James Brown

James Brown came up from rural South Carolina poverty through gospel quartets, prison, and the chitlin’ circuit, where his Famous Flames built a live act of such violence and precision — the screams, the knee-drops, the cape routine — that the 1963 Live at the Apollo album, recorded with his own money against his label’s wishes, stayed on the pop charts for over a year (Smith 2012).

The deeper revolution was rhythmic. From “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (1965) onward, Brown rebuilt the band around the One and converted song into groove: “Cold Sweat,” “Sex Machine,” “Funky Drummer” — whose Clyde Stubblefield drum break became the most sampled bars in recorded music. Hip-hop is unimaginable without his catalog; by some counts his records have been sampled more than anyone else’s, ever (Smith 2012).

Brown’s social weight matched the music: “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968) made him a movement voice, and his Boston concert the night after Dr. King’s assassination, broadcast live, is credited with keeping the city calm. A hard, contradictory man — bandleader-disciplinarian, entrepreneur, later years marked by arrests — he stands where this site’s soul, funk and hip-hop nodes meet: the single most consequential rhythm maker in American popular music.