What is Funk?
Categorizing anything is risky, because it involves generalization, and you can't generalize anything without leaving out the stray sheep that don't fit into any specific categories. Although these do not necessarily cover the entire spectrum of Funk, here are some of the major funky paradigms:

Old School or Classic Funk - This would include funk in its raw form, funk as it sounded in its heyday from the late 60's into the late 70's. This type of funk is what most likely comes immediately to mind when "funk" is mentioned. Examples: James Brown, The Meters, Earth Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, Graham Central Station, Sly and the Family Stone, and many others.

P-Funk - Refers to the phenomenon known as Parliament/Funkadelic, undeniably the most diverse and nitty-gritty band of the entire funk movement. P-Funk developed the quintessential funk aesthetic which has been handed down to practically every subsequent funk band.

Electro-Funk - This is funk from the 80's, involving a higher emphasis on synthesizers and electronic drums, but with the same funky feel. Examples: Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force, Egyptian Lover, Gap Band, Midnight Star, and many others. Much of this type of funk is what we know as breakdancing music. Several of the Old School funk groups got into this sound as well, ie. Cameo.

Go-Go - This is a really fired-up style of funk from the D.C. area, originating in the 80's. It involves a high level of percussion and audience participation. Go-Go shows are non-stop, from beginning to end with no break, and band members have a certain type of interplay amongst themselves as well as the audience, resulting in repetitive chants and smooth transitions. Examples: Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Trouble Funk, Junkyard, and many others.

Latin-style Funk - Some funk groups accented their funk with a nice twist of Latin and Samba styles. Examples: Mandrill, Baretto, Santana, and others.

Disco - This is a questionable genre of funk; disco is a kind of mass-produced, unsyncopated version of funk that shared its dance-ability, experiencing a brief stint of popularity in the late 70's. Many people hated it; "Disco Sucks" protests were frequent. It was really almost corny; Meco's "Star Wars" and Walter Murphy's "A Fifth or Beethoven" are classic examples. But many groups were worthy of the funk label, including Chic, Stargard, Rose Royce, Skyy, and others.

Hollywood Funk - Like Disco, this is a paradigm that is not quite funk but highly influenced by it. This kind of funk involves more of a hard rock sound, with distorted guitars and screaming raps, and includes predominantly white bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, and 311.


Let's not forget some other genres of music which either influenced, or were influenced by funk:

Jazz - This was the primary predecessor to funk. The genre known as "Jazz Fusion" literally refers to the fusion of jazz with rock, blues, gospel, and traditional African music, which essentially was the ORIGIN of funk. Check out Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham, George Duke, Grover Washington Jr., Chuck Mangione, and many others.

Soul - There are a number of bands that thrived upon the soul style, but were known to give up the funk frequently, such as Stevie Wonder, Spinners, the Tavares, Isaac Hayes, even the Jacksons.

Rap - Rap was like a transition of funk into a more percussive (instead of melodic), spoken (instead of sung) counterpart. Not to mention that a lot of rap contained looped samples from Old School funk songs. Examples: Run DMC, Slick Rick, Spyder D, Grandmaster Flash, Doug E. Fresh, L.L. Cool J, and many others.

Funk was arguably the pinnacle of black music, fusing together every previous style into a crescendo of THE BEST... like a writer or painter who, in his golden age, produces his greatest works as a result of years and years of experience. Funk is like a musical quilt; panels constructed by great masters which, combined together, form a MASTERPIECE.

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