Funk is ending up like the Blues

[MarshCreekBass]

Music is part instrumentation and part lyrics. Blues about living in Hoovervilles, Reggae about subsistence survival, funk that is shouting about Chocolate City are rooted in experience and expression of social situations. When I was learning Redemption Song on an acoustic in Santa Barbara as a college kid in the '80's, I was just mimicking chords, but it lacked authenticity. These new groups are often funky as hell and I enjoy the vibe, but the genres that are turning contemporary issues into songs have definitely changed and I think that is where this disconnect is- the blues was in the lyrics, beat up catalog guitars, beautifully imperfect recordings and heartfelt messages.

 

[Tampabass]

Cultural appropriation is an irrelevant term use to marginalize folks... it’s especially nonsensical given the fact that we all have gleaned useful information from one another. Case in point is pants..(among an endless list of other things)....in other words, you shouldn’t worry too much about it and Funk on (if that’s your thing), because no one has got a lock on the whole “what notes to play” thing.

Notice how nobody is screaming "cultural appropriation" at all the non-Irish folks worldwide celebrating St. Patrick's Day? PS, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Music is part instrumentation and part lyrics. Blues about living in Hoovervilles, Reggae about subsistence survival, funk that is shouting about Chocolate City are rooted in experience and expression of social situations. When I was learning Redemption Song on an acoustic in Santa Barbara as a college kid in the '80's, I was just mimicking chords, but it lacked authenticity. These new groups are often funky as hell and I enjoy the vibe, but the genres that are turning contemporary issues into songs have definitely changed and I think that is where this disconnect is- the blues was in the lyrics, beat up catalog guitars, beautifully imperfect recordings and heartfelt messages.

That’s an important part of the environment and era which funk grew up in ...

 

[RodneyM]

Brad makes excellent points.
It is the SONG that's missing..what's behind it.
It's funky...but sterile and shallow.
Reminds me of 15 year olds playing the blues (technically there but I'm not feeling it).
It's also what school does to art.
If Vulfpek played old funk tunes for 4 sets a night, 4 nights a week and come back in 5 years, now we can have something special.

 

[kodiakblair]

Notice how nobody is screaming "cultural appropriation" at all the non-Irish folks worldwide celebrating St. Patrick's Day?

Don't worry folks have back away from the African-American/Jazz playing/Yale professor Willie Ruff link saying Gospel is rooted in the Scottish Presbyterian church.

Seems "Cultural appropriation" only works 1 way

 

[Steve59]

appropriation meaning:
the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission.
"the appropriation of parish funds”
Hmmmmmm

 

[JimmyM]

Music is not a museum piece and it should never be treated as such by any younger generation. I encourage them to go out and make music that pisses off us older folks. If they're not pissing us off, they're not doing their jobs

 

[Tampabass]

IMO, most of the folks ragging on Vulfpeck are listening with their eyes.

 

[Tampabass]

Music is not a museum piece and it should never be treated as such by any younger generation. I encourage them to go out and make music that pisses off us older folks. If they're not pissing us off, they're not doing their jobs

Funny -- that's exactly what an old newspaper editor of mine once told me: "If you're not pissing someone off, you're not doing your job."

 

[matante]

Me attempting to explain funk to my brother:

“You hit on the one.”

“What? The rules are clearly so much more complicated than that- the chordal complexity, the rhythmic subtleties... you’re leaving out so many details, I’m sure of it!”

“... You hit on the one.”

--^@

I liked Bootsy's explanation of it: Something like, "You hit on the one, and then play whatever you want after that."

 

[Steve59]

Hahahahahaha

 

[40Hz]

For those of us who were born in the middle of the civil rights movement and raised right, even while suffering abuse and shunning by most of "our own kind" in addition to abuse and distrust from most on "the other side", the facade of the racist emperor's new clothes have always been painfully obvious. As disheartening as that is, accepting the truth is always better than sticking one's head in the sand.

This!

As we apparently both were.

 

[Chicory Blue]

I liked Bootsy's explanation of it: Something like, "You hit on the one, and then play whatever you want after that."

Exactly! St. Collins got it right.

--^@

 

[zon6c-f]

The term, “Cultural appropriation”, is part of a "new" vocabulary behind which a new generation of separatists hide; but lets just call those who espouse "separate but equal" what they are and have always been: racists.

For those of us who were born in the middle of the civil rights movement and raised right, even while suffering abuse and shunning by most of "our own kind" in addition to abuse and distrust from most on "the other side", the facade of the racist emperor's new clothes have always been painfully obvious. As disheartening as that is, accepting the truth is always better than sticking one's head in the sand.

Those trading cinnamon, pepper, ginger, cloves and nutmeg through what was perhaps humanity's first significant melting pot, the silk road, had no concept of cultural appropriation.




Indeed, as is the case even beyond funk and musicians.




You won't know until you try. I was the only pale face in a "traditional" gospel group that was based in Liberty City in the early 80s. It happens.




I'm with you. It's an interesting subtext running through this thread and one that needs to be discussed with such civility more and more.

I enjoy Latin as well as funk whereas I really love electric blues

I don’t mind Anyone attempting symphonic music which is mostly anglo European as it gets.

Let’s just play music and enjoy it

Here’s the Rule and end of thread imho: No one Owns Any genre of music

( I see a lot of women wearing Any color wig than their own natural hair and no one says they can’t)

 

[pedroims]

I really like Alissia, I hope she keep writing music.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Music is not a museum piece and it should never be treated as such by any younger generation. I encourage them to go out and make music that pisses off us older folks. If they're not pissing us off, they're not doing their jobs

I agree. That is why although I miss the decline of Funk’s influence, I understand that culture is ever evolving. As much as I love Funk, if current music sounded just like 1978 or 1979, I would be bored beyond words.

 

[Steve59]

Not necessarily on topic, but interesting.
How Jimi Hendrix stopped being black - CNN

 

[Tommy V]

Music is not a museum piece and it should never be treated as such by any younger generation. I encourage them to go out and make music that pisses off us older folks. If they're not pissing us off, they're not doing their jobs

well, they are doing their job, and working overtime, too!

 

[non]

listening to vulfpeck and new sound underground, i just hear the theme songs for all the 70's shows i grew up with. i think that is part of why i dig it.

 

[AndyVanBass]

I really want to like Vulfpeck. It's undoubtedly skillful, but to me it comes across as quantized, sterilized, Berklee Funk 101. There's something missing...

I think Vulfpeck contains a large dose of millenial irony, intentionally nerdy & not taking themselves seriously while being very precise & passionate at the same time. It's a way of saying "I know we're white, nerdy & separated from the cultural music we're playing, so we'll do it tongue-in-cheek".

(I'm 40, midwest, white -- part of Gen X & Millenial cultures.)