A solo drum pattern usually played on the kick, snare and hi-hat and lasting for one or two bars; it is often distinguished by an emphasis on syncopation on the snare. In the 1980s rap artists began using breakbeats as the rhythmic basis for their music. The original and best known is Clyde Stubblefield’s break in James Brown’s Funky Drummer (1970); it has been sampled by a number of rap (Public Enemy) and dance music artists as well as more mainstream pop performers such as Madonna and George Michael. English indie bands of the late 1980s and early 90s, such as the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, influenced by Stubblefield-like breaks, often employed similar shuffling drum patterns in their music. In all these types of music, breakbeats were generally employed as part of the rhythmic background. By the mid-1990s certain strains of English dance music, including jungle and drum and bass, employed electronically composed, as well as sampled breaks (often at high speeds) as the main focus of the music and the primary structural element. On Photek’s album, Modus Operandi (Science, 1997) the drum beats are developed through rhythmic and timbral variation over cyclic bass lines and impressionistic synthesized chords and effects. The term breakbeat is often used to describe any electronic music using drum breaks.
CHARLIE FURNISS