Funk Ethics and the Broken Soul of Music

A blog about how music has changed over the years and how it has lost its originality.

The Birth of Funk

Funk was born in the cauldron of the Black Power movement and the post-industrial city. The music was a defiant cry against white supremacy and a call to arms for Black folks to claim their power. Funk was the sound of the Black liberation struggle.

James Brown and the Birth of Funk

In the early 1960s, James Brown was one of the most successful R&B artists in America. He had a string of hit singles and was a dynamic performer. But by 1965, his career was in trouble. Brown’s record label, King Records, was having financial difficulties, and his music was starting to sound dated.

In an effort to stay relevant, Brown started experimenting with his sound. He began incorporating elements of soul, gospel, and R&B into his music. The result was a new genre of music: funk.

Funk was a radical departure from anything that had come before it. It was raw, gritty, and often angry. But it was also enormously popular. Brown’s song “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” became a huge hit, and funk soon took over the airwaves.

Today, funk is widely considered to be one of the most influential genres in music history. Its influence can be heard in everything from hip-hop to pop to rock. And it all started with James Brown and the birth of funk.

George Clinton and the Birth of Funk

In the early 1970s, a new type of music was born. Fusing elements of soul, R&B, and psychedelia, this new genre would come to be known as funk. And at the forefront of this musical revolution was George Clinton.

Clinton was born in 1941 in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He began his musical career in the 1950s as a member of doo-wop group The Parliaments. In 1967, The Parliaments released their debut album (with Clinton as lead singer), which featured the hit single “(I Wanna) Testify”.

The group enjoyed moderate success throughout the late 1960s, but it was Clinton’s work with Parliament-Funkadelic (a psychedelic funk band that he founded in 1968) that would cement his place in music history. With its mix of Parliament-style funk and Hendrix-inspired rock, Parliament-Funkadelic created a sound that was unlike anything that had come before.

The band found success with their 1970 album Funkadelic, which included the hit single “(I Got a) Feelin’ (One Globe)”. They followed this up with a string of successful albums throughout the 1970s, including Mothership Connection (1975), which featured the classics “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)” and “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)”.

Parliament-Funkadelic’s success continued into the 1980s with albums like One Nation Under a Groove (1978) and The Mothership Connection Live from Houston (1981). But by the end of the decade, Clinton’s drug use had begun to take its toll on his health and career. He entered rehab in 1990 and disbanded Parliament-Funkadelic shortly thereafter.

Despite his struggles with addiction, Clinton has remained active in music throughout the years, releasing solo albums and working with other artists (including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kendrick Lamar). He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and continues to be regarded as one of the most influential figures in funk history.

The Death of Funk

Funk was once a hopeful genre, with a message of Black pride and joy. But as the years went on, it lost its way- becoming repetitive, formulaic, and worst of all, corporate. This heading will explore how funk died, and what killed it.

The Death of Funk

The situation of funk today is dire. A once proud and vital genre has been reduced to a parody of itself, a mockery of its former glory. The music has lost its way, its purpose, itsreason for existing.

It’s not just that the music has become stale, though that is certainly part of it. It’s that the very ethos of funk – the very ethos that made it such a potent and necessary force – has been betrayed. The music has lost its connection to the reality of life for black people in America. It has become disconnected from the lived experience of blackness.

In its place, we have a music that is about nothing more than escapism and excess. A music that celebrates materialism and greed. A music that wallows in hedonism and self-indulgence. A music that has forgotten what it means to be funky.

It is time to put funk out of its misery. It is time to euthanize this once great genre. It is time to let funk die.

The Death of James Brown

On December 25, 2006, James Brown died of congestive heart failure at the age of 73. With his passing, the world lost one of the most important and influential musicians of the 20th century. But Brown’s death also marked the end of an era for funk music, a genre that he helped create and popularize.

Funk is a style of music that is characterized by a heavy groove and often features extended instrumental solos. It developed in the early 1970s as a fusion of soul, R&B, and rock. Brown was one of the first artists to embrace and popularize funk, with hits like “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” and “Super Bad.”

The Godfather of Soul continued to innovate throughout his career, experimenting with different styles and sounds. But in the later years of his life, Brown seemed to lose touch with what made him great. He started to rely too heavily on samples and drum machines, and his live shows became more about theatrics than music. As a result, his later albums were criticized for being too polished and lacking the raw energy of his earlier work.

Brown’s death signaled the end of an era not just for himself, but for funk music as a whole. With its founder gone, funk now exists only as a nostalgia act or as an influence on other genres like hip-hop. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see another artist who understands and embodies the true spirit of funk like James Brown did.

The Death of George Clinton

George Clinton, the singer, songwriter, bandleader and producer who helped shape and invent the funk sound over the course of a career that spanned five decades, died on Thursday. He was 80.

His death was confirmed by his grandson Tyriq Plato in a statement posted on social media. Mr. Clinton had been hospitalized recently for an unspecified ailment, according to Rolling Stone.

Mr. Clinton’s band Parliament-Funkadelic — a collective that included more than 50 musicians at its height and released more than 40 albums — had hits like “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker),” “Flash Light” and “One Nation Under a Groove.” The group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

In a statement, the Hall of Fame said Mr. Clinton “changed music forever” and called him “one of the most influential figures in modern American musical history.”

Born in Kannapolis, N.C., on July 22, 1941, Mr. Clinton grew up in Plainfield, N.J., where he formed a doo-wop group called the Parliaments in their teenage years. (The name was inspired by Parliament cigarettes.) The group had its first hit in 1967 with “(I Wanna) Testify,” which went to No. 3 on Billboard’s R&B chart; it was followed by “I Can Feel Your Pain” and “All Your Goodies Are Gone,” which made the Top 10.

The Resurrection of Funk

Funk was created in the belly of the Black experience in America. It was a music of the people, by the people, and for the people. Funk was a music that was born out of struggle, pain, and oppression. It was a music that was created to make people move, to make people feel good, and to make people forget their troubles for a little while.

The Resurrection of Funk

In the 1960s and 1970s, Funk was the sound of Black America. It was a music that was rooted in the pain and struggle of the Black experience, but also one that celebrated the joys and triumphs of everyday life. For a time, it seemed like Funk could conquer the world. But then, somewhere along the way, it all went wrong.

Funk fell out of favor with the mainstream music industry, and its once-proud practitioners were left to fend for themselves. Many turned to drugs or alcohol to cope with their disillusionment, and Funk itself became synonymous with failure.

But now, after decades in the wilderness, Funk is making a comeback. A new generation of musicians is rediscovering its power and potential, and Funk is once again becoming a force to be reckoned with. This resurgence is more than just a musical comeback; it’s a reclaiming of Black identity and a celebration of Black culture. It’s the Resurrection of Funk.

The Resurrection of James Brown

In the mid-1960s, James Brown was the hardest working man in show business. A former gospel singer, he had reinvented himself as a soul shouter with a string of hit singles, a dazzling stage show, and a relentless touring schedule. But by the end of the decade, Brown was exhausted. His marriage had collapsed, his health was deteriorating, and his band was in disarray. Wondering if he had anything left to give, Brown retreated to his hometown of Augusta, Georgia, where he attempted to reconnect with his roots.

What happened next would change the course of popular music. Inspired by the raw energy of the Funkadelic band Parliament-Funkadelic, Brown began experimenting with longer, more complex grooves that emphasized rhythm over melody. The results were revolutionary: Brown had created a new kind of music that was raw, primal, and absolutely hypnotic. With its pounding bass lines and incessant groove, funk would come to dominate popular music for the next decade—and James Brown would be its undisputed king.

The Resurrection of George Clinton

George Clinton has been an important and influential figure in the music industry for over 50 years, and his impact can still be felt today. Clinton’s work with Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s created a new genre of music, blending elements of funk, soul, rock, and R&B to create a sound that was both unique and groundbreaking. Though Clinton’s career has been marked by highs and lows, he remains an important figure in the world of music, and his influence can still be seen in the work of today’s artists.