chocolate1 said:

Good call.

You're right Butter! Prince is not all about funk, he is sooo much more! He is beyond defining and categorizing music.

Prince breaks boundaries which is the cool thing about him as an artist. Of course he can play funk, funk is just one genre of many... But screw genres, what matters is does the music flow or not?

That said, I thought Prince had a pretty funky opening on the last O2 night broadcastet on Sky News.

I would never put Prince's brand of funk in the same category as Pfunk, Rick James, Bootsy, Cameo, The Gap Band or JB. Prince seldom plays pure funk. It's more of a hybrid-Princey style funk. Exceptions would be most of Exodus, parts of Crystal Ball and portions of The Black Album just off the top of my head.

Prince is eclectic and has funky elements in many of his songs but to call Controversy or Let's Work pure, raw, uncut funk? Nah. What's interesting about Prince is how he pulls together different musical elements in a way that no one else can, but is he one of the masters of funk? No.

As for W&L, I'd say every other member of the Revolution surpasses them when it comes to funk. They added some interesting colors to the mix during their time with Prince but his music was more watered down funkwise with them than at any other time in his career with any other band for that matter.

Graycap23 said:

i haven't even read this whole thread yet when i posted this, but it's just another revolution head that can't face the facts that prince has been funky and even funkier without them

so i will at this whole entire thread

ButterscotchPimp said:

when i asked u 2 go head 2 head about the revolution years vs anything past u refused..now u want 2? but ur gonna use what say lakeside against prince instead of the revolution? or the ohio players? damn ur starting 2 clown urself

Prince is many things, musically, and one of those parts is funk. He might not wear pimp clothes or a diaper on stage, smoke spliffs or whatever might make you consider him to be 'truly' funky, but funk is definately a colour on his pallette.

It's rather silly to suggest he isn't funky. If that is not what you are trying to say, then I do not know why you created this thread.

I am sure the funk community you speak of just plays funk and nothing else. To me, people laughing at Prince's funk-ability are the ones that are silly. And now I am not saying he is 'the keeper of funk'. He just got a funky side. Next to his jazzy side. And his poppy side. And his rocky side. The main attraction to me is he mixes it and can switch from one style to another at the blink of an eye.

Even if I agree with George Clinton, who once said he'd like Prince to get on the grittier side of funk.

TheKid3121 said:

www.allmusic.com says

Named after a slang word for "stink," funk was indeed the rawest, most primal form of R&B, surpassing even Southern soul in terms of earthiness. It was also the least structured, often stretching out into extended jams, and the most Africanized, built on dynamic, highly syncopated polyrhythms. As such, it originally appealed only to hardcore R&B audiences. The groove was the most important musical element of funk — all the instruments of the ensemble played off of one another to create it, and worked it over and over. Deep electric bass lines often served as main riffs, with an interlocking web of short, scratchy guitar chords and blaring horns over the top.

Unlike nearly every form of R&B that had come before it, funk didn't confine itself to the 45-rpm single format and the classic verse/chorus song structure. Funk bands were just as likely to repeat a catchy chant or hook out of the blue, and to give different song sections equal weight, so as not to disrupt the groove by building to a chorus-type climax. In essence, funk allowed for more freedom and improvisation, and in that respect it was similar to what was happening around the same time in blues-rock, psychedelia, and hard rock (in fact, Jimi Hendrix was a major inspiration for funk guitar soloists). The roots of funk lay in James Brown's post-1965 soul hits, particularly "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (1965) and "Cold Sweat" (1967). Sly & the Family Stone, who started out as a soul band influenced by rock and psychedelia, became a full-fledged (albeit pop-savvy) funk outfit with 1969's Stand!.

However, the record that officially ushered in the funk era was James Brown's epochal "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine." The arrangement was spare, the groove hard-hitting, and Brown's lyrics were either stream-of-consciousness slogans or wordless noises. Brown followed it with more records over the course of 1970 that revolutionized R&B, and paved the way for the third artist of funk's holy trinity, George Clinton. Clinton's Parliament and Funkadelic outfits made funk the ultimate party music, not just with their bizarre conceptual humor, but their sheer excess — huge ensembles of musicians and dancers, all jamming on the same groove as long as they possibly could.

Thanks to Sly, Brown, and Clinton, many new and veteran R&B acts adopted funk as a central style during the '70s. Funk gradually became smoother as disco came to prominence in the mid- to late '70s, and lost much of its distinguishing earthiness. However, it had a major impact on jazz (both fusion and soul-jazz), and became the musical foundation of hip-hop. Thanks to the latter, funk enjoyed a renaissance during the '90s, especially among white audiences who rushed to explore its original classics.

babynoz said:

heh, if you just read the bold parts, sure. But one of the bold parts is an IF, not an absolute.

I just don't get the thread. That's all. Prince does what he does. We can all go fuck ourselves.

I never met a person that berated Prince for not being funky enough, so I am kinda puzzled about the people Pimp tries to call out. That's all.

HamsterHuey said:

Yep, Prince is gonna do what he's gonna do regardless. But there is a fine distinction between funky and funk. Where IS Funkenstein anyway?

What I got from reading Butter's comments is that he's looking for responses from devotees who proclaim P as the be all and end all of funk. I also suspect that he's stung by the more derisive comments regarding W&L.

...i was more looking for why some people in here have decided that Prince is somehow a torch-bearer for the funk.

Bring back the "Does Prince Chew Gum?" threads. They make much more sense than the ish that BPs been spouting.

Seriously, all the acts that you have mentioned I have and dig too. But I also love me some Prince Funk.

But under "Funk" I would also put Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine & 24-7 Spyz.....

Funk, in my opinion, is broad!!!!

I, for one, agree with you. Under the definition of Funk,(Parliment, Slave, etc), Prince is nowhere near being the keeper of funk, or anything close to it. He has done some "light"funk, but nothing that would put him in the category of a funk Master. He could learn a thing or two or three from George Clinton, as far as funk goes. I am a funk bassist, so I know a little something of the genre. It's sad to me that the die-hard, Prince is everything, can do no wrong fans believe that he is a funk expert. He can be funky at times, but not a true Funk Master.

BlurredEye said:

I thought about this and it just dawned on me. You noticed how BP is acting on this thread right? Now remember the threads that tricky99 was starting up last week and how defensive BP was towards tricky99. Notice on this thread how BP is doing the same thing that he was accusing tricky99 of doing, going back and responding to people and damn near demanding that people give proof of how Prince is a funk artist, the same way tricky was demanding that people give proof as to who's done better music than Prince in the last 3 years. He's a pure example of "pot calling the kettle black."

Here's the thread that I'm talking about from last week:

http://prince.org/msg/7/279233

purplecam said:

Lol.....count down 2 BP backtracking.....

i think bp went in2 the studio with his "funk collabarators" 2 recut a song called "talking loud and saying shit" cause that's all he's been doing. he wants xamples but doesn't provide nothing on his own except fruit at the bottom..which is a funky song but compared 2 say hmmm la la la he he hee which came out around the same time...lawd have mercy he needs his ears cleaned

Graycap23 said:

now now grey ..between u, myself and cam he'll resort 2 calling us kool aid drinkers ..

i dunno. i've seen prince play live at paisley park and he's put down some major funk. the kind makes your hair stand up then do the wave. not always, mind you, because he's eclectic and p[lays a lot of different genres, but i think he can funk it up with the best of them

Graycap23 said:

i feel ya ..cause that's y i laugh at all those revolution lovers out there that can't LETITGO (r1) and others ..

ButterscotchPimp said:

I get what Gray is saying here. By the time Prince hit his stride or in some cases even had a record contract the a lot of popular funk artists were on the decline, i.e., "damned near dead".

Slave - last chart song/album 1983

Ohio Players - last chart song/album 1981

Commodores - from '74 - '78 were mostly funk/R&b band after that they were mostly straight R&B.

Parliment/Funkadelic/George Clinton - last chart song 1981 with George's solo effort of "Atomic Dog".

Lakeside - 1983 (they had albums after that but they were not well known)

Bootsy Collins - 1982. Correct me if I'm wrong but he didn't do another solo album until '88 or '89?

James Brown - last funk album 1974 (The Payback)

Sly Stone - 1973 (But he did funk, rock soul and R&B ... just like Prince)

Betty Davis - 1979 album not released until more than a decade later

ButterscotchPimp said:

You keep mentioning Betty Davis. She really had no real impact on Funk, and she certainly didn't "lay the foundation", because her first album wasn't released until 1973. She made some great little records, and her band was kicking (with Larry Graham, Gregg Ericco, Merl Saunders and the Pointer Sisters), but I think you give her waaaaay to much credit. Few of the oldschool Funk musicians I know even know who she is.

If you want to talk about the foundation of Funk, you need to talk about James Brown (and in his context, Pee Wee Ellis and Clyde Stubblefield even more than Fred Wesley, because Wesley didn't arrange songs for Brown until 1969), but you also need to speak about Dyke and the Blazers.

On a final note, Prince is no Funk artist. He's an allrounder. If you want to nail him down on one genre, it would be Pop. But he's certainly released some incredibly funky songs.
[Edited 8/19/08 14:11pm]

That's your main problem Butterscotch!! Trying to describe FUNK as a genre is like trying to downplay the act of SEX as being simply physically active...

FUNK isn't supposed to be explained! Either it is, or it isn't. And, you even said it yourself...Prince is!! That should end the discussion as far as I'm concerned!!

ButterscotchPimp said:

If you can define FUNK (which you haven't) you're a funk messiah (which you're not). George admitted he stole playing "on the one" from James/Bootsy. Everyone has experiences that lead them somewhere and no one is more righteous than anyone else. Whoever you know aren't the last word either.
I was hanging with a friend and we were listening to the Beatles. We were jamming and he looked at me and said' isn't the shit funky!' I didn't belittle him or argue validity of his point. I went home and put together a cassette of JB (I mean the long pants), clinton, the Family, Rick James...etc. I think there might have been 2 or 3 Prince songs on a 90 minute tape. 21 years later he'll still tell me I kicked his ass.

Everyone learns the truth. The Kooks were on cable talking about how they didn't like funk ...until someone introduce them to George and JB. They just didn't know.
So take it easy on the newbies and the inexperienced and share instead of argue.

Heatwave was pretty funky man.

MrSoulpower said:

Where you get the overall point (thank god), we're going to have to agree to disagree on Betty. Especially when i KNOW that Prince borrowed HEAVILY from her early on.

That's your main problem Butterscotch!! Trying to describe FUNK as a genre is like trying to downplay the act of SEX as being simply physically active...

FUNK isn't supposed to be explained! Either it is, or it isn't. And, you even said it yourself...Prince is!! That should end the discussion as far as I'm concerned!!

ButterscotchPimp said:

without betty's "dedicated to the press", there would be no "sexuality", and for that matter, no "owwah!"

Anxiety said:

Betty is more known today than in '73, when she first came out. She really had no commercial success and therefore little impact on Funk. Her bandmembers were already well established before playing with her .. she was really just a side project.

MrSoulpower said:

you're making her out to sound like she was apollonia 6 or something, and you know way better than that. she didn't have mainstream success but she did have lots of hipster cred. that cred has just intensified with her "comeback" in the past few years, i think. she's still not a household name, but people who love music know and appreciate her.