Admitting to sampling Ultimate Breaks and Beats is one of the last remaining sacred cows of rap music. Ghostwriters and beat-jacking entire songs all seems to be fine and dandy these days, but the pride of claiming that you personally found every drum sound, horn stab and loop in the dollar bin of a ‘Mom & Pop’ thrift store/op shop is something that a very rare few are willing to admit to. When I asked UBB co-creator Breakbeat Lou about this, he revealed how Mantronik put together his classic ‘King of the Beats’ record:
Breakbeat Lou: What we tried to put out was something that was rarely available or people didn’t really know the name of it, even though we heard it many times in the parks and in the jams. In the later volumes, we were trying to push the envelope in the sense to do your homework the same way we used to do our homework. We tried to give you the tools to let you know there’s more you can search for than just what’s here. You can do your homework and go to a store and find out what else can be on Stax records, what else can be on People records. We were the instruments for keeping hip-hop ‘hip-hop,’ and we were the college for diggers. The digging craze started with us. Mantronik would want to get a test-pressing as soon as we got them. He would say, ‘Whatever you want, I’ll give you for the test pressing.’
John Leland and Steven Stein also caught sight of Kurtis in action, circa 1988:
Back at the Music Factory, Mantronik, the musical half of Mantronix, eyes the painting of a shattered skull on the cover of volume 12 of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats. He flips the jacket, new since his last visit, to look at the track listings. “What!?” Then, “Oh shyt.” Then he realizes that the “Johnny the Fox” title he sees isn’t the Tricky Tee record he produced, but the Thin Lizzy original from which they took the title and beat. On a pillar opposite the Ultimate Breaks and Beats is a column of albums in green or black jackets that bear the legend, SUPER DISCO BRAKE’S. Mantronik sneers, “Those pressings suck.”
STANLEY PLATZER: Well, the Salt-n-Pepa girls were in, and then they went into the studio, they bought every one. Volume one to I think 12, at the time, and then they made the LP, they had them all on there. Jam-Master Jay bought four each, about three weeks ago.
K-Prince: I heard people were trying to get the test presses before the actual volumes came out, because they would be the first to sample the white label a few months before the actual pressings came out. My friend Willie Dynamite used to work at Downstairs Records. Ced-Gee, Marley Marl would come into the shop, asking if they had gotten the test pressings for the next volume.
DJ Eclipse: Me and my man The Mighty Maestro met Kool Moe Dee backstage at a concert. We started asking him about breakbeats because at this point we only knew the breaks by sound, not name. He told us a couple that he knew, but said we should ask his DJ, Easy Lee. After the show was over Lee pulled out an Ultimate Breaks and Beats LP and told me that was where everyone was getting them from. I wrote down the contact information off of the record. The next day I ordered doubles of all the volumes that were available at that time. Interestingly enough, we had first stepped to Eric B & Rakim with the same question at the same show and they both acted like dikks.
Amusingly, David Toop cites Eric B’s ‘disgust’ with DJ’s using breakbeat albums in his 1984 book, Rap Attack:
I asked the late Paul Nice about this as well:
Did you notice that a lot of hip-hop records would sample the new volumes as they came out?
Definitely, especially towards the later volumes. I called them ‘foundation’ records – they really were the foundation for golden era hip-hop. I think Diamond D said, ‘Lazy producers? Sometimes you would hear three or four songs off the same volume.’ Some of the more refined tastemakers like Diamond D – those guys who would shine a little bit later and were a little bit more innovative with their production techniques – would try not to sample from there. At some point it was obvious that those were the go-to records.
It’s interesting that there’s almost nobody who’s willing to admit that they sampled off of them.
You never know. There was that Dismasters song called ‘Keisha’ which was off the ‘Keep Your Distance’, the Babe Ruth [song]. I think Salt ‘N Pepa used a different part of that same record. When that came out I was like, ‘Oh wow!’ In hindsight – and maybe this is just me being cynical – but maybe Hurby The Luvbug got it right from the Volumes, the Ultimate Breaks and Beats albums, and Chuck Chillout or one of these guys from Bronxwood Productions or whoever was behind the Dismasters actually had the original record. I don’t know, it’s a mystery.
In terms of any artists actually admitting they dipped their creative wick into the UBB inkwell…this is as rare as ‘Take Me To The Mardi Gras’ without the bells. I spent some time trawling through my rap books, magazines and even the internetS (RIP Dallas Penn!) and all I was able to find were three examples of anyone actually admitting they took a funky break (from UBB) and they looped it.
EXHIBIT A:
Sweeny Kovar was able to wring a confession out of Peanut Butter Wolf (who I once saw cosplaying a Guy Richie character when he performed in Melbourne, in what was either a really dedicated piece of performance art or his misguided belief that British geezers get more dolly birds than Yankees on these shores) for this UBB feature for Passion of the Weiss in 2014:
PB Wolf: San Francisco was an hour drive for me and it was before I had a car so I’d have to find a friend or relative to take me up there to get them and I’d be bummed when they were sold out. San Jose was a difficult place to find the original breaks and those compilations would teach me all about hip hop more than anything. I remember driving down to LA maybe once a year or so and finding more volumes of the records and buying whatever I could afford. I’d use all of [the] volumes. A lot of the songs I was making with Charizma in the early 90’s were using things from them, but even the stuff I was doing in the late 80’s before I met Charizma was too. A song we did called “Ice Cream Truck” comes to mind as using a few different songs from UBB.
EXHIBIT B:
Brian Coleman detailed the recording of the first Jungle Brothers album in his 2005 book, Rakim Told Me:
More here: The three times in history that anyone has admitted to sampling Ultimate Breaks and Beats – unkut.com – A Tribute To Ignorance (Remix)
Breakbeat Lou: What we tried to put out was something that was rarely available or people didn’t really know the name of it, even though we heard it many times in the parks and in the jams. In the later volumes, we were trying to push the envelope in the sense to do your homework the same way we used to do our homework. We tried to give you the tools to let you know there’s more you can search for than just what’s here. You can do your homework and go to a store and find out what else can be on Stax records, what else can be on People records. We were the instruments for keeping hip-hop ‘hip-hop,’ and we were the college for diggers. The digging craze started with us. Mantronik would want to get a test-pressing as soon as we got them. He would say, ‘Whatever you want, I’ll give you for the test pressing.’
John Leland and Steven Stein also caught sight of Kurtis in action, circa 1988:
Back at the Music Factory, Mantronik, the musical half of Mantronix, eyes the painting of a shattered skull on the cover of volume 12 of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats. He flips the jacket, new since his last visit, to look at the track listings. “What!?” Then, “Oh shyt.” Then he realizes that the “Johnny the Fox” title he sees isn’t the Tricky Tee record he produced, but the Thin Lizzy original from which they took the title and beat. On a pillar opposite the Ultimate Breaks and Beats is a column of albums in green or black jackets that bear the legend, SUPER DISCO BRAKE’S. Mantronik sneers, “Those pressings suck.”
STANLEY PLATZER: Well, the Salt-n-Pepa girls were in, and then they went into the studio, they bought every one. Volume one to I think 12, at the time, and then they made the LP, they had them all on there. Jam-Master Jay bought four each, about three weeks ago.
K-Prince: I heard people were trying to get the test presses before the actual volumes came out, because they would be the first to sample the white label a few months before the actual pressings came out. My friend Willie Dynamite used to work at Downstairs Records. Ced-Gee, Marley Marl would come into the shop, asking if they had gotten the test pressings for the next volume.
DJ Eclipse: Me and my man The Mighty Maestro met Kool Moe Dee backstage at a concert. We started asking him about breakbeats because at this point we only knew the breaks by sound, not name. He told us a couple that he knew, but said we should ask his DJ, Easy Lee. After the show was over Lee pulled out an Ultimate Breaks and Beats LP and told me that was where everyone was getting them from. I wrote down the contact information off of the record. The next day I ordered doubles of all the volumes that were available at that time. Interestingly enough, we had first stepped to Eric B & Rakim with the same question at the same show and they both acted like dikks.
Amusingly, David Toop cites Eric B’s ‘disgust’ with DJ’s using breakbeat albums in his 1984 book, Rap Attack:
I asked the late Paul Nice about this as well:
Did you notice that a lot of hip-hop records would sample the new volumes as they came out?
Definitely, especially towards the later volumes. I called them ‘foundation’ records – they really were the foundation for golden era hip-hop. I think Diamond D said, ‘Lazy producers? Sometimes you would hear three or four songs off the same volume.’ Some of the more refined tastemakers like Diamond D – those guys who would shine a little bit later and were a little bit more innovative with their production techniques – would try not to sample from there. At some point it was obvious that those were the go-to records.
It’s interesting that there’s almost nobody who’s willing to admit that they sampled off of them.
You never know. There was that Dismasters song called ‘Keisha’ which was off the ‘Keep Your Distance’, the Babe Ruth [song]. I think Salt ‘N Pepa used a different part of that same record. When that came out I was like, ‘Oh wow!’ In hindsight – and maybe this is just me being cynical – but maybe Hurby The Luvbug got it right from the Volumes, the Ultimate Breaks and Beats albums, and Chuck Chillout or one of these guys from Bronxwood Productions or whoever was behind the Dismasters actually had the original record. I don’t know, it’s a mystery.
In terms of any artists actually admitting they dipped their creative wick into the UBB inkwell…this is as rare as ‘Take Me To The Mardi Gras’ without the bells. I spent some time trawling through my rap books, magazines and even the internetS (RIP Dallas Penn!) and all I was able to find were three examples of anyone actually admitting they took a funky break (from UBB) and they looped it.
EXHIBIT A:
Sweeny Kovar was able to wring a confession out of Peanut Butter Wolf (who I once saw cosplaying a Guy Richie character when he performed in Melbourne, in what was either a really dedicated piece of performance art or his misguided belief that British geezers get more dolly birds than Yankees on these shores) for this UBB feature for Passion of the Weiss in 2014:
PB Wolf: San Francisco was an hour drive for me and it was before I had a car so I’d have to find a friend or relative to take me up there to get them and I’d be bummed when they were sold out. San Jose was a difficult place to find the original breaks and those compilations would teach me all about hip hop more than anything. I remember driving down to LA maybe once a year or so and finding more volumes of the records and buying whatever I could afford. I’d use all of [the] volumes. A lot of the songs I was making with Charizma in the early 90’s were using things from them, but even the stuff I was doing in the late 80’s before I met Charizma was too. A song we did called “Ice Cream Truck” comes to mind as using a few different songs from UBB.
EXHIBIT B:
Brian Coleman detailed the recording of the first Jungle Brothers album in his 2005 book, Rakim Told Me:
More here: The three times in history that anyone has admitted to sampling Ultimate Breaks and Beats – unkut.com – A Tribute To Ignorance (Remix)