Canadian Funk.

 

George Clinton said it best. "Disco was just a small part of funk."

 

My provocation is this: Will funk be a style of American black music, or a style of black music?

 

The funk is expressed in the dynamic "attitude" of the groove. It's expressed through each player's ability to creatively manipulate velocity(adsr), pitch modulation, and time by being intermittently early and late, but precise on the one. The ability to "freak it" like this is more commonly inherent in the limbs of black folks. And even though it's a smaller number, there are white folks and others who have the ability to express funk convincingly.

The physical reflexes of a person play a part in the expression of funk also. There's something funky in the limbs of an overweight drummer with lots of cellulite in their arms. There was funk in Bruce Lee's jab. And there's funk in Krump dancing. Funk is a creative blend of being relaxed + mechanical as opposed to just being.. mechanical.

 

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No at all, I agree. There are things black people do well (basketball, funk) and things white people do well (rule, finance). A black CEO is not an authentic CEO -- she may be CEO-like, but she doesn't have management in her blood, she wasn't born into it. She's just imitating -- aping it.

BRB, late for my clan meeting.

 

No matter how you look at it, it all starts with James Brown.

 

lol instigator

 

Hope you're talking about OP. I mean, he didn't even bait the hook :\

 

@blaqmatic Hey man. Thank you for the response. Np at all. Btw i didn't respond because i didn't see it. I only wrote that without reading your last posts, it took me sometime to put my thoughts into words.
So yes, i know what a black card is. I had a black gf (12 years older than me) back in the late 80s. Now, as the odd Greek boy i was, i loved everything black like blues and jazz and soul and funky music etc. You bet i faced such discrimination even just strollin down the road with her, that by the first week i was in NY i was ready to leave, fearing some hoodie would shoot my ass for just being a clean looking white boy with a black woman. I won't expand longer on my adventures in Brooklyn Queens and the Bronx etc. Needless to say that to get accepted even by my gf's friends took time, patience and guidance. Looking back and speaking honestly, i dunno if i ever really got a black card. Her close surrounding friends were giving me a "free pass" but always with an underlying sense of prejudice. I never fitted in their world 100%. But i never fitted 100% in my own surrounding as well, so misfit should be appropriate word to describe me. So what they never understood is that "not exactly fitting" or acting black in order to fit, never bothered me one bit. After the initital cultural shock i mingled as much as i could. But as i couldn't stay for really long enough i could never tell what would 've occured.

Now, i am all aware there is no mothership in disco and house bass will never get as wild as Bootsy's lines to give a couple of examples. People describe these as different genres while i picture them as a logical continuation of sorts, as i find a connection in them both musically and spiritually. As i find a connection in all Afro-American music actually all the way back to Africa. Don't you ?
I understand that the way to preserve the treasures each modern genre has given us, is to cherish them and try to carry them over to the next gens with caution. But safeguarding tags and labels ? What good is it for other than historical purposes and museum interest ? How do we expect the FUNK not be a lost art as you mentioned, if its originators put it in a cage and guard it, instead of accepting genre evolution as logical part of it? I think even Clinton himself has made peace with the fact that he may be one of the most sampled musicians in the world ever. Are all those samplists Funkateers ? I wouldn't think so. But some of them definitely created something new while sampling the old, thus they carried a lil bit of that Funk to a younger generation who otherwise would be ignorant to the past musical givings.
One half of me says Funk and funky music in a more generic way, jazz, blues, rnb even rock, wouldn't have stayed as relevant if it wasn't for those samplists to repeat their snippets of great performances.
The other half of me says that those samplists wouldn't be anywhere close to the fame and fortune they amassed, if it wasn't for the treasures of the past they dug up and re-hashed most of the times in a crude way when compared to the real thing.
And while emotionally i tend to the latter, i try to keep an open mind for new ways of artistic expression.
Thank you
Babs

Ps:

And how is "interpretation" any bad. Help me here. Are you saying that for 5 centuries of playing Vivaldi nobody plays it right ? Only because they weren't there?

 

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*Gospel/Pentecostal
Also this guy deserves more play

 

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You would think anyone starting from scratch in a game of Monopoly that had already been in progress for 400yrs would be in it just for the sake of rolling the dice, paying rent to that which is already owned, hoping to land on chance/community chest, and not in jail. Despite that, there are thousands of black CEOs in America, and four in the fortune 500. Given their defiance to the gravity of odds, what's your excuse for not being a CEO given your ancestors who've been in the game since it started were still unable to hand you over any title? An internet troll is all that was founded in you.

 

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Lol, whatcha be talkin 'bout, Jasper?

I want to be black
Have natural rhythm
Shoot twenty feet of jism, too
And fuck up Jews
I want to be black
I want to be a Panther
Have a girlfriend named Samantha
And have a stable of foxy whores
Oh I want to be black
I don't want to be a fucked up, middle class,
College student anymore
I just want to have a stable of foxy little whores
Yeah, yeah I want to be black --Some dead white supremacist.

 

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I like your avatar. I miss this guy so much. I have some black friends but I do not know what black card is. I can tell you I grew up with great bands and that is sorely missed now a days. I am not a racist, good music is good music no matter who plays it to me. I like Nile rogers of chic and in boz scaggs it was Toto as musicians.

I do not like Rap and to be honest it will not be in the history books like Funk was in those days. Those guys were really innovative to me.

 

Some of this is true. But it's not the same to play a pad as it is a instrument.

 

@midi-man Hey mate. Read my post. You can briefly describe the black card as the acceptance of an outsider, in the black community. With all the positive and negative qualities it may bare.

 

Thanks then I guess, I have a black Card.

 

This Aaron Spears vid is impressive. Have never seen that Squarepusher style stuff IRL ;) Have also watched that "Caught up" video, just thought "how is this possible". But this is speed. I think tempo variations/creative tempo/ non matching tempo is a thing drummers cannot do easily.

 

The race element of this thread is the type of thing that is ruining this forum. I hope a mod locks it soon.

Great that someone is breaking down the elements of funk, but outside of mentioning the historical context of social politics and culture which stylized and influenced the music then it's pointless. Pitch, time, and timbre are musical qualities, not melanin. Such hardline black-and-white (no pun intended) racial diatribes are not welcome here, as this is a board for music/sound and not a NAACP or Stormfront forum.

Having said that, this thread did have some elucidating moments and reminded me how much I actually enjoy Midnight Star whether they're officially "funk" or not. Funk or funk infused acts were probably the most influential music in my early childhood, and this thread made me wonder why I don't listen to more stuff like this.

Hopefully someone will create a new thread like this that talks more about mu-tron filters and vocoders.

 

Funkadelic and Parliament are, in my opinion, the essence and soul of funk music. I can't think about Funk without thinking about them.
These musicians were incredible because they brought a complete concept that went beyond black music.
Only, perhaps, Prince, has carried and opened the black American music with such genius.