DāM-FunK has been at the head of the modern funk movement for the last five years, a place he earned one music-festival stop at a time. And while he's secure in his role as funk's ambassador, he's still just a bit bothered that the public's funk knowledge is just a little lacking.
For instance, a tweet that came across his eyes earlier this month. In praising D'Angelo's Black Messiah, a music producer with Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show said that the foundations of modern funk are D'Angelo, Questlove of the Roots, and prolific bass player Pino Palladino.
Nothing against those guys, but what bothers DāM-FunK (pronounced like damn funk or dame funk, whichever you prefer) is that neo-soul musicians -- no matter how funky in their own right -- get pushed into a genre that's uniquely different. Still, that's okay. Because Los Angeles' Damon Riddick has built a solid career on the funk, and just wants you to know its real history.
For example, don't confuse today's funk with bell bottoms and rainbow Afros, he says. Part of the job in being the ambassador of modern funk is making sure people know the movement is progressing. We talked to Funk, who posts up at Boondocks tonight, about his brand and his music and why D'Angelo is a godsend.
Rocks Off: So what happened after you saw that tweet about modern funk, and why was it incorrect in your opinion? DāM-FunK: One of the guys on Twitter was like "Nah, you can't forget about Dam-Funk." So, it's like it caused a little lightening storm a couple of days ago and I watched it. I would hope that people, the historians, writers and critics can keep the facts straight because now they're going to try to use "modern funk" as the term now, because they know they can't say neo-soul any more.
And I just hope that people don't forget about some of the funk that really is happening with synthesizers, drum machines, and beautiful chords. It's not the chicken scratch type style of funk or soul that was considered modern funk. So the guy from Jimmy Fallon's show, he incorrectly is trying to change history -- innocently if you will -- because I think right now people are just do excited that D'Angelo dropped this record.
How do you explain funk to people? The basic elements of funk, from what the cats before me laid down, is the importance of it being on the one. For me though it's about beautiful chords, a nice volume of claps -- the one and the two -- as opposed to four-on-the-floor, like disco. You can use guitars as opposed to R&B where it's not too much guitar solos and things like that. So, funk to me is the darker cousin -- if you will -- to R&B and soul.
You're doing more of your original work now, including your recent release 7 Days of Funk, with Snoop. You've stepped outside of your persona as a guy who just promoted funk and played vinyl rare cuts. Which do you prefer to focus on? I still do both. I mean, I developed this style of presentation just on a whim. When I would go on the first Stones Throw tours, and I first signed to their label, I was mainly DJing. Then I started realizing this is an opportunity to do live songs that I've done and incorporate that into the DJ set. So it still is one of those types of things when I do DJ sets. We call it solo live.
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