein’s company, ABKCO Music.
The result was that Richard Ashcroft, who wrote the song’s lyrics and melody, received no songwriting royalties for years on one of the most recognisable records of the late nineties. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were eventually listed as songwriters on the track despite having no involvement in the composition of the song as it exists. The case became one of the most frequently cited examples in music industry discussions about the limits of sample clearance and what “permission” actually means once a record becomes a phenomenon. In 2019, Jagger and Richards finally returned the songwriting credits to Ashcroft, a resolution that came over two decades late.
