Artwork by Kristen Uroda
By Ade Adeniji
Funk allowed Black musicians and their audiences to shapeshift and speak truth to power—even while speaking in tongues. But as Stanley Nelson and Nicole London’s documentary WE WANT THE FUNK! reveals, funk also ended up influencing other prominent genres like gospel (Alicia Myers’ “I Want to Thank You”), Afrobeats in West Africa (including Fela Kuti), rock, and, of course, hip-hop.
That last genre—hip-hop—is our focus on this funky trip down memory lane, as we look at some of the most iconic funk samples ever used. It’s true that funk provided some of the raw material for hip-hop, but different eras and types of rap have expressed their funk in different ways, from the golden age to the present day. [See our Spotify playlist below.]
The ’80s–’90s Boom-Bap Era
“Boom bap” is just what it sounds like. The onomatopoeia signals the bass (kick) drum and snare drum that came to define rap’s golden age in the 1980s to mid-’90s, especially on the East Coast. Some producers stuck to one sample and added drums, but others were far more ambitious, melding together a range of sounds to cement classics.
In 1990, the Chuck D and Flavor Flav-headed group Public Enemy released “Fight the Power,” which also became the soundtrack for that piping-hot Brooklyn summer in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. “Fight the Power” taps a number of funk samples, including the drums from James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” and the vocals from The Isley Brothers’ upbeat “Fight the Power.” (As a note of trivia, Brown’s “My Thang” has reportedly been sampled by other songs 94(!) times.)
Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full” from 1987 brings in the bass from quirky R&B star Dennis Edwards’ “Don’t Look Any Further” (1984), a sample that would later be harnessed again by the likes of 2Pac, Lil Wayne, and Three 6 Mafia.
Then, of course, there’s Notorious B.I.G. a.k.a. Biggie’s timeless “Juicy” released in 1994, bringing new ears to Mtume’s sensual opus “Juicy Fruit,” a funk track which has underpinned over 100 songs, particularly in hip-hop. Mtume might also be the first funk group ever ensnared in a rap feud.
In Stetsasonic’s 1988 “Talkin’ All That Jazz,” the opening lyrics are a bouncy response to criticism from old heads worried about sampling lacking creativity—specifically referencing an interview where James Mtume dismissed sampling as “Memorex music” and accused producers of glorifying mediocrity. But Mtume later clarified that the beef was soon squashed.
’90s West Coast Hip-Hop
On the other side of the country, West Coast rap was also gathering steam thanks to its deep funk heritage. Early ’90s L.A.-area group Above the Law moved from boom bap to a new style it defined as gangsta funk, or g-funk, in the hit featuring 2Pac “Call It What U Want,” (sampling Funkadelic’s “Freak of the Week”) recorded in 1992. The group was headlined by Gregory “Big Hutch” Hutchison, the nephew of Motown legend Willie Hutch—proving that funk runs in the blood.
Around the same time, a young Dr. Dre released the groundbreaking album The Chronic (1992), which brought g-funk into the mainstream as singles like “Let Me Ride” (Parliament’s “Mothership Connection”) and “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” featuring Snoop Dogg (Leon Haywood’s “I Want’a Do Something Freaky to You”) transported the entire world to a California with endless sunshine and pimped-out cars—but also one where danger was never far behind.
2Pac and Dre’s “California Love” (sampling Joe Cocker’s “Woman to Woman,” Zapp’s “Dance Floor,” and Ronnie Hudson & The Street People’s “West Coast Poplock”) sent the West Coast even higher and cemented signature sounds like the talkbox, which Roger Troutman passed along to L.A. rap producers like DJ Quik and Battlecat.
G-funk is often described as minimalistic, but there is a funky politics to be found, too, including on Warren G’s “Do You See” (1994), which mashes up Junior’s whimsical “Mama Used to Say” (1981) and Gil Scott-Heron’s fiery spoken-word track “Bicentennial Blues”: “Why should the blues be so at home here? Well, America provided the atmosphere.”
Six hours north, up Interstate 5, artists like Too Short, Spice 1, and Ant Banks minted their own brand of Bay Area funk called mobb music, which has similarities to g-funk, but often with a deeper bassline. And funky Oakland collective Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance” (sampling Parliament’s “Let’s Play House”) still gets play to this day.
Assorted ’90s–’00s Hip-Hop Hits
Funk also found its way to other hip-hop subgenres, including new jack swing, a funky brand of R&B with a twist. Female performers like Mary J. Blige, TLC, SWV, and Janet Jackson held this genre down. SWV’s “Anything” and its many remixes (sampling Freedom’s “Get Up and Dance”) found their way to film soundtracks like Above the Rim, executive produced by Death Row impresario Suge Knight—sending hip-hop’s popularity even higher.
Chicago rapper Da Brat’s unabashedly funky 1994 album Funkdafied is also emblematic of that era. And the following year, Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me” (Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s “I’d Rather Be With You”) mixes sexy and funky with some of the best synths ever used in R&B/hip-hop.
In the South, artists like Outkast (“Funky Ride”) and Scarface (“Hand of the Dead Body”) also tapped into funk influence for their hits, and New York producers like Erick Sermon were quite clear about how funk influenced their songs. Sermon even said that his 2001 megahit “Music” with archived vocals from Marvin Gaye, happened after he bought a copy of Gaye’s album Midnight Love & the Sexual Healing Sessions.
We would also be remiss not to mention Will Smith’s many forays into hip-hop, including the “Men in Black Theme,” which heavily sampled Patrice Rushen’s ‘82 R&B cut, “Forget Me Nots.”
The Present Day
As hip-hop looks back on more than five decades, funk remains deeply entwined in the genre as ever—so much so, it’s sometimes taken for granted. Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly includes the single “King Kunta,” which references James Brown and is influenced by a previous generation of funky rap (Ahmad’s “We Want the Funk” and DJ Quik and Mausberg’s “Get Nekkid”). And just as Compton OG Quik brought DeBarge in on some of his songs, Compton’s Lamar walks in these same footsteps with Ronald Isley of The Isley Brothers singing on “How Much a Dollar Cost.”
Funk, indeed, is still always on the mind.
Bonus:
Play our accompanying Spotify playlist:
Ade Adeniji is a culture writer based in Los Angeles and New York. He has written for outlets including WIRED, VICE, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, and CBS News. He blogs about film and television on his own website, adeadeniji.com.
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