^^^^
it sucks that you have to repeat yourself and BP and re-state you position a hundred times. I'm guessing alot of people aren't reading alot of the posts.. which is understandable, I guess.

This is why I've been fence sitting this whole time... (because murph has made some good points about the minneapolis sound..apologies for spelling errors)

What you said about the contracts/technology playing a part in the reduction of band size is really interesting, and I can see how it would have a massive impact on the sound... like the industrial revolution.

I would be interested though, about whether you feel that Prince and The Time had an identifiable sound when it came to how they used the new technology... what makes Prince sound like Prince (is it more about how he mixed genres?)



oh... and to blame Prince for Brit Spears and JT and timberland etc... bit harsh don't you think

Prince isn't that "funky". Not in the purest definition of the genre.

robinesque said:

Indeed...I've been saying this since the first page...lol...

I'm glad someone is getting it...
[Edited 8/30/08 13:59pm]

blackguitaristz said:

I quoted you.

Had a couple of dj gigs over the weekend, so i haven't been around so much.

The INITIAL statement (which i haven't backed off from, or wavered on a BIT while controversially stated and somewhat harsh is, was and still is.....

The INITIAL statement (which i haven't backed off from, or wavered on a BIT while controversially stated and somewhat harsh is, was and still is.....

Prince WAS the keeper of the Funk. Prince was the funkiest artist after P. Funk. Even George Clinton admitted it. Nobody has picked up where Prince left off. In my opinion, Prince took it as far as its gonna go. D'Angelo was about take the baton but the drug demons got him. As far as creativity, Prince is still the greatest recording artist ever

Marrk said:

Exactly, that's why I'm still a HUGE fan of his. His diversity is amazing but to me, funk is the foundation of his musical base. Even when he isn't doing a funk song, elements of funk find their way into the song. Whether he's a funk artist or not, that is debatable but one thing is true, Prince is one funky dude!

Now I'm going to sit back and watch all of you argue over this point. I need some Popcorn and !
[Edited 8/19/08 8:45am]

Prince WAS the keeper of the Funk. Prince was the funkiest artist after P. Funk. Even George Clinton admitted it. Nobody has picked up where Prince left off. In my opinion, Prince took it as far as its gonna go. D'Angelo was about take the baton but the drug demons got him. As far as creativity, Prince is still the greatest recording artist ever

ButterscotchPimp said:

fuckin bafoon, what the fuck does that even mean?

The purest definition, lol,

Yeah, your opinion supersedes dictionaries encyclopedias, journalists, musicians, et all, lol, like has been said here before, you are not the self proclaimed most hated man on the org, just the most childish one.

Prince WAS the keeper of the Funk. Prince was the funkiest artist after P. Funk. Even George Clinton admitted it. Nobody has picked up where Prince left off. In my opinion, Prince took it as far as its gonna go. D'Angelo was about take the baton but the drug demons got him. As far as creativity, Prince is still the greatest recording artist ever

As I posted in an earlier thread, I went back and studied some Latimore, Graham Central Station, Bootsie Collins, and more. Prince has definately made some music that stems out of Latimore, but I have never heard him do any raw funk like Graham Central has done.

But there are two schools of thought in here. One that says the old day funk is true funk, and everything else is watered down wanna-be.

The other says that funk is still alive and well, it has simply evolved.

I have to say, if it is has evolved into what is claimed, it has been the most varied and stretched evoltution of a music genre. Perhaps funk is more complex than the other music movements.
[Edited 9/2/08 5:31am]

BP - any particular reason you continue to avoid my posts? I'm not that bothered (and if the answer is that they weren't very interesting that's cool too),but am interested in your responses to the questions I raised - or anyone else's for that matter!

This has been an, at times, interesting discussion but it gets incredibly frustrating because of BP's back-peddling and side-stepping (to mix sport metaphors):

The most important point made, and ignored repeatedly by BP, is the contradiction implied by his acceptance of the transition from JB to GC in his definition of "pure funk" but his rejection of Prince and the so-called "Minny sound." If he had been listening to music in the 60s and 70s and been a funk purist, he would have been saying that what GC and P-Funk were doing is not funk whatever they call themselves because it doesn't conform to the unchangeable characteristics instituted by JB.

I went back and listened to some Troutman and Barkays thanx to this thread (and I mean thank you), and I can understand why you might see them as "hard-core funk" and most Prince as more pop-oriented funk (BP still hasn't responded to some of the counter-examples like the 12-inch of I Wish U Heaven). BUT, to my ears they are clearly not innovative to the funk to the same degree that JB (originator), GC, Sly and P were.

Here's a different question, though: should the value of P's funk influence be downgraded because of those influenced BY him (someone quoted a bunch in a post above)? Most of them are light-weight crap that, in my opinion alone, have had a negative influence on pop, funk and black music in general. The exceptions (from the list above at least) are Outkast and the Roots and that may just be enough to make it worth crediting P's longlasting influence: it seems that a new generation of artists making innovative and different styles of funk credit P as a major influence. (I'd put jdavey in there too - but I think they're too many removes from funk for it to be a major classifier).

A couple of things before i jump back in and respond to some things that have been said.

ONE, the myth of me "back peddling". I've been extrememly consistant throughout this thread. I've said the same things since page 1. Haven't backed off one bit with the exception being that i modified my position of Prince being "somewhat" a "keeper of the funk" due to the fact that he's hipped people to the genre. But that's the only point i've conceeded thus far.

TWO, is there some kind of Org sub-culture that i'm not aware of? Is there some kind of award for "longest thread"? I mean i get the impression that to some of ya'll "thread size" is equal to "member-size" because some of ya'll seemed PISSED that this convo is still going and some of you seem almost desperate to see it die. I don't care either way, i just wonder if there's some rule/prize that i don't know about.

Anyhoo.....

wasitgood4u said:

Okay, here's something that just popped in my head that maybe will clarify things. I think that where Sly and James Brown definately laid the foundation of what became the genre "funk", the genre was created by George. I mean as George used to say "funk used to be a bad word". I think that's when the rawer elements of R&B/Soul spun into what became "funk". So in my mind, i can't even get my brain around "pop-oriented funk" because by nature if it's pop-oriented it ceases to be "funk".

Now some genres are broad enough to have "types". "pop" is very broad. "rock" is somewhat broad. even "jazz" but with that one i wish a lot of things that are called "jazz" weren't, because they really aren't. that's where you get into weird areas like "acid jazz" or "neo-soul". eh.

to me "funk" is like "blues". it is, or it isn't. something can be "bluesy" or "funky" but with genres as pure and as fundamentally unique as those two are, "bluesy" and "funky" are LESS than the original genres.


Outkast. Now that's one of those groups that certainly can be counted as adding somewhat to the funk legacy, and you could argue that they also add to P's legacy. They're heavily influenced by both artists, but i don't think that somehow is an indicator of P's "influence" on the funk, i think that's more of a case where fans of the one genre usually tend to be fans of the other.

I mean it would be difficult to imagine a true "funk" fan not being able to appreciate Prince's diversity and in your face controversial style/subject matter (in the early days, certainly not now).

Does that make any sense? (
(sooper-tired, sun baked and hung over)

Outkast. )

ButterscotchPimp said:

1. The first half is the most sense you've made (to me) in a long time - so I'm glad I pushed you to respond. This is the closest you've come to answering those who were asking you to give your own definition of funk. I think most ppl DO see what JB was doing as funk and Sly's and GC's take as an evolution which continued with P. I even think there are some posts where you namecheck JB and Sly as funk-masters (can't be f-d going to check, tho). OTOH if I just go by this last post of yours, it simplifies things down to what appeared to be the case from the beginning and had been becoming clearer as we went along: it's all about definitions. If you define GC as inventing and representing "pure funk" then I agree with 90% or more of what you've said - but I don't accept that definition and I don't think most folks do either. You, or some1 else, referred 2 JB as the pioneer of funk (Papa's Got a Brand New Bag?) - and that's how I've always seen it.

2. Outkast - I don't understand your take at all and how it doesn't completely contradict the first half of your post. Outkast are miles from your definition of "pure funk" and much closer to a next stage in the evolutionary definition...

And so it goes, around again...

@ this thread

I agree with the threadstarter on this.
Who made Prince the keeper of funk anyway?

People keep saying how he's not funky enough these days... I don't see him as a funk artist so much as an artist who can do just about every genre well. He's an everything sort of guy, but I'd call him an R&B artist with a million flavors.

Prince WAS the keeper of the Funk. Prince was the funkiest artist after P. Funk. Even George Clinton admitted it. Nobody has picked up where Prince left off. In my opinion, Prince took it as far as its gonna go. D'Angelo was about take the baton but the drug demons got him. As far as creativity, Prince is still the greatest recording artist ever

BlaqueKnight said:

LOL..it amazes me how all of a sudden I've become the leader of the Prince cheerleaders...That to me is hilarious...The only thing that has shifted about this thread is you and dude grabbing on to whatever argument u can find to veer from the original point that was made...

I mean really...The first post read simply as "Prince was never that funky"....Then it said "Prince was a joke when it came to the funk" because of Scotch had a few friends to back him up...

All of the other stuff you guys latched onto was just smokescreen...The "Prince wasn't the first to use synths" bit...The "Prince wasn't the first to use drum machines" bs (these "strawman" arguments, as you call them, came from Butterscotch Pimp, not me...) Of course no one (with knowledge of music history) ever said he was the first to do any of those things...But I did say he was first to strip the entire usage down to the point where he created a "Prince" sound...Again, how is that a crazy statement?

I even agreed, from the jump, that Prince was never a "funk God" (one of the other points that was bought up to zero in on the fandom on this site), a point btw, that was never made or co-signed by me his genre hopping....

What I did say and will continue to say is the Midget had a huge impact on the evolution of modern funk...Nothing crazy there, right? Except it is when you are dealing with folks that mistake being a Contrarian with being the rebel of a Prince fan site...That's what happens when you try too hard...

What continues to fly over your head is this: Prince did indeed master the funk....He contributed greatly (and some music historians say created) and mastered the "new funk" that left many a band behind that could not adapt after the '70s...If you can't understand that, then that's on you...
[Edited 8/31/08 13:33pm]

Actually, I find it very difficult to believe Prince was a "trailblazer" or to have mastered of any genre.

Why so skeptical?

Because nobody talks about him in that manner. I rarely hear him talked about at all and in those cases, it was because people thought he was a freak or because they think he's great in all respects.
He's such an under-rated artist, which I find to be very sad.

Truth is that I never thought of him to be a "funk" artist and never heard him put in that category until I came here. Don't you think if he was that it'd be as common knowledge as the fact that he was involved in "Purple Rain?"

Actually, I find it very difficult to believe Prince was a "trailblazer" or to have mastered of any genre.

Why so skeptical?

Because nobody talks about him in that manner. I rarely hear him talked about at all and in those cases, it was because people thought he was a freak or because they think he's great in all respects.
He's such an under-rated artist, which I find to be very sad.

Truth is that I never thought of him to be a "funk" artist and never heard him put in that category until I came here. Don't you think if he was that it'd be as common knowledge as the fact that he was involved in "Purple Rain?"