Bob James

Aside from James Brown, Bob James is probably one of the most sampled artists in hip hop. Before his career went from fusion to entirely smooth jazz, James recorded, produced and arranged several albums for CTI. Bob James One, and Four are probably the two most well known to hip hop producers and fans of hip hop because of two of his most sampled songs, “Take me to Mardi Gras” and “Nautilus”. Steve Gadd plays drums on “Take me to Mardi Gras” (aka “Rock the Bells”) which is most famously used in Run DMC’s “Peter Piper”, LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”, and most recently Missy Elliott’s “Work It”. Idris Muhammed (aka the Funky Drummer), plays drums on Nautilus which has been used in Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story”, Ghostface Killah’s “Daytona 500”, Jeru the Damaja’s “My mind Spray” and chopped and cut into dozens of other jams. These two breaks are as essential to hip hop as Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache”, James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” and the Winstons’ “Amen, Brother”. Bob James deserves all the props he can get.
Bob James - Take me to Mardi Gras
Bob James - Nautilus

Don't Change Your Love

The first time I recognized the drums in the song I was in 2nd grade and I heard Naughty by Natures', "Hip Hop Hooray". I didn't know too much about hip hop and sampling then, all I knew was that that snare drum sounded amazing. This easily recognizable break has been used by almost everyone; Big Daddy Kane, Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, De la Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and the list goes on. Five Stairsteps are a pretty solid band in their own right, other than this song, you've probably heard the songs "Oooh Baby, Baby" and "O-o-h Child". This song, written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, starts off with the break and leads into lush production complete with full horn line and strings. Other than the break, I think my favorite things about this song have to be the bassline and the bridge with the horn solo. I read somewhere that James Gadson from Charles Wrights band played on "O-o-h Child" and possibly this song but when I researched it, I couldn't find anything to confirm this. Either way, whoever played drums on this track has a monster left hand.
Don't Change Your Love