Bob James' "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" appeared on his 1975 album Two, and it opens with one of the most sampled sounds in music: a lone tambourine shaking over a sparse drum introduction that builds into a jazz-funk arrangement. That intro — just drums, tambourine, and space — became the raw material for hundreds of hip-hop tracks.

Run-DMC's "Peter Piper" is built entirely around the "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" intro, and that single usage would have been enough to make it legendary. But the break appeared constantly throughout golden-age hip-hop, its combination of crisp drums and that distinctive tambourine sound providing a rhythmic signature that producers reached for again and again. Between this and "Nautilus," Bob James became one of the most sampled artists in hip-hop — a jazz musician whose drum intros mattered more to rap producers than his piano solos.