Blood, Sweat & Tears were an anomaly in 1969 — a nine-piece jazz-rock band with a full horn section competing on the pop charts against Motown and the British Invasion. "Spinning Wheel" was their commercial peak, a David Clayton-Thomas vocal showcase driven by punchy brass charts and Bobby Colomby's muscular drumming. The song climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, won a Grammy, and became one of the defining tracks of the jazz-rock movement. For most listeners, that's where the story ends.

For hip-hop producers, it was just the beginning. The track's drum breaks — particularly Colomby's swinging fills and the exposed percussion sections between vocal passages — were tailor-made for sampling. The Jungle Brothers grabbed it early for "Because I Got It Like That" in 1988. De La Soul flipped it for "Ring Ring Ring." Q-Tip wove it into "Luck of Lucien." But the biggest moment came in 1996 when Busta Rhymes built "Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check" around the break, turning Colomby's jazz-rock drumming into one of the year's biggest hip-hop hits.

There's an irony in "Spinning Wheel" becoming a hip-hop staple. Blood, Sweat & Tears were often dismissed by rock purists as too slick, too commercial — a Vegas act masquerading as a serious band. Hip-hop didn't care about any of that. Producers heard drums that hit hard and horns that punched, and that was enough. Colomby's playing has now soundtracked more hip-hop than jazz-rock, which is either poetic justice or the ultimate compliment, depending on your perspective.