alt Hacker News"Samples" were kind of like musical memes in the 1980s. What made for a good sample had a lot more to do with convenience and luck. The sounds that were picked for drum samples had more to do with how useful they were - the dynamic range, how isolated the drums are, how easy they were to mix.
The other famous drum sample - the "Funky Drummer" as drummed by Clyde Stubblefield for James Brown, Stubblefield didn't think the particular drum pattern he used was particularly noteworthy. In that case, James Brown's production choices were actually more key - his signature sound revolved around really crisp drums that he insisted needed to be clear on AM Radio and Jukeboxes. Which is what made it so useful for sampling.
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Maybe, but the amen break has a very specific je ne sais quoi that makes it way more useful and pleasant as a sample than almost any other sample. There's just so many situations in the kind of music I make where the amen is like the only loop that fits. Funky drummer might come in second.
It could just be its cultural weight has me hypnotized. But maybe its just that good
Samplers became accessible at the time which allowed music production with just loops. Look at snap I got the power. All looped samples
I saw a video about popular/influential/most-used samples the other week[0] and it mentioned James Brown becoming aware of sampling (I guess mid-late 90s?) and specifically making sure that anything he thought might be sample-able was "clean" from that point on.
[0] GFL finding anything in YouTube history / search these days hence no link. Wasn't from Synthet, I don't think.