Funk-"Funk is an American musical style that originated in the mid- to late-1960s when African American performers blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony, and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Funk creates an intense groove in it's musical style." Intense Groove. Now that is what I'm talking about. The funk. The groove. The rhythm. The life. I am not even talking about the musical genre of funk here. This right here is about what i take from the spirit of funk music and try apply in my own life and in my own music as a hip hop artist. For me funk is Prince, funk is James Brown, funk is Rick James back in the day. I'm not saying that these artists are the ultimate proponents of funk music( though they very well might be). Nahh. But atleast in my listenings, these artists exemplified the philosphy of funk and not just the music but funk as a concept.
So what is the concept of funk? Ahhh that's the fun part. Funk for me epitomizes living on a groove, living for a groove. If you down with funk, you don't just exist. You fucking live! Funk is James Brown going crazy on stage singing 'SuperBad', funk is Prince still teaching us 'Musicology', funk is Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five spreading "The Message" back in the day. Funk is living on your own groove and loving every damn second of it. Ofcourse you ain't gotta limit yourself to music to live on funk. Funk is just the concept of living with that soundtrack in your head that never goes away. When your very state of mind, hell your very personality is shaped by that. Funk is never regretting being alive. Funk is grabbing life by the balls and breathing rather than respiring. Funk is chasing your dream till the end of the earth and laughing your ass off all along the way. When you live on that funk, people might look at you strange and you might not do everything the way people expect you to. But if you live on funk, you probably won't notice. And even if you do, it won't really matter. Funk is when life is your bitch and you fuck her till you're done with her. Then they can come and take you away. And let them write on our tombstones- "Let the funk flow."
