Give It Up or Turnit a Loose

The record

“Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” was written by Charles Bobbit and first issued by James Brown as a King single in January 1969, after a session on October 29, 1968, at Criteria Studios in Miami. That version reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 15 on the Hot 100. Brown recut the song with the J.B.'s, the band built around bassist Bootsy Collins and guitarist Catfish Collins, for the double album Sex Machine, released by King in September 1970. The new arrangement added an organ riff, a busier bassline and different lyrics. Sex Machine is presented as a concert album, but its first two sides are studio recordings with added reverb and audience noise, so the version heard on the record is not a true live take. The album reached number 4 on Billboard's soul albums chart.

The break

After Brown calls out “clap your hands, stomp your feet”, the band drops to handclaps, footstomps and Johnny Griggs's congas. Brown then cues the drums back in, followed by Bootsy's bass and the rest of the J.B.'s. With the melody gone, the section is almost entirely percussion, which suited dancers and DJs alike.

Into hip hop

This version, not the 1969 single, is the one the Bronx adopted. DJ Kool Herc persuaded his father to buy him Sex Machine, and in 1973 he put two copies on the turntables and switched between them to extend the breakdown, a method he called the Merry-Go-Round. His dancers, the break-boys and break-girls, made the record a b-boy anthem. In August 1986 Polydor issued a remix by Tim Rogers on In the Jungle Groove, a compilation aimed at producers who were already sampling Brown, and that 6:09 edit became the common source. It appears on Public Enemy's “Bring the Noise” (1987), Kurtis Blow's “Back by Popular Demand” (1988) and Freddie Foxxx's “The Master” (1989). The track was also collected on the Ultimate Breaks and Beats series.

Legacy

In 1990 N.W.A used the remix on “100 Miles and Runnin'” and LL Cool J used it on “To Da Break of Dawn”. AMG, Jeru the Damaja and many others followed. The song remains a standard at breaking battles, and its history is a clear example of how a DJ's choice of one version over another shaped what later producers sampled.