Headhunters served up this fat slice of funk in 1975, featuring a famous sample that’s formed the basis  of countless hip hop tunes ever since.

Oh wow… this is how it’s done. I’ve heard that drum fill in so many hip hop tunes I’d almost forgotten where it came from. The answer is right here on God Make Me Funky, back in 1975.

That’s Mike Clark playing the funky drum groove, and Bill Summers on the congas. Then you’ve got Paul Jackson on the bass and an insistent wah-wah guitar riff played by De Wayne ‘Blackbyrd’ McKnight.

Those gals backing Jackson’s lead vocals – they’re The Pointer Sisters. And a bit later on you’ve got Bennie Maupin letting rip with a free-flowing and increasingly demented sax solo.

Put it all together and you’ve got The Headhunters, the jazz-funk fusion band put together in 1973 by Herbie Hancock, though he had left by the time they made Survival Of The Fittest, the album from which this is taken, two years later.

This track, and its drum fill in particular, has lived on in samples by rappers including Biz Markie (who died this week), N.W.A., De La Soul, Nas, Digable Planets, Eric B and Rakim, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

Meanwhile, funk fans will argue endlessly over whether Mike Clark or Ziggy Modeliste was the funkiest drummer in Funkville; just as they argue over the respective funkiness of bassists Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham (and Bernard Edwards, and Louis Johnson).