King Curtis Ousley was the most in-demand saxophone session player in 1960s New York. He played on records for Aretha Franklin, The Coasters, Sam Cooke, and dozens of others, his thick, honking tenor sax tone instantly recognizable across hundreds of sessions. When Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" topped the pop charts in the summer of 1967, Curtis cut an instrumental soul cover that stripped away the narrative and replaced it with pure groove. The drums on his version — played by the legendary Bernard Purdie — hit with a gritty, swinging aggression that the polished country original never aimed for.

That drum sound became hip-hop currency. DJ Premier chopped it for Gang Starr's "Just to Get a Rep." Q-Tip laced it under the breezy "Award Tour." Most famously, DJ Premier handed it to Nas for "N.Y. State of Mind," where Purdie's drums became the heartbeat of one of the greatest hip-hop tracks ever recorded. The Fugees, Large Professor, and countless others returned to the same well. Purdie's playing on the track has a looseness and swing that quantized drums can never replicate, which is exactly why producers keep coming back to it.

King Curtis never lived to see any of it. He was stabbed to death outside his Manhattan brownstone in August 1971, at just thirty-seven years old. But his version of "Ode to Billie Joe" — a throwaway cover of a pop hit, cut quickly as part of an album session — became one of the most enduring drum breaks in recorded music.