did hip-hop make funk better?

[rubberdingyrapids]

this is an odd one as i bought a lot of funk records when i was a hip hop obsessive, though i think i was just conditioned by hip hop to worship funk and not really listen to it properly. but i have come to learn that i dont actually like funk very much. i love the riffs, the basslines, the rhythms, i love funk as a style, but as a whole, i dont really want to listen to very much of it. i accept its mostly dance music, but ultimately its pretty monotonous, and often quite indulgent and flabby (im talking 70s funk really, when it became a genre proper; the 60s funk stuff is better as its leaner, and tighter, but even then, many JB songs can be quite endless. often the 'part one' is all that you need). i think hip hop producers loved it, but deep down knew this, and understood what it lacked: an editor, someone to tell the bands what the good bits were, rather than just let them play on for far too long, which is often exactly what they did. many great bands need someone telling them what they cant see for themselves. and there is no shame in it. ultimately it is a shame that no good rap producers ever produced one of the legendary 70s funk bands on a comeback album.

 

[luka]

you were away at the time but we actually cancelled funk a while ago.

Funk is Cancelled.

We all cringe when we hear funk now. The jiving brass, the preening bass, the assembly line compartmentalisation. I can't identify the moment it became intolerable, but it's happened. Anything drawing on the legacy of funk is cancelled. Funk is Bruno Mars.

www.dissensus.com

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

oh right. well-cancelled.

 

[Corpsey]

one of my famous old opinions is that jazz only really became worthwhile when hip-hop producers sampled it

I was actually thinking earlier about if jazz (or sampling) made hip hop better than it is now after posting the beatnuts album and listening to it

obviously it became a cliche and limited but it's interesting how you get all sorts of basslines and harmonies and sounds when sampling was the thing to do that you don't get now in stuff that's made entirely on synths

 

[forclosure]

i won't say it made either "better" but i feel like its more a mutual symbiotic thing if anything by this logic you could argue house made disco sound better cause it got away lot of those trappings instead of bands and orchestras they tried to replicate it on cheap drum machines

 

[forclosure]

also lol at the idea of funk being monotonous as if that ain't the point, i'd really be interested to know what his opinion is on old afrobeat stuff or Nigerian fuji where it was just one tune over 20 minutes

 

[version]

Techno made Kraftwerk sound better.

 

[forclosure]

also on this note i would highly reccomend you man in here read George Clinton's memoir, it gets pretty bogged down in his legal shit later on but its a good really funny read and you get into his head with alot of his ideas

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

i actually think the nigerian funk i have heard has more going on than american funk. some of those fela tracks have a trance-like element which works better for longer tracks.
but again, when you have a sublime horn motif like water get no enemy, its incredible, when you dont, it can be too much of a funky thing.

i totally get that the monotony IS the point, and live, i think that is great, but on record, its not something that i am a huge fan of. i am def a believer in the idea that any extra fat should always be cut where possible.

re: disco and jazz, i think these are different arguments. i am also biased in that the best disco i like (basically stuff on larry levan mixes or things compiled by labels like BBE) often has more melodic and harmonic elements going on that i prefer to funk which mostly does not.

i like a lot of jazz, but only in part. i was listening to some coltrane the other day and thinking that i would have liked to just hear mcoy turner playing the song rather than coltrane going for broke so often (do love the ballads though) so that is essentially my perspective. i am a jazz philistine, lol. i appreciate that the aim is to disrupt and rupture the song underneath the players, not necessarily support it. im just not sure thats something i love that much (i prefer 'neater', more tightly structured jazz like miles' birth of cool), though a good solo is something to be appreciated and savoured.

i keep meaning to get that clinton book. he was made for funk. he was never much good at keeping to a tighter format, though some of those earlier songs like all your goodies are gone, which are song-based, are some of my favourite things that they did. also, he was often good at making sure his songs had good switchesand changes. eg - chocolate city has that 'gamin on ya' part which interrupts the piano sections. flashlight goes on forever though. if i could use editing software, id do an edit.

 

[luka]

There's a new mental illness out where people go round the city with huge speakers all day, grim faced men blasting out music at inconceivable volumes, mostly on bikes sometimes strapped to a sack cart/trolley
and one of them was playing mass appeal by Gangstarr and to hear it that loud, it was like a religious experience, it was awe inspiring and it reminded me of how magical a loop can be.

 

[forclosure]

i actually think the nigerian funk i have heard has more going on than american funk. some of those fela tracks have a trance-like element which works better for longer tracks.
but again, when you have a sublime horn motif like water get no enemy, its incredible, when you dont, it can be too much of a funky thing.

i totally get that the monotony IS the point, and live, i think that is great, but on record, its not something that i am a huge fan of. i am def a believer in the idea that any extra fat should always be cut where possible.

re: disco and jazz, i think these are different arguments. i am also biased in that the best disco i like (basically stuff on larry levan mixes or things compiled by labels like BBE) often has more melodic and harmonic elements going on that i prefer to funk which mostly does not.

i like a lot of jazz, but only in part. i was listening to some coltrane the other day and thinking that i would have liked to just hear mcoy turner playing the song rather than coltrane going for broke so often (do love the ballads though) so that is essentially my perspective. i am a jazz philistine, lol. i appreciate that the aim is to disrupt and rupture the song underneath the players, not necessarily support it. im just not sure thats something i love that much (i prefer 'neater', more tightly structured jazz like miles' birth of cool), though a good solo is something to be appreciated and savoured.

i keep meaning to get that clinton book. he was made for funk. he was never much good at keeping to a tighter format, though some of those earlier songs like all your goodies are gone, which are song-based, are some of my favourite things that they did. also, he was often good at making sure his songs had good switchesand changes. eg - chocolate city has that 'gamin on ya' part which interrupts the piano sections. flashlight goes on forever though. if i could use editing software, id do an edit.

i mean....have you heard McCoy Tyner's solo stuff? especially on like Enchantment and Atlantis he was prone to going for broke aswell

 

[forclosure]

the "neat" side of jazz has it's time and place Chet Baker,Birth of the cool era Miles no idea if you'd deem hard bop "neat" but i don't really think so

that said i also like Warne Marsh (Anthony Braxton's a big fan of this guy)

 

[DannyL]

I think the focus on JB-inspired funk and all the shit that got sampled stops up people's ears and weirdly stops them listening to some of the more interesting funk out there. I'm thinking of Parliament, the million and one Bootsy and Clinton side project, Larry Young etc. There's loads of good stuff that falls under funk even though a lot of this shades into jazz. It's not all just boring seven inches.

 

[linebaugh]

Maybe the pairing has worked better in the past but I feel like the last (and most current?) hip hpp / funk fusion gestalt made funk worse. The neo soul revival thing exemplified by Hiatus Kayote and a million groups all laying down mediocre funk songs over j-dilla style syncopation.

Recently I think hip hop has done more for jazz.

 

[linebaugh]

 

[thirdform]

also lol at the idea of funk being monotonous as if that ain't the point, i'd really be interested to know what his opinion is on old afrobeat stuff or Nigerian fuji where it was just one tune over 20 minutes

Yeah, funk is the original trance in that sense. It's supposed to be monotonous! Jaki Liebezeit is funk for whiteboys.

 

[thirdform]

Techno made Kraftwerk sound better.

This I think is true, but that is because Kraftwerk was too indebted to European classical music and high Germanic modernism. They were actually somewhat of a retro band compared to say D.A.F (even at the time.) And they were especially retro when compared to spanish industrial maniacs like Esplendor Geometrico

 

[william_kent]

kraftwerk's finest moment

 

[luka]

thats the correct opinion

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

There's a new mental illness out where people go round the city with huge speakers all day, grim faced men blasting out music at inconceivable volumes, mostly on bikes sometimes strapped to a sack cart/trolley
and one of them was playing mass appeal by Gangstarr and to hear it that loud, it was like a religious experience, it was awe inspiring and it reminded me of how magical a loop can be.

re: magical trance like beats from that era, theres prob loads actually, but the remix of funkdoobiest's rock on, and mic geronimo's master IC are two of the incredible ones (going from memory). magical hip hop trance is a good genre actually. i loved clams casinos stuff for that too.