Funk

• 1. The One

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  James Brown stood in front of his band and gave a single command: "On the one!" That instruction rewired American music. Brown shifted the emphasis from the one-two-three-four backbeat that had defined African-American music to a heavy accent on the first beat of every measure. This is funk, a genre that began in African-American communities in the mid-1960s. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions in favor of a strong rhythmic groove. The bassline and the drum part carry the song, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Why would a musician strip away melody and chase a groove instead? Why did the word "funk" once refer to a strong odor before it named a sound? And how did a style that struggled to chart with white audiences in the 1970s become the most sampled foundation of hip-hop? The answers run through New Orleans pianos, fuzz pedals, Afros, and a saxophonist who could not, at first, play on the downbeat.

• 2. A Strong Odor

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  The word "funk" was first documented in English in 1620, and it meant a strong smell. It derived from the Latin fumigare, meaning "to smoke," arriving through Old French fungiere. By 1784, "funky" had come to mean "musty," which led to a sense of "earthy" picked up around 1900 in early jazz slang for something deeply felt. In white culture the term carried negative connotations, including body odor and a bad mood, as in being "in a funk." In African communities the same word held a positive sense. A musician's hard, honest effort produced sweat, and that physical exertion produced an exquisite, superlative performance. As early as 1907, jazz songs carried titles such as "Funky." The first example is an unrecorded number by Buddy Bolden, remembered as either "Funky Butt" or "Buddy Bolden's Blues," with improvised lyrics that, according to Donald M. Marquis, ranged from comical and light to crude and downright obscene. They referred to the sweaty atmosphere at the dances where Bolden's band played. Even into the 1950s and early 1960s, the words "funk" and "funky" were still considered indelicate and inappropriate for polite company. New Orleans-born drummer Earl Palmer is described as the first to use the word "funky" to tell other musicians their music should be more syncopated and danceable.

• 3. Space Between The Notes

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  Before funk, most pop music was built on sequences of eighth notes, because fast tempos made finer subdivisions of the beat infeasible. The innovation was deceptively simple. By slowing the tempo, influenced by the early-1960s revival of blues, funk created room for further rhythmic subdivision. A single bar could now hold sixteen possible note placements. The sound of funk depends as much on the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves, so the rests matter. By having the guitar and drums play in motoring sixteenth-note rhythms, funk opened space for the other instruments to play in a more syncopated, broken-up style. That freed the bassline. These interlocking parts created a hypnotic, danceable feel. A great deal of funk rests on a two-celled onbeat-offbeat structure that originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions. New Orleans took that bifurcated structure from the Afro-Cuban mambo and conga in the late 1940s and made it its own. Compared with disco, funk has a central dance beat that is slower, sexier, and more syncopated. Where disco might run on a programmed synth ensemble, funk rhythm sections add subtextures, complexity, and personality to the main beat.

• 4. Bass As The Hook

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  Funk has been called the style in which the bassline is most prominent, with the bass playing the hook of the song. Like Motown recordings, funk uses the bassline as the centerpiece. Early funk basslines used syncopated eighth notes with a driving feel, blending blues-scale notes with the major third above the root. Later basslines moved to sixteenth-note syncopation and repetitive patterns, often leaping an octave or more. Slapping and popping gave the bass a drum-like rhythmic role and became a distinctive element of funk. The technique mixes thumb-slapped low notes with finger-popped high notes. Notable players in this style include Bernard Edwards of Chic, Robert "Kool" Bell, Mark Adams of Slave, Johnny Flippin of Fatback, and Bootsy Collins. Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone is named as an influential bassist. Not everyone slapped. Rocco Prestia of Tower of Power used a fingerstyle method rooted in James Jamerson's Motown playing. Some bassists reached for electronics. Envelope filters produced a gooey, slurpy, quacky sound, and the Minimoog could replace the electric bass entirely because it created layered tones the instrument could not. Bootsy Collins used a Mu-Tron Octave Divider, an octave pedal in the spirit of Hendrix's Octavia, to build a fat, futuristic low end.

• 5. Chicken Scratch

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  On James Brown's "Give It Up or Turnit a Loose" from 1969, Jimmy Nolen's guitar part has a bare-bones tonal structure. The emphasis is the pattern of attack-points, not the pattern of pitches, so the guitar is used the way an African drum or idiophone would be. Funk guitarists play in a percussive style called the "chank" or "chicken scratch." The strings are pressed lightly against the fingerboard and quickly released, producing a muted scratching sound through rapid strumming near the bridge. The technique breaks into three approaches: the chika, the chank, and the choke. An early example of this picking appears on Johnny Otis's "Willie and the Hand Jive" in 1957, played by Jimmy Nolen before he joined James Brown. Funk rhythm guitarists chase a clean sound and avoid distortion. Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters were widely used for their cutting treble. Nolen plugged hollow-body jazz guitars with single-coil P-90 pickups into a Fender Twin Reverb, mids turned low and treble high. Soloists took a different path. Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic shaped his solo on "Maggot Brain" with a Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone pedal. Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers was tutored at an early age by Jimi Hendrix, who briefly lived in the Isley household while playing in their backing band.

• 6. Keys And Horns

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  Bernie Worrell's keyboards on Parliament-Funkadelic records show the genre's full range. He played Hammond organ on "Hit It and Quit It," clavinet on "Joyful Process," the Minimoog synthesizer on "Flash Light" and "Knee Deep," and the ARP string ensemble on "Chocolate City." The clavinet's percussive tone defined Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Bill Withers' "Use Me." The Fender Rhodes carried Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon," and a Wurlitzer drove "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by Joe Zawinul. Horn sections gave funk another voice, playing rhythmic, syncopated parts that punctuated the lyrics with short staccato blasts in the spaces between vocals. Notable players include Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, trombonist Fred Wesley, and alto saxophonist Maceo Parker. Famous sections include the Phoenix Horns with Earth, Wind & Fire, the Horny Horns with Parliament, and the Memphis Horns with Isaac Hayes. Section sizes varied from a duo of trumpet and sax up to six instruments. Songs built on these arrangements include "Cold Sweat" by James Brown and the Famous Flames in 1967, "What Is Hip?" by Tower of Power in 1973, and "Getaway" by Earth, Wind & Fire in 1976.

• 7. Coded Words

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  The Funkadelic song "One Nation Under A Groove" from 1978 addresses the challenges Blacks overcame during the 1960s civil rights movement and urges listeners to capitalize on new social and political opportunities. Funk lyrics confronted the issues facing the African American community in the 1970s, as the economy moved from industrial work toward an information economy that harmed the Black working class. The Ohio Players, Earth, Wind & Fire, and James Brown raised themes of poor economic conditions and inner-city life. Parliament's "Chocolate City" from 1975 refers metaphorically to Washington, D.C., and other cities with mainly Black populations, drawing attention to the power of Black voters and suggesting a Black president be considered in the future. These political messages echoed the new image of Blacks in Blaxploitation films, many of which used funk soundtracks, including Curtis Mayfield for Superfly. Funk lyrics also leaned on a coded vocabulary best understood by listeners familiar with the black aesthetic and vernacular. In "Super Bad" from 1970, "bad" meant good or great. To slip past radio obscenity restrictions, artists used sound-alike words and double entendres, as in the Ohio Players' "Fopp." Some lyrics invented words entirely, like Parliament's "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)." The mainstream white audience often could not decode these messages, which contributed to funk's limited chart success with white listeners in the 1970s.

• 8. Sons Of The P

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  James Brown is said to be the most sampled artist in the history of hip-hop, and George Clinton is the second most sampled. Samples of old Parliament and Funkadelic songs formed the basis of West Coast G-funk. Dr. Dre, considered the progenitor of that genre, freely acknowledged the debt. He recalled that in the 1970s people were getting high, wearing Afros and bell-bottoms, and listening to Parliament-Funkadelic, which is why he named his album The Chronic. Digital Underground helped revive funk in the 1990s by teaching listeners the genre's history, and George Clinton branded them "Sons of the P." Their debut, Sex Packets, was full of funk samples, including "The Humpty Dance," which sampled Parliament's "Let's Play House." The genre kept branching. Afrika Bambaataa built electro-funk on the Roland TR-808 with "Planet Rock" in 1982. Rick James became a star with the 1981 album Street Songs and its single "Super Freak." Across the Atlantic, Jamiroquai's album Travelling Without Moving sold about 7 million units worldwide and remains the best-selling funk album in history. Funk even traveled to Africa, where it melded with local singing and rhythms. Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, heavily influenced by James Brown, is credited with creating Afrobeat and naming it.