22 Facts About Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century.

Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.

Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, and the application of swung 16th notes and syncopation on all basslines, drum patterns, and guitar riffs—and rock and psychedelia-influenced musicians Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix, fostering improvisation in funk.

Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths.

Funk continues the African musical tradition of improvisation, in that in a funk band, the group would typically "feel" when to change, by "jamming" and "grooving", even in the studio recording stage, which might only be based on the skeleton framework for each song.

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Funk uses "collective improvisation", in which musicians at rehearsals would have what was metaphorically a musical "conversation", an approach which extended to the onstage performances.

Funk creates an intense groove by using strong guitar riffs and basslines played on electric bass.

Funk basslines emphasize repetitive patterns, locked-in grooves, continuous playing, and slap and popping bass.

Funk bass has an "earthy, percussive kind of feel", in part due to the use of muted, rhythmic ghost notes.

Funk guitarists playing rhythm guitar generally avoid distortion effects and amp overdrive to get a clean sound, and given the importance of a crisp, high sound, Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters were widely used for their cutting treble tone.

Michael Hampton, another P-Funk guitarist, was able to play Hazel's virtuosic solo on "Maggot Brain", using a solo approach that added in string bends and Hendrix-style feedback.

Funk singers used a "black aesthetic" to perform that made use of "colorful and lively exchange of gestures, facial expressions, body posture, and vocal phrases" to create an engaging performance.

Funk songs included metaphorical language that was understood best by listeners who were "familiar with the black aesthetic and [black] vernacular".

Funk was formed through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century.

Funk allowed everyday experiences to be expressed to challenge daily struggles and hardships fought by lower and working class communities.

In 1969 Jimmy McGriff released Electric Funk, featuring his distinctive organ over a blazing horn section.

Funk music was exported to Africa, and it melded with African singing and rhythms to form Afrobeat.

Funk used percussionist Bill Summers in addition to a drummer.

Funk is a major element of certain artists identified with the jam band scene of the late 1990s and 2000s.

Funk metal is a fusion genre of music which emerged in the 1980s, as part of the alternative metal movement.

Funk jam is a fusion genre of music which emerged in the 1990s.

Funk's states that "Betty Davis is an artist whose name has gone unheralded as a pioneer in the annals of funk and rock.