Apache

So Making Light linked to this cringe-inducing Danish disco video of "Apache", which I had seen before. But the prize of the ensuing thread was the link to this history of the song, which had an early life as a surf-guitar classic with a vaguely pseudo-American-Indian theme, but took a crucial left turn when it was covered by the Incredible Bongo Band in 1973 in an elaborate orchestral funk version with a percussion line that got sampled and otherwise reused by so many hip-hop and other artists that it's now strange to think of it as originating on a particular record rather than existing as a part of the human collective consciousness since prehistory. But now you know.

The plot thickens

On the other hand: then (link via ronebofh) there's the Amen break, which predates the Incredible Bongo Band "Apache" by four years. The Apache break sounds like it begins almost the same way, only slowed down, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were somehow a derivative of the Amen. Or maybe the stretch over which they're the same is too basic to claim as anyone's property. Or maybe the similarity is a coincidence but the recent popularity of the Amen break as a sample is related to Apache's role in rap. Maybe that guy in the video talks about the relationship but I can't be bothered to listen to him go on for the whole twenty minutes.

Speaking of the Insight/Obama/Doocy story

Huh--apparently Moon's Insight magazine isn't even a magazine any more, just a web site that feeds outrageous stories into the right-wing noise machine.