Oct 25, 2026 · Crate digging · 11 min read

Bob James “Nautilus” Samples: The Hip Hop Songs That Used It, and How

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It was a last-minute filler track at the end of a smooth jazz album. Then Run-DMC, Slick Rick, Eric B. & Rakim, Main Source, DJ Premier, RZA and J Dilla got hold of it. This is the story of Bob James’ “Nautilus”, the parts of it hip hop sampled, and how the classics flipped it.

Short answer: what is the “Nautilus” sample?

“Nautilus” is the closing track of Bob James’ 1974 album One on CTI Records. Its eerie synth intro, Gary King’s bass line and a breakdown where Idris Muhammad’s drums play almost alone made it a perfect sample source. Hip hop has used it since the late 1980s: Run-DMC, Slick Rick, Eric B. & Rakim, Main Source, A Tribe Called Quest, Jeru the Damaja, Ghostface Killah and hundreds more. WhoSampled lists 451 songs.

How this was made: written by GUIO, a hip hop producer who makes beats on an MPC Live III. Every sample in this article was checked on WhoSampled (producer and timestamp) on October 25, 2026; the history comes from the album credits and the interviews and articles listed in the sources.

The story behind “Nautilus”

By 1974 Bob James (born in Marshall, Missouri, in 1939) was already a studio heavyweight: Quincy Jones had signed him to Mercury in the early 1960s, he had played piano for Sarah Vaughan, and Creed Taylor had hired him at CTI as an arranger, producer and session player. One was his first solo album for the label, recorded between February and April 1974 at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey.

Most of the record is big and orchestral: a version of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”, Pachelbel’s Canon as “In the Garden”, a cover of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love”. “Nautilus” is different. Aside from the strings, it is basically a trio: James on keyboards, Gary King on bass and New Orleans drummer Idris Muhammad, who also played on “Feel Like Making Love”. James has said he brought it in as a sketch he had been working on at home, recorded at the last minute, and saw it as filler for the end of side two. The title came from Creed Taylor: the synth sound in the intro reminded him of a submarine going under.

One reached No. 2 on Billboard’s jazz albums chart, No. 48 on the soul chart and No. 85 on the pop chart. “Nautilus” was never a single. Its second life started more than a decade later, in the crates of New York producers.

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Bob James – Nautilus (official audio)

Which parts of “Nautilus” get sampled?

This is what makes the song special for a producer: it gives you several different samples in five minutes, and some of them come almost clean, with nothing playing on top. Here is where each famous flip comes from, with the time in the original track as WhoSampled marks it.

The breakdown around 3:30 is the jackpot: drums with only a few keyboard stabs, easy to loop for two bars. The intro is the other favorite: a short, dark figure that turns into a hook on its own.

Songs that sample Bob James’ “Nautilus”: the essential list

WhoSampled has 451 entries, from 1980s classics to beats uploaded last year. These are the hip hop songs that matter most, each one checked on WhoSampled with its producer and the part of “Nautilus” it used.

Source: WhoSampled, checked October 25, 2026. Years follow the original release of each song. According to Stereogum, the very first hip hop sample was Ultramagnetic MC’s “Bait”, made by Ced-Gee in 1986 and released in 1987.

How the classics flipped it

Slick Rick – “Children’s Story” (1988)

The most famous “Nautilus” song is not technically a sample. Slick Rick produced “Children’s Story” himself, and WhoSampled lists it as an interpolation: the bass line was replayed, not lifted from the record. It is a good lesson for producers. Replaying a part means you only need permission for the composition, not for Bob James’ recording.

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Slick Rick – Children’s Story (official video)

Run-DMC and Eric B. & Rakim (1988)

The same year, “Nautilus” hit two of the biggest acts in rap. Run-DMC’s “Beats to the Rhyme” (Tougher Than Leather, produced by Davy DMX and Run-DMC) loops the breakdown around 3:29. Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow the Leader” takes elements from two points of the track (2:26 and 3:15), and the duo came back to Bob James on “Let the Rhythm Hit ’Em” in 1990. Bob James later sat down with Tracklib to react to some of these records (video further down).

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Eric B. & Rakim – Follow the Leader (official video)

Main Source – “Live at the Barbeque” (1991)

On Breaking Atoms, Main Source used the same 3:29 section under a posse cut with Joe Fatal, Akinyele and a teenage Nas, in what is widely cited as his first appearance on a record. Main Source also sampled “Feel Like Making Love”, from the same Bob James album, on “Scratch & Kut”. One LP, two songs on one classic.

A Tribe Called Quest, Jeru the Damaja and DJ Premier (1993–1995)

The intro took over in the mid-1990s. A Tribe Called Quest used it on “Clap Your Hands” (Midnight Marauders, 1993), and DJ Premier turned it into the hook of Jeru the Damaja’s “My Mind Spray” (1994). A year later Premier went back to the same record for Group Home’s “Inna Citi Life”, and this time WhoSampled lists only the drums: two different beats from one song. If you liked Tribe’s side of the story, read our Low End Theory review.

Ghostface Killah – “Daytona 500” (1996)

RZA went for the bass riff that appears around 3:17 and built a fast, restless beat for Ghostface, Raekwon and Cappadonna on Ironman. The same year, J Dilla used “Nautilus” for a Slum Village remix of Keith Murray’s “The Rhyme”. If you want more Dilla, start with our Donuts review.

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Ghostface Killah – Daytona 500 ft. Raekwon, Cappadonna (official video)

The 2000s to now: 9th Wonder, Danny Brown, Freddie Gibbs

“Nautilus” never left. Chucky Thompson put it under Mary J. Blige, DMX and Nas on “Sincerity” (2000). 9th Wonder used the intro for MURS on “Murray’s Revenge” (2006). brandUn DeShay looped the breakdown for Danny Brown’s “Pac Blood” (2011), and Mikhail built Freddie Gibbs and Black Thought’s “Extradite” (2015) from the intro and the refrain at 0:47. Even trap uses it: Maxo Kream’s “Go” (2018) borrows a sound from the track.

Why is “Nautilus” so sampled?

• It comes in pieces. Intro, refrain, bass riff and a drum breakdown are separated in time, so you can grab one part without the others on top.
• It loops in two bars. The groove is simple and steady; Idris Muhammad plays it straight, so a two-bar chop repeats without a bump.
• The mood. Bob James has pointed to the mysterious, atmospheric feel. It is dark without being sad, which suits almost any rapper.
• It was hiding at the end. As the last track of a jazz album that charted, it was easy to own and easy to overlook, the kind of deep cut diggers love to find.

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Tracklib: Bob James on how his most sampled songs came to be, including “Nautilus”

Did Bob James sue over “Nautilus”?

Bob James has had both sides of the story. He has said that discovering unlicensed uses of his music forced him to become a kind of “policeman” of his catalog. He went after DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince over a “Westchester Lady” sample, and in April 2015 he sued Madlib and Stones Throw in federal court in Los Angeles, claiming that the Quasimoto track “Sparkdala” was built on “Nautilus” without permission (it had resurfaced on the 2013 compilation Yessir Whatever). We could not find a public record of how that case ended.

He has also worked with the people who ask first. In 2021 Tracklib announced it had acquired 20 Bob James songs, including “Nautilus”, “Westchester Lady” and “Storm King”, as pre-cleared samples, and he has talked about sampling with 9th Wonder and other producers on their channel.

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Tracklib: Bob James reacts to hits sampling his songs, incl. Run-DMC and Ghostface

Producer’s corner: how to flip “Nautilus” today

If you want to learn from this record, treat it like the classics did: as a box of separate parts.

• Sample from the source. A vinyl rip or a high-quality file of the original; avoid YouTube rips. Our guide on how to sample vinyl covers the turntable side.
• Pick one part. The intro (0:04–0:10) for a hook, the breakdown (around 3:30) for a loop with drums, the bass riff (around 3:17) for a RZA-style beat. Don’t stack them all: the classics rarely did.
• Chop to the grid, then break it. On an MPC, chop the section into regions, map them to pads and replay them in a new order. That is how I work on my MPC Live III; see our MPC Live III review, the best Akai MPC guide or the MPC Sample vs SP-404 MKII vs EP-133 comparison if you are choosing a sampler.
• Make room for drums. Filter the low end of the sample if you add your own kick and bass, or do what Premier did with “Inna Citi Life” and take only the drums.
• Replay or clear. If you plan to release the track, either clear the sample (Tracklib announced “Nautilus” as a pre-cleared sample in 2021) or replay the part, like Slick Rick did with the bass line.

Other Bob James songs hip hop sampled

“Nautilus” is not even his most famous break. The opening bells and drums of “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” (from Two, 1975) are one of hip hop’s basic breaks, used by Run-DMC on “Peter Piper”, the Beastie Boys and Missy Elliott on “Work It”. “Westchester Lady” was sampled by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and “Feel Like Making Love”, from the same album as “Nautilus”, by Main Source. Many of these records also show up in our list of the best hip hop vinyl records to own.

Listen to “Nautilus”

Spotify · Bob James – One

Apple Music · One

Verdict

“Nautilus” is proof that the producer decides what a record is worth. Bob James saw it as filler; hip hop heard four or five different beats inside it and kept finding new ones for almost forty years. If you dig for samples, listen to it once from start to finish, with the timestamps above in mind, and then try to find a part nobody has used yet. It is harder than it sounds.