Let the Funk flow

The today Hip Hop should give thanks to the yesterday Funk.

In these days, Funk music’s common topics were pretty close to those belonging to Hip-Hop nowadays: party, ladies, having fun. The most apparent figure was George Clinton, a  funny looking rasta from all colors and architect of the P-Funk. He formed Parliament-Funkadelic, two twin bands who really impacted on the funk era in the 70’s.

Picture Credit: Olympia Hall

In the early 90’s, after the rock influence from the early days of Hip-Hop came the funk influence. At the start point, you can find Dr Dre.

In his biography, Dr Dre explains how the idea came to him to create a mix of funk and gangsta rap: G-Funk.

“Back in the 70s that’s all people were doing: getting high, wearing Afro bell-bottoms and listening to Parliament-Funkadelic. That’s why I called my album The Chronic and based my music and the concepts like I did: because his shit was a big influence on my music. Very big.”

G-Funk’s definition is quite simple: slow bass beats and synthetizers loops from P-Funk samples, female vocals, toppled by lazy flow and typical gangsta lyrics.

Picture Credit: NahRight

The best example of it find its source in 1992, when Dr Dre violently dissed his former squad mate from N.W.A, Eazy-E.

“Fuck wit Dre Day” videoclip is a must see: Snoop Dogg looks like he’s fourteen, Eazy-E is terribly mocked, and Dre pays tribute to Funkadelic showing his shirt at the beginning of the footage.

You better check it and then the main sample from Funkadelic.

 Dr Dre – Fuck Wit Dre day

Funkadelic – (Not just) Knee deep (sample appears at 0:53)

You surely have noticed the synth’s line used by Dre has been slowed down a lot to settle a lazy-ass atmosphere.

In the late eighties, a West Coast band, notable to have launched 2pac’s carreer, started to records songs with an heavy funk influence. The Digital Underground, originated from Oakland.

In their first album released in 1990 “Sex Packets”, funk interpolations and samples invade the whole tracklist. The major hit came from “The Humpty Dance”,  Humpty Hump refering to Shock G’s alter ego.  This is an humoristic track describing a dance and making fun of Hip-Hop dress codes of the era.

Parliament was their main source of inspiration for the sampling part. Almost each tracks contains sample of the funky band from the 70’s.

Digital Underground – Humpty Dance

Parliament- Let’s Play house (sample appears at 0:47)

Funk influence was big on the West Coast mostly because the rap tempted to be more festive. But East Coast artists as well enjoyed to put funk in their productions.

In the mid-90’s a fat guy from Bedford Stuyvesant, known by his stage name Notorious B.I.G, brought back the funk into Hip Hop thanks to Puff Daddy’s flair.

“Machine Gun Funk” best illustrates this. It samples a short guitar riff from “Something Extra” performed by the Black Heat, funky band not really known by the general public.

The rest belongs to Biggie’s flow. Notice the “Chief Rocka”‘s line sampled for the chorus from the Lords of the Underground.

Notorious B.I.G – Machine Gun Funk

Black Heat – Something Extra (sample appears at 0:34)

Still located on the East Coast, in New Jersey precisely,  the “Lords of the Underground”, aka LOTUG, built their reputation with an other use of funk samples.

The beats were more dynamic trained by an highly elevated BPM rythm. On their first album “Here comes the Lords”, the funky influence is easily detectable. The second they’ll drop will be titled “Keepers of the Funk”. A pretty explicit title.

The track 14 of the disc will be my support here. “Lord Jazz Hit me One time (Make it Funky)” (yes that is the full name) use saxophone’s solo from Tom Scott’s and the L.A Express.

Stuffs to enjoy on those two tracks: the amazing scratches skills from Lord Jazz and Tom Scott’s talent on the saxophone.

Lord Jazz Hit me One Time (Make it Funky)

Tom Scott and the L.A Express – Sneakin’ in the Back (samples appears at 2:09)

Funk influence didn’t get stuck in the “golden era”. Nowadays, some band pursued the tradition  but we’ll get to that later.

More funk samples to come.

One comment

Leave a comment