Classic Pop takes a look at funk - the groove-driven genre that’s bursting with soulful rhythms and slick, infectious dance beats
Emerging from R&B with whispers of jazz and soul, funk came of age in the 1970s, where a succession of artists from James Brown to Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament would bring those smooth syncopated basslines and steady, irresistible drum grooves into record stores.
Like jazz, funk was often marked by long, extended workouts. Though many three-minute pop songs profited from its loose, relaxed vibes, in its purest guise funk was much more freeform, allowing its musicians space to experiment and indulge.
Before disco came to steal its crown (though even that genre owed a hefty debt to funk), it was the dominant Black sound of the 70s, creating superstars in Chaka Khan and Rick James as well as acclaimed instrumentalists including Bootsy Collins and Eddie Hazel. It even made its way to British shores, with Average White Band and Hi-Tension replicating those roomy rhythms.
It was eventually assimilated into pop, with artists such as Level 42, Prince and Chic tightening the sound to make it chart-friendly. Funk would also inform early hip-hop discs, with by-then forgotten funk giants such as George Clinton finding themselves sampled on tracks by Public Enemy, EPMD and others. Those rap records of the late 80s would revive interest in pure funk, giving players like Clinton and Collins a turbo-charged career boost.
And as of 2025, it’s still around, if mostly as an added flavour in tracks by mainstream artists like Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. But if you want to go hardcore, check out funk masters such as Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley or modern maestros Vulfpeck.
Essential Names
BOOTSY COLLINS
Few musicians are as tethered to funk as the snappily attired bassist Bootsy Collins. Born in 1951, he first came to prominence as part of James Brown’s backing band The JB’s, playing on some of the singer’s most celebrated tracks, including Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine, Super Bad and Talkin’ Loud And Sayin’ Nothing. Collins then joined Funkadelic (along with his brother, Phelps ‘Catfish’ Collins) and forming Bootsy’s Rubber Band in 1976 (their debut album, Stretchin’ Out In Bootsy’s Rubber Band, would reach US No.59). Bootsy quickly became the go-to bassist for artists in the 80s who wanted some of that funk magic, collaborating with Jerry Harrison, Malcolm McClaren and Keith Richards. He’s also there on Deee-Lite’s club classic Groove Is In The Heart, even turning up in its psychedelic video. At 73, he’s still at it, releasing his latest LP, Album Of The Year #1 Funkateer, in 2024.
JAMES BROWN
‘The Godfather of Soul’ is perhaps James Brown’s most commonly used sobriquet, but let’s not forget that he’s also known as ‘The Minister Of New New Super Heavy Funk’. No artist in music history did more to popularise (some may say invent) funk music than Brown, who expanded his vision of American rhythm and blues in the late 60s with loose-limbed tracks such as Cold Sweat, Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose, Licking Stick – Licking Stick and, of course, Funky Drummer. Bringing in The JB’s as his backing band in the early 70s brought with it even more experimentation, with Brown eschewing much of his old R&B sound for a more committed funk identity. Without Brown’s many innovations, it’s fair to say that bands such as Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament would never have existed. Godfather of Soul? We’d argue ‘Godfather of Funk’ is a far more fitting epithet.
GEORGE CLINTON
Rivalling Bootsy for sheer on-stage wow-factor, George Clinton brought his take on Afrofuturism to the fore in the 1970s, blending African rhythms with soul and jazz to create the idiosyncratic P-Funk sound. As the architect behind funk collectives Parliament and Funkadelic, Clinton went on to create a complex mythology around his music that is packed with fictional characters and outlandish ideas as well as themes that explored the African American experience. The Osmonds they most emphatically were not. Now 83, he’s still going strong, even popping up in an edition of the US version of TV show The Masked Singer in 2022.
SLY STONE
As the mastermind behind Sly & The Family Stone, Sylvester Stewart – aka Sly Stone – was one of the pioneers of pop-funk in the early 1970s. As AllMusicstates boldly, “James Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it”, and certainly few artists did as well in spreading the funk sound to the mainstream. Not that Stone ever compromised. With his multiracial band, he mixed full-throated political messages with dancefloor-friendly grooves. Battling mental health issues, he’s been disappointingly quiet for decades, though an autobiography co-written with author Ben Greenman, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), emerged in 2023.
Essential Albums
ISAAC HAYES – SHAFT (1971)
He’d made his name as one of Stax’s finest soul stars, but with this 1971 LP Isaac Hayes showed off his funky side with a classic soundtrack to one of the defining Blaxploitation flicks. When, in 1972, Theme From Shaft won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, it marked the arrival of funk into the mainstream. It remains, by the way, the best-selling album released on the Stax label. Damn right.
JAMES BROWN – THE PAYBACK (1973)
There are too many titanic James Brown records to mention here, but this is one of his funkiest. The Payback, his 37th LP, was originally planned as the soundtrack for the Blaxploitation movie Hell Up In Harlem before it was rejected by the film’s producers. They dropped a clanger there for sure, as this collection is among the slinkiest that Brown ever put out.
RICK JAMES – STREET SONGS (1981)
With its two exalted satellites, Give It To Me Baby and the much-sampled Super Freak, Rick James’ fifth studio album is his masterpiece. In some ways it was the best Prince album that wasn’t a Prince album, and would prove the most successful record commercially for the man dubbed ‘The King of Punk-Funk’. Said the BBC: “What made Street Songs such a success was the defiant and passionate performances given by James, together with the innovative and exciting songwriting.”
LEVEL 42 – WORLD MACHINE (1985)
Of the Brit-funk outfits, no band made a bigger impression than Level 42. Mark King’s slap bass became as much a part of this sub-genre’s sound as Bootsy’s bass guitar work was across the Atlantic. This, the band’s sixth album, is one of their best, boasting funky cuts such as Dream Crazy and I Sleep On My Heart.
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