Musicology 101...

I have found it funny as I look back on my journey through the funk. Anyone who knows me knows that FUNK music is my passion and a giant chunk of my life. I think back to when I first got into funk music was when I was in Junior High and I was really digging the song "You Gots To Chill" by EPMD and I always wondered where the beat came from. After doing a little asking around and research I found out that it was "More Bounce To The Ounce" by Zapp. I then did that for a lot of my favorite songs at the time and found "Dazz" by Brick and "Atomic Dog" by George Clinton. I find it funny that since that time I have studied a new direction in funk music every couple of years. I kind of made a map of my journey through funk...

1990-92: The Basics. Discovered Parliament/Funkadelic, James Brown, Sly Stone, Ohio Players, Zapp, Average White Band, Brick/Dazz Band.

1993-96: Deeper. Discovered Slave, Jesse Johnson solo albums, Headhunters, Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame..all i can remember.

96-99: Got into Deep Funk. Eddie Bo, The Meters, Sugar Bill Garner, peoples like that. Deep funk is more raw. They say they used to plug in a wah wah pedal and not use it to give their guitar a raw type of sound.

2000-2003: Got into the Barley Breaking Even label. Discovered 70's and 80's funk I never knew existed and was out of print. People like Keb Darge

2004-?: Got into Underground Disco. Underground Disco is so different from popular disco. Underground Disco was played in the underground disco clubs of NYC and was more funky and more soulful then the poppy disco like Donna Summer and the BEE GEES. Some great Underground Disco songs are "Cirgi" by Material, "liquid liquid" by Cavern (white lines sample), and a guilty pleasure "Macho City" by the Steve Miller Band.

There are so many limbs on the tree of funk. One could argue that there could be a hiphop/funk genere that I would put in The Coup and The roots (Live). All I know is I love the funk.

Disclaimer: Prince was not mentioned above cuz everybody knows why.