“Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”,
sang the ‘Godfather of Soul’, JamesBrown, who is credited with influencing or even creating ‘Funk Music’. His battle cry gave black Americans a sense of pride in their colour and culture andencouraged them to fight for their rights, inspiring a new musicalgenre.
So what is funk music?
The genre essentially evolved from the African-American soul, rhythm and blues, and jazz music of the mid-60s. It wascharacterised by a slower but strong rhythmic and percussive beat with aprominent, repetitive electric bassline and drum patterns. It gave moreimportance to the bass and less to the melody and chord progression,giving the music a hypnotic and danceable feel that went down well withaudiences.
The word ‘funk’ is derived from the Latin ‘fumigare’ which literally means ‘tosmoke’ and connotations linked to ‘odour’, and ‘musty’.Its adjective ‘funky’was commonly used to describe jazz music as it was something that was ‘earthy’ or deeply felt. From ‘funky’ came ‘funk’.
Funk music traces its roots to the town of New Orleans which was a meltingpot of musical influences ranging from blues, jazz, soul, R&B, and almost everygenre popular at the time. Centuries of oppression faced by the African-American people gave rise to a long-ranging struggle for freedom and equality,a protest movement that came to be known as the American Civil RightsMovement.
Music played a pivotal role in inspiring and uplifting the black Americans inthat struggle. Songs of protest resonated within the oppressed blackcommunity in the South and across the USA. It was their means of voicingopinions, expressing anguish, and inspiring the people.
In New Orleans, James Brown’s musical style started garnering considerableinterest and set a new musical trend amongst musicians of the era. His use ofpolyrhythms, multiple rhythms happening at the same time, creatingsyncopation, gave the music that danceable feel and palpable energy and madeit hugely popular.
Brown’s signature groove emphasised on the first beat,using the ‘one-two-three-four’ downbeat, as opposed to the backbeat which was ‘one-two-three-four’. Along with this, Brown also used his voice as a percussion instrument, with his trademark grunts and screams, a style later incorporated by MichaelJackson.
Many melodic instruments including saxophone and trumpet alongwith percussive ones like the bass and drums were prominently utilised inmost funk songs and the genre usually didn’t limit itself to the regularverse/chorus structure but followed the music.
The Rise
As Funk music grew in popularity, more and more bands and artists startedpicking up the distinctive new style pioneered by Brown. Bands such as Dykeand The Blazers, Tower of Power, and Sly and The Family Stone began imitatingthe popular style and achieved mainstream success. The genre appealed to awide audience due to its ability to make people want to dance.
During the 70s, Funk became the voice of a generation as it expressed thestruggles of the low-income working-class community which could identifywith it. The decade witnessed the mainstream peak of funk music, with bandslike Kool and the Gang, The Commodores, The Isley Brothers, and Chaka Khanachieving commercial success. This led to Funk bands getting a lot of airtime onradio stations all over America.
Funk and Disco
Other music genres like Disco that evolved later in the 70s were heavilyinfluenced by Funk and many of the hits were sung by funk artists. DonnaSummer’s “Love to Love You Baby”, “Kung Fu Foo Fighting” by Biddu and CarlDouglas, and “Love Hangover” by Diana Ross were inspired by funkrhythms.Funk became a staple influence in lots of musical styles and genresand went on to influence numerous bands and artists through the years.
The influence of Funk music also found its way into the works of artists asdisparate as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Herbie Hanco*ck, and MilesDavis. Hendrix used riffs of funk and blues to distort them into his signaturestyle of psychedelic rock. George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic fused 60’spsychedelic rock with jazz and funk. Herbie Hanco*ck, the pianist with the MilesDavis Quintet, formed a new band called The Headhunters and released a funkalbum titled ‘Head Hunters’. Close on his heels, one of the most acclaimed jazzfigures of the 20th century, trumpeter Miles Davis, released a jazz-funk albumtitled ‘On the Corner’.
At that time there were quite a few other big names in funk music like StevieWonder, the Bar-Kays, Prince, Curtis Mayfield, but then in walked Chaka Khan,the Queen of Funk. She was the lead singer for the band, Rufus and Chaka Khan, before embarking on a solo career. Chaka Khan sang the hit disco song“I’m Every Woman” which had heavy funk influences.
The Synth Generation
In the 80s, Synthesizers became the next big part of funk history.Funk musicians took to electronic instruments, drum machines, andsynthesizers. Synth keyboards took over saxophones and trumpets. Funkbands no longer needed a horn section as the synths could produce therequired sound effects. These machines were used forcreating the bass lines that were originally played on bass guitar. RickJames while experimenting with synthesizer funk, had two hitsingles with “Super Freak” and “Give It to Me Baby”.
The 80s though brought a change to the sound of funk and the lyrics becamemore explicit than before. This was witnessed in Prince’s experimentation with funkyrhythms along with sexual themes, though the sexual element was alwayspresent in popular music. But towards the end of the decade, funk musicbegan to decline rapidly from mainstream appeal and hip-hop, rap andcontemporary R&B took over. Funk still had a big influence on modern hip-hop music, with lots of artists sampling tracks by James Brown and George Clinton.In fact James Brown was said to be the most sampled musician in history.Dr.Dre has said that he was greatly influenced by the psychedelic funk of George Clinton and P-Funk.
The Decline
Funk music, however, did not quite die and continued to enjoy success throughthe 80s and 90s with Funk influenced bands such as Cameo, Zapp, and the DazzBand. The early ’90s marked the birth of ‘funk rock’ with bands like the Red HotChili Peppers, Primus, Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More fusing funk and rockmusic together.
Similarly, modern R&B music continues to retain influences of funk. Beyoncé’s2003 hit “Crazy in Love” samples the funk song “Are You My Woman” by theChi-Lites, a funk quartet from Chicago. “Get Right” by Jennifer Lopez samplesthe funk song “Soul Power ‘74” by Maceo Parker, a trumpeter who worked with James Brown in Parliament-Funkadelic.
Contemporary artists like Bruno Mars and Pharrell Williams have a major funk influence in their music. Also the new age Madonna, Lady Gaga’s new album ‘Chromotica’, heavily derives from funk music.
Evidently Funk has been a very influential genre since its onset. It peaked in the70s and through it, sub-genres like funk rock, jazz-funk, electro-funk, andpsychedelic funk were created. By the 90s funk had become a part of everystyle of music and numerous artists used funk methods and techniques in theirmusic. In the end, Funk’s earthy sound, danceable beats, groovy bass lines, anddrum beats made it one of the most infectious genres of music.
So let’s keep it Funky!
