Led Zeppelin recorded "When the Levee Breaks" for their untitled fourth album in 1971, with drummer John Bonham's kit set up in the stairwell of Headley Grange, a converted Victorian workhouse in Hampshire, England. The natural reverb of the three-story stairwell gave Bonham's already massive drumming an even more cavernous sound — the kick drum booms like distant thunder, and the whole groove feels like it's being played inside a cathedral.

Producer Jimmy Page compressed and processed the drum sound through innovative recording techniques that were decades ahead of their time. When hip-hop producers discovered the track, they found a drum break unlike anything in the funk and soul catalog — heavier, slower, and drenched in natural ambience. The Beastie Boys' "Rhymin & Stealin" made it a hip-hop classic, and it has since appeared in tracks by Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Massive Attack.

"When the Levee Breaks" is the rare rock drum break that hip-hop treats with the same reverence as the great funk breaks. Bonham's performance — and Page's revolutionary recording of it — created a rhythm so powerful it transcended genre entirely.