Funky

The funk is a musical genre that was born between the mid and late 1960s, when mainly African-American musicians fused soul, jazz, Latin rhythms (mambo, for example) and R&B giving rise to a new rhythmic and danceable musical form. Funk reduces the prominence of melody and harmony and, in turn, gives more weight to percussion and the electric bass line. Funk songs are often based on a vamp (a repeated figure, section, or accompaniment) spread over a single chord, distinguishing it from R&B and soul, which are more centered around chord progression.

Like much African-American music, funk is often built on a complex groove created from rhythm instruments like electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands sometimes have a horn section made up of several saxes, trumpets, and sometimes a trombone, playing "hits" rhythmic.

Many of the most famous bands in the genre also played disco and soul music. Funk was a decisive influence in the development of disco and Afrobeat music. On the other hand, funk samples have been widely used in genres such as hip hop, house, and drum and bass. It has also had a major influence on go-go.

Etymology

The English word funk originally refers to a strong, often offensive body odor. According to historian and anthropologist Robert Farris Thompson in his work Flash Of The Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy, the word funky has its semantic root in the word "lu-fuki" from the Kikongo language, meaning "bad body odor". According to his thesis, & # 34; both jazzmen and Bakongo use funky and lu-fuki to praise certain people for the integrity of their art, for having worked to achieve their goals & # 3. 4;. This Kongo sign of effort is identified with the irradiation of positive energy by that person. Hence "funk" in American jazz jargon it can mean earthy, back to basics, authentic." African-American jazz musicians originally they applied that term to music with a slow and melodious groove, and later with a hard and insistent rhythm, relating it to bodily or carnal qualities in music. This early form of music set the pattern for later musicians.

It is possible that funk was a term derived from a mixture between the Kikongo term lu-Fuki (preserved in the African-American community) and the English terms stank' and stinky (bad smell in Spanish). As early as 1907 there were already songs with titles like "Funky Butt Ballroom" by Buddy Bolden. As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when "funk" and "funky" they were increasingly used in the context of jazz music (Ex: 'Opus De Funk' from the 1952 LP 'Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey-Sabu' on the Blue Note label) and soul, the terms were still considered inappropriate and rude to use. According to one source, New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer "was the first to use the word funky to explain to other musicians that their music should be more syncopated and danceable.&# 34;

Features

Funk creates an intense groove through the use of powerful riffs and electric bass lines. Like Motown's soulful recordings, funk songs use bass lines as the central motif of the songs. Playing the bass using the slap technique combines low notes played with the thumb and other high notes played with the fingers, thus allowing the bassist to have a rhythmic role similar to that of the drummer, which became a central element. of the funk Some of funk's best known and most skilled soloists had significant jazz backgrounds such as trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonist Maceo Parker are among funk's most notable musicians, both having played with such musicians as James Brown, George Clinton and Prince. Some of the most notable funk bands of the 1960s and 1970s are Kool & The Gang, The Meters, Tower Of Power, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Blackbyrds, The Ohio Players, Parliament, Funkadelic, The Brothers Johnson, and Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band.

Funk uses the same extended chords that can be found in bebop, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. However, unlike bebop, which has complex and fast chord changes, funk virtually abandoned chord changes, creating vamps, unique static chords with very little harmonic movement but a complex, rhythmic sound.

Chords used in funk songs typically involve a Doric or Mixolydian mode, as opposed to the major or minor keys common in most popular music. The melodic content was derived from the mixture of these modes with the blues scale. In the 1970s, jazz music moved closer to funk to create a new subgenre, jazz funk, which can be heard on recordings by Miles Davis (On The Corner) and Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters).

In funk bands, guitarists typically played in a percussive style, often using the wah-wah pedal sound effect and muting notes in their riffs to create a percussive sound. Guitarist Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic were heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix's improvised solos. Eddie Hazel, who worked with George Clinton, is one of funk's most significant guitar soloists. Ernie Isley learned from Jimi Hendrix himself in his early years. Jimmy Nolen and Phelps Collins are both well known rhythm guitarists and both have worked with James Brown.

History

The main characteristics of African-American musical expression are rooted in West African musical traditions, finding their first expressions in spirituals, work songs, shouts of praise, gospel and blues. Funk or funky music is an amalgamation of soul, soul jazz, and R&B, genres rooted in the African-American music tradition.

When referring to the history of funk music, it is inevitable not to mention dance music as it became popular at the same time, just as the first nightclubs began to open and there was a great demand for a commercial style that be encouraged to dance

However, there are those who affirm that the first vestiges of funk music can be found further back in time, around 1965 and with songs like "Get Out My Life Woman" by New Orleans composer Allen Toussaint and performed by Lee Dorsey and James Brown's hit "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" from the same year. However, it was not until 1967, with the song "Cold Sweat" by James Brown, that funk music was definitively consolidated.

At that time the style of music represented a form of improvisation and spontaneity in the execution of music, especially if we compare it with the rhythm and blues of the time, which was much more predictable. The sound is distinguished by a greater dynamism in the bass line which, together with the typical stridency in the guitar playing, contributes to creating the typical syncopated base that we can hear in all funk pieces.

If James Brown defines himself as the main precursor of funk music, on a commercial level it can be affirmed that some groups from the 1970s such as Earth Wind and Fire, The Commodores and The Chic, also did their bit to contribute to the success and diffusion of this genre throughout the world.

Other artists less known to most people but who earned their place in funk music history were Sly Stone and George Clinton. The first knew how to combine on his famous album: “Dance to the Music” from 1967, a bit of rock with, soul, funk and psychedelia. The success was enormous at the level that led them to appear at the legendary Woodstock festival. Later, in 1969, the funkiest "Stand!" was released, another great success, and in 1971 "There's a Riot Goin' On" appeared, considered a true masterpiece.

James Brown and others have credited the touring drummer for Little Richard's band, Earl Palmer of the mid-1950s, as the first to use the funk beat within rock'n'roll, which can be heard on the song "Tipitina" by New Orleans pianist Roy Professor Longhair Byrd, as a drum kit adaptation of the "second row" of the Black Indians' Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. Following his temporary departure from secular music to become an evangelist, some of Little Richard's band joined James Brown and his Famous Flames, starting a long string of hits in 1958.

1960s: James Brown and the development of funk

James Brown, one of the founding fathers of the funk.

By the mid-1960s, James Brown had developed his trademark downbeat-heavy groove, with a heavy emphasis on the first beat of each beat to record his distinctive cadence, in as opposed to the typical backbeat of African-American music. Brown used to warn his band with the cry "on the one!" (in Spanish, "en el primero !"), changing the accent (brief sustain of the tempo of each beat in the bar) of the music from the backbeat "one-two-three-four" soul music to the downbeat "one-two-three-four", and this with a syncopated guitar rhythm playing an even or leveling note with a repetitive swing. This one-three beat launched the change in musical style for Brown, which began with his hits "Out of Sight" from 1964 and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" of 1965, abruptly changing the rules of how R&B and dance music in general were supposed to be done.

Brown's innovations brought the funk musical style to the fore with recordings like "I Got it You (I Feel Good)" (1966), "Cold Sweat" (1967), "Mother Popcorn" (1969) and "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" (1970), discarding even the typical blues twelve-bar structure used by the singer in his early days. Instead, Brown's music was layered with "catchy, anthemic vocals" based on "long vamps" in which he came to use his own voice as "a percussion instrument with frequent rhythmic growls and rhythm patterns...resembling West African polyrhythms." During his career, Brown's frenetic vocals, usually accompanied by yelling and growling, channeled "the ecstatic vibe of a black church" in a secular context.

In a 1990 interview, Brown offered his reason for changing the beat in his music: "I switched from upbeat to downbeat... As simple as that, just." According to Maceo Parker, Brown's former saxophonist, playing over the downbeat was difficult for him at first and took some getting used to.

Soon, other musical groups began to take over the riffs, rhythms, and vocals developed by James Brown and his band, and the style began to grow. Dyke & the Blazers, based in Phoenix, Arizona, released "Funky Broadway" in 1967, perhaps the first recording of the soul era to carry the word "funky" in your title. Archie Bell & The Drells from Houston, Texas, imposed edgy funk with their "Tighten Up" that year. R&B saxophonist King Curtis lays another foundation stone with his single "Memphis Soul Stew," where Bernard Purdie's syncopated drums and a stammering mid-bass chord are played by Jerry Jemmott, as described by the great Jaco Pastorius, but keeping all the rhythm, it turned out to be a new way of playing the bass, which quickly became a school [1]. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band was putting out funk tracks from the classic single "Express Yourself" from 1970.

The Meters defined New Orleans funk, beginning with their singles "Sophisticated Cissy" and "Cissy Strut" in 1969 under the Josie label. Another group that would define funk in the decade that followed was The Isley Brothers, whose 1969 R&B number one 'It's Your Thing' signaled a leap forward in African-American music., spanning the bridge from the rock of Jimi Hendrix and the upbeat soul of Sly & the Family Stone and Mother's Finest.

P-Funk and the 1970s

In the 1970s and early 1980s, a new group of musicians developed and deepened the "funk" approach. This movement was led by the pioneer George Clinton together with his groups Parliament and, later, Funkadelic. They produced a new form of funky heavily influenced by psychedelic rock and incorporating electronic sounds. Both groups had members in common and are generally known as a single entity under the name "Parliament-Funkadelic". Parliament-Funkadelic's rise to fame gave birth to the term 'P-Funk', which referred to the music of George Clinton's bands, and defined a new subgenre.

"P-Funk" it also came to mean something quintessentially, a superior quality or sui generis, as in the lyrics of the song "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)", a hit from Parliament's album "Mothership Connection" from 1976:

I want the bomb. I want the P-Funk. I want my funk without cutting.

George Clinton at concert.

George Clinton played a pivotal role in Bootsy's Rubber Band and many other bands he helped create, including Parlet, the Horny Horns, and the Brides of Funkenstein, all part of the P-Funk conglomerate.

The 1970s was the height of visibility for funk music on a large scale. Recognizable everywhere were images of blacks and Latinos dressed in outlandish garments (some designed by Tommy Nutter) such as flared pants and afro hairstyles moving to the swaying funky rhythm. As funk became part of the soundtrack of the civil rights movement, this sound became an integral part of a new cinema about blacks and for blacks, displaying a new aggressive and scandalous attitude called blaxploitation.. Artists and films such as Earth, Wind & Fire (Sweet Sweetback's Baadass Theme), James Brown (Black Caesar, Slaughter's Big Rip off), Dennis Coffey (Blackbelt Jones) and the Blackbyrds (Cornbread), among others. In Europe, composers like Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett for the British company KPM, and French composers like Serge Gainsbourg himself ("No No, Yes Yes", "Bloody Jack"), Alain Goraguer and Francis Lai, incorporated an absolutely funky background for television series and movies.

Funk music was exported to Africa towards the end of the 1960s, merging with the typical singing forms and rhythms of the continent to create Afrobeat, of which the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti is one of the main representatives, being recognized as the originator of the term.

In the early 1970s, when funk was becoming a mainstream phenomenon, artists like Parliament Funkadelic, Rufus & Chaka Khan, the Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Average White Band (the genre's first all-white band), Ohio Players, LaBelle, Confunkshun, among others, all achieved major hits that led to extensive radio coverage.. However, according to Billboard Magazine, only Sly & the Family Stone achieved singles that reached number 1 in Pop and not only in R&B. In 1970, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" got that No. 1 on the pop charts, and later hit the same spot in "Family Affair' in 1971. This allowed Sly, and funk itself, to achieve greater success and widespread recognition, before disco music reach. This owes a lot to funk music, with much of the early disco songs and artists coming from a funk past. Some disco hits, like "I'm Your Boogie Man" of KC & The Sunshine Band, "I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Khan aka The Queen of Funk Soul, and "Le Freak" from Chic, include riffs or rhythms very similar to those of funk music.

1980s and "stripped-down funk"

In the 1980s, mainly as a reaction against the complacency that some observed in disco music, many of the core elements that had formed the foundation of the P-Funk formula began to be taken and reproduced through electronic machines. and synthesizers. The horn sections that had previously been played by saxes and trumpets were replaced by synthesized keyboards, and the remaining horns played simpler lines, and fewer solos. Classic funk keyboards such as the Hammond B3 organ, Hohner Clavinet and Fender Rhodes piano were progressively replaced by newer synthesizers such as the analog Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the digital Yamaha DX7. Drum machines were replacing the "funky drummer" of the past and slapping and bass playing were replaced by synth bass lines. Likewise, the lyrics of funk songs began to change, moving from suggestive double entendres to more graphic and sexually explicit content.

Rick James was the first funk musician of the 1980s to take this new path, replacing the P-Funk that had dominated the 1970s. His 1981 album Street Songs, featuring the singles "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak," led James to stardom and paved the way for the explicit new direction of funk.

Prince used "naked" (stripped-down in English) similar to that of Rick James, and managed to have as big an impact on the sound of funk as anyone since James Brown. Prince combined eroticism, technology and increasing musical complexity with a scandalous image that helped create a musical world as ambitious and imaginative as that of P-Funk. Originally conceived as an opening band for Prince and based on his "Minneapolis sound," a hybrid mix of funk, contemporary R&B, rock, pop and new wave, the Time came to define his own style of stripped-down funk based on quality performances and sexual themes.

Groups that had started during the P-Funk era incorporated some of Prince's uninhibited sexuality and cutting-edge technological developments to continue producing funk hits. Bands like Cameo, Zapp, The Gap Band, The Bar-Kays, Raydio, and The Dazz Band had their biggest hits in the 1980s. By the second half of the 1980s, however, funk had lost all its commercial impact.

Afrika Bambaataa, influenced by Kraftwerk, created electro funk, a minimalist style of funk based on machine production, thanks to his single "Planet Rock" from 1982. Also known simply as electro, this style of funk was based on synthesizers and electronic rhythms from the TR-808 drum machine. The single "Renegades of Funk" It was published in 1983.

Funk became an international music style, being performed by groups from countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Algeria, India, South Africa, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Nigeria.

Recent Developments

Though funk has largely disappeared, being replaced on commercial radio by hip hop, contemporary R&B, and New Jack Swing, its influence continued to spread. Rock groups began to add elements of funk to their sound, creating a new combination that materialized in the "funk rock" and "funk metal". Groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Living Colour, Jane's Addiction, Prince, Primus, Fishbone, Faith No More, Infectious Grooves, Incubus and Rage Against the Machine developed this approach, with everyone from funk pioneers to new audiences in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. These groups inspired the later funkcore underground movement of the mid-1990s as well as other later funk-oriented artists such as Outkast, Malina Moye, Van Hunt and Gnarls Barkley.

In the 1990s, artists like Me'shell Ndegeocello and the (largely British) acid jazz movement shaped by groups like the Brand New Heavies, Incognito, Galliano, Omar and Jamiroquai carried on with important elements of funk. However, they never came close to achieving the commercial success of funk in its heyday, with the exception of Jamiroquai, whose album Traveling without Moving sold around 11.5 million copies. Meanwhile, in Australia and New Zealand, groups playing on the pub circuit like Supergroove, Skunkhour and The Truth preserved a more instrumental form of funk.

Since the late 1980s, hip hop groups had been sampling old funk tracks. James Brown is considered the most sampled artist in hip hop history. The genre is largely built on funk and soul breaks, such as the Funky Drummer or the Amen break. Another frequent source of samples is the music of Parliament and Funkadelic, to the point where they have come to form the basis of an entire subgenre of hip hop, the West Coast type of hip hop called G Funk.

Dr. Dre, considered the father of G-Funk, has readily admitted the strong influence of George Clinton's psychedelic funk: 'Back in the 1970s that's what everybody did: go blind, wear Afros, bell -bottoms and listen to Parliament-Funkadelic. That's why I called my album The Chronic and based my music and concepts on it: because the shit from him was a huge influence on my music. Very big'. Digital Underground was an important part of the funk renaissance in the 1990s by educating their listeners by explaining the history of funk and its artists. George Clinton labeled Digital Underground "Sons of the P", the name of his second full-length album. DU's first album, Sex Packets, is packed with funk samples, and the most famous track, 'The Humpty Dance', samples Parliament's song 'Let's Play House'. 3. 4;. Beyond hip hop, there are other styles of music heavily influenced by funk, especially to the extent that they sample their breaks to build their rhythmic patterns. This is the case of drum and bass, largely built on the Amen break.

Funk is a major element in the music of certain artists identified with the jam band scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Phish began playing funky jams in their sets during 1996 and their The Story of the Ghost from 1998 was heavily influenced by funk. Medeski Martin & Wood, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Galactic, Jam Underground, Diazpora, Soulive and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe draw on the funk tradition.

Since the mid-1990s, the nu-funk scene emerged, closely related to the Deep Funk environment that produced new material influenced by the sound of old funk rarities. Among the most representative labels are Desco, Soul Fire, Daptone, Timmion, Neapolitan, Kay-Dee and Tramp, which usually publish in 45 rpm.

In the early 2000s, some punk funk bands like Out Hud appeared. Indie band Rilo Kiley incorporated funk sounds into their song "The Moneymaker" from the album Under the Blacklight. In recent albums, Prince has recovered the funk sound, as in the songs & # 34; The Everlasting Now & # 34;, & # 34; Musicology & # 34;, & # 34; Ol & # 39; Skool Company" and "Black Sweat".

Funk has also been incorporated into urban pop and R&B music, especially by female vocalists like Beyoncé Knowles on her 2003 hit "Crazy in Love" (which samples The Chi-Lites' theme "Are You My Woman"), Jennifer Lopez in 2005 with Get Right (which samples Maceo Parker and his wind solo on "Soul Power '74") and on one occasion he was accompanied by the rag-picker Arcángel (singer) with one of the songs from his new album Ares (album), called "Corte, porte y elegencia", along with J Balvin