The “Amen break” (usually pronounced /ɑːˈmɛn/^{[citation needed]}) was a brief drum solo performed in 1969 by Gregory Sylvester “G. C.” Coleman in The Winstons”s song “Amen, Brother”.

The “Amen Break”, “Amen”, or imitations thereof, are frequently used as sampled drum loops in hip hop, jungle, breakcore and drum and bass music. It is 5.20 seconds long and consists of four bars of the drum-solo sampled from the song “Amen, Brother” as performed by the 1960s funk and souloutfit The Winstons. The song is an up-tempo instrumental rendition of an older gospel music classic. The Winstons” version was released as a B-side of the 45 RPM 7-inch vinyl single “Color Him Father” in 1969 on Metromedia (MMS-117), and is currently available on several compilations and on a 12-inch vinyl re-release together with other songs by The Winstons.

The Amen Break was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music – “a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures”

By 1990, at the height of British rave culture, the Amen began to appear in an increasing number of so called breakbeat hardcore productions. Hardcore emphasized a unique, harsh, aggressive sound that drew strongly from hip-hop and early acid house. It added a hip-hop influence with the addition of breakbeats and increased the tempo. A strong reggae and raggainfluence emerged in 1991/92, with uplifting piano melody loops or Jamaican reggae samples used at normal speed layered on top of frenetic 150 to 170 BPM breakbeats. This sound quickly evolved to a point where sliced and diced drum breaks (featuring whacky time stretched snare rolls), in conjunction with low frequency bass lines (sub bass), became the important features of many tracks; a style that was initially referred to as Jungle but then later, as the style progressed, and the rhythmic elements were refined, the term drum and bass was used to sum up the sound (which is quite literally what it was). Around the mid 1990s a number of so called IDM producers, who had been influenced by the Jungle/DnB sound, began to focus on the style and started exploring it in the context of electronica (making “danceable” club oriented tracks was not a prerequisite, in fact the more outlandish and obscure the manipulations, the more aesthetically pleasing the records were to aficionados—a trend that continues to this day in the form of breakcore). The amen break can still be found in many productions and there has in recent years been a renewed interest in the “old-skool” Jungle style. Luke Vibert, one of the many IDM producers who has explored this break (other examples include Squarepusher), has released several records under the moniker Amen Andrews, using the Amen on nearly every track, heavily sliced and edited (yet recognizable).