Impeach The President by The Honey Drippers

Album: All The Breaks (1973)

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The 1965 song "Shotgun Wedding" may have been Roy C's biggest hit, but "Impeach The President" has been sampled so many times that it has to be considered his most significant. Dozens of musicians have borrowed the song's drum pattern, including prominent acts like LL Cool J, Ice Cube, 2pac, Prince, Wu-Tang Clan, Janet Jackson, and many others.

"Impeach The President" is officially credited to a funk outfit named the Honey Drippers, but that group was really just Roy C (Roy Charles Hammond) with a group of students from Jamaica High School in Queens, New York.

Speaking with WaxPoetics, C explained, "After the group of young white guys that I used on 'Shotgun Wedding,' I ran into a group of black kids that went to Jamaica High School. I drilled them in the basement, and they were pretty good."

With his new backing band, C recorded multiple songs, most of which remain unreleased. "Impeach The President" and "Open Letter To The President" were the two sent out into the world as finished products. They were both released under C's Alaga Records.
Running 3:17, the song has a great funk sound, with the band calling out over and over "impeach the president" while C talks about Richard Nixon's White House.

Nixon, of course, was indeed impeached the year after this single was released.

"As a songwriter, I think we should be involved in the things happening around us," C told WaxPoetics in 2011.
He was photographed with James Brown, but Richard Nixon was not popular with most soul and funk musicians. Stevie Wonder let him have it in 1974 with "You Haven't Done Nothin'."
C released at least 125 records over the course of his life, but never had a major commercial breakout. He also ran Carolina Record Distributors in Allendale, South Carolina. His big financial break should have been from all the "Impeach the President" samples, but it didn't work out that way.

C had heard rumors for years that his song was sampled by various acts, but it wasn't until 1993 when he caught Janet Jackson's "That's The Way Love Goes" on the radio that he heard it for himself. He found out that it was one of many songs to sample "Impeach the President," but his efforts to get his share of royalties proved fruitless.
The B-side to "Impeach the President" was "Roy C's Theme."
In 2017, the song was re-released to iTunes by Tuff City Records.

Comments: 1

Henry I. Cisco, Nephew To The Late Roy C Hammond from Long Island, New York Litigation will soon be on the way for those who think or believe they got away with sampling his song (Impeach the President) without those two(2) licensing agreements. Millions of dollars is owed to my Uncle which he will be compensated for the theft of his song.

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