Independent Lens

Singers: Oh, whoa, whoa, oh Oh, whoa, whoa Oh, whoa, whoa [Playing funk music] Bobby Byrd: What you gonna play now?

James Brown: Bobby, I don't know, but whatever I play, it's got to be funky.

Ow!

[Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" playing] Go on!

Ha!

Todd Boyd: What is funk?

Well, it's funky.

But beyond that, I don't know if I can describe it, but when you hear it, you know what it is.

And perhaps more importantly, you know it when you feel it.

George Clinton: Funk itself is the essence of energy.

You know like they say, "Use the force, Luke."

Go on!

Clinton: You're free of all the rules, and you just let go and let the groove take over.

Kool & the Gang: Can't get enough Of that funky stuff... Marcus Miller: There's no sad funk song.

Kool & the Gang: Can't get enough... Miller: Funk's primary purpose is to get people moving.

Get people dancing.

Shaking their behinds.

Having a good time.

Kool & the Gang: I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah David Byrne: You're not thinking in the sense of trying to reason everything out.

That part of your being you've kind of surrendered to something greater than yourself.

Questlove: What its music instructed you to do is dance in a way that the music dictates.

Funk music literally instructs you on how to move.

Kool & the Gang: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah The story is in the rhythm.

You know, you're just like... [Playing "Give Up the Funk"] Parliament: Give up the funk... [Playing "Give Up the Funk"] Parliament: We gotta have that funk... People are like, "Oh, come on now," right?

"I don't know what you're talking about.

"We want the funk.

Gotta have the funk.

OK, that's good enough for me."

Parliament: Oh, we need the funk We gotta have that funk Jason King: Funk music offers us this opportunity to reach for a certain kind of transcendent feeling and freedom in the way we move through the world that we're not often granted elsewhere.

Rickey Vincent: Funk is about transcendent joy.

Funk is a reminder that it's a joy to be in this world.

[Crowd cheering] Nona Hendryx: Funk is really a spiritual experience.

Is there a Black music that is a Black music that...is a Black music?

Then it would be funk.

Parliament: You gotta have that funk Funk was the domain of Black folks in the early seventies.

But you know, once you put it out there into the world, you don't know who it's going to affect.

Hit it.

We're gonna have A funky good time Boyd: When funk got out into the world, it's only a matter of time before people across the globe hear it and feel it.

Brown: We're getting down Lookit here, ah Dangela Duff: Funk lives on.

We have Bruno Mars, D'Angelo, Janelle Monae, Cory Henry.

Funk will continue to live as long as there is music, and music is not going anywhere.

Brown: How you feel, brotha?

Clinton: With funk music, it's easy to speak the same language.

Brown: We're going to have a funky good time Clinton: It's not only universal, it's interplanetary, Brown: Uhh, we gotta take you higher Parliament: We want the funk Give up the funk Ow, we need the funk We gotta have the funk [Fanfare] Hammer headlines from the news of the day.

Announcer: Unopposed bombing raids sent defenseless civilians fleeing in stark terror.

Thomas F. DeFrantz: After the Second World War, there was a sense that the world had been in chaos.

Announcer: A happy crowd screamed their relief at the end of the greatest war in history.

DeFrantz: You've just been through this tumultuous planetary event.

Announcer: It's a great day for the whole world and especially for the serviceman.

DeFrantz: What do we need to do to kind of move and feel safe?

Man: 1, 2, heel of the hand.

1, 2, fingers now.

DeFrantz: There is this rise of something we call leisure culture.

Suddenly, there is this idea that young people could have their own dances and their own culture.

["American Bandstand" theme song playing] Announcer: From Philadelphia, it's time for America's favorite dance party, "American Bandstand."

Man: Everybody watched "American Bandstand."

I mean, that thing was huge.

["The Stroll" by The Diamonds playing] Dick Clark: Shall we stroll a bit?

By the Diamonds, "The Stroll."

Dave Somerville: Come, let's stroll Stroll across the floor Boyd: Funky is not the way you would describe the dancers on "American Bandstand."

Not in the least bit.

Perhaps the opposite of funky, whatever that is.

Somerville: And let's go strolling In wonderland Julie Malnig: "American Bandstand" represented the conservatism of 1950s culture, and the Whiteness was glaring.

This was the height of Jim Crow racism, and the show really reflected those...policies.

[Crowd cheering] ["My Girl" playing] I've got sunshine On a cloudy day Jamon Jordan: Berry Gordy Jr. early in starting his record company, wanted Motown to be the Sound of Young America.

He wanted to cross over.

He wanted his music to be played on the same radio stations as Elvis Presley, as the Beatles, as Frank Sinatra.

What can make me feel this way?

My girl, my girl... DeFrantz: Motown was trying to satisfy how Black Americans could kind of fit into the media place.

I've got so much honey The bees envy me DeFrantz: And one way to do that was to be respectable.

So Motown hired choreographers to actually train the artist how to dance in public.

So it's not like the Temptations or the Supremes needed practice in dancing, but they needed to be trained in how to be presentable to a general, overwhelmingly White audience.

Just because you've become a young man now There's still some things that you don't understand now Before you ask some girl for her hand now... The artists were impeccably dressed, impeccably in sync.

My mama told me, "You better shop around" Miller: Now, it was always soul underneath.

Don't get it twisted.

They're weren't trying to completely emulate White music, but what they were trying to do was show that we have the sophistication and also we have this underlying soul.

My mama told me, "You better shop around" Boyd: In an era where people are focused on assimilating, you have to suppress certain things about yourself in order to be accepted in mainstream society.

Announcer: The new Negro family.

Their name is Wells or Wilson, Smith or Brown or Alexander or Breen.

All over the country, families such as this are enjoying new prosperity.

Fredara Hadley: Black people had to be concerned with White observation and what White people thought about them.

What we now term as respectability politics.

It is about being as put together, as presentable, as literally clean as possible.

["You Can't Hurry Love" playing] I need love, love to ease my mind I need to find, find someone to call mine But Mama said, "You can't hurry love"... Jordan: Berry Gordy contains them so they could be accepted by this larger White audience.

So that's one thing he thought.

The other thing he thought is getting involved in political issues, like the civil rights movement or the anti-war movement.

If his singers come out publicly in favor of those things, that might cause them to not be accepted by the White community.

So he tamps down their politics, at least in their public presentations.

All of them have political ideas and what they feel about the civil rights movement, but it doesn't show up in those early songs in the 1960s.

They are not down in Selma doing a benefit when the Selma-to-Montgomery marches are going on.

Tony Bennett is there.

Sam Cooke goes down there.

Aretha Franklin goes, but not the Temptations, not the Supremes.

Berry Gordy is not going to allow them to be a part of that publicly.

["Dancing in the Street" playing] Calling out around the world Are you ready for a brand-new beat?

Summer's here, and the time is right For dancing in the street... Donna Murch: Starting in 1963, you have mass protests in Birmingham, and then you have the mass uprising in New York in 1964, culminating in the Watts Rebellion in 1965.

Reeves: All we need is music Sweet music There'll be music everywhere There'll be swinging, swaying And records playing Dancing in the street... Murch: It's a song that you could listen to and think it's just about dance, but at a time of real political shift and change and new kinds of struggle, it's also articulating a message to this mass mobilization of Black people into the streets to protest.

Reeves: Oh, it doesn't matter what you wear Just as long as you are there So come on, every guy Grab a girl Everywhere around the world They're dancing... King: People understood that the call to dance in the streets was about a call for people to engage with the revolution that was happening at the time in which people were rioting, people were resisting the establishment culture, and the call to dance is not just a call to dance, but also a call to come together and to protest.

We want Black power.

We want Black power.

We want Black power.

We want Black power.

We want Black power.

Scot Brown: A lot of people identified with moving away from a certain kind of respectability.

All of that needs a soundtrack.

That soundtrack to all of the upheavals of the sixties doesn't really want things to be so polished and so manicured.

James Brown: Watch me, watch me, hey I got something that makes me wanna shout I got something that tells me what it's all about, huh I got soul, and I'm super bad... When you get to the late sixties, early seventies, a lot of people feel like, "I'm not interested in assimilating.

I'm interested in being as Black as I can possibly be."

James Brown: Now I got a move that tells me what to do Scot Brown: It captures the sentiment of a generational change where conformity is not the priority.

James Brown: I love Love to do my thing Hah Huh, and I don't need no one else... Vincent: Black folks had finally reached the point where, "We're not trying to impress you.

"We don't care what you think.

"I'm in this other space here.

I'm in the funk."

James Brown: I got soul Brown: The Black Power movement is not about reforming the society.

It's more about reforming the way we think and the way Black folks act.

I'm super bad Vincent: And James said, "Boom, we're blowing all that out and y'all gonna deal with it," and people just got exhilarated by it.

I got something that tells me what to do The definition for funk, it would be James Brown.

I got soul, uh, and I'm super bad Seeing James Brown do splits...

Spins...

Him sweating on stage abundantly with just wetness all over him was funk to me.

Come on.

Keep up.

Clinton: He's just, like, all funk.

I don't think he could do nothing else but funk.

Brothers, sisters Clinton: Even if he was singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," it was gonna be funky.

Get back.

Fred Wesley: He was just super, super Black, you know?

Like, a lot of people are afraid to say something to him.

You know, I would talk to him as if a normal person, you know.

He was not normal, though.

Ha ha ha!

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey I got it Uh!

Get it... Michael Veal: What Brown took out of gospel music was the vamp, the idea that you're just gonna stay on one chord and have everyone, you know... [Playing vamp] It ain't going nowhere.

[Loop playing] Then you have the rhythm guitar... and that creates this whole-- oh, my God-- Tra da dun dun dun ba da Na da da da da ba da It's a onslaught of just a groove.

How do you resist such a heavy groove?

Answer--you can't.

Get back, I'm gonna kiss myself I got soul And I'm super bad I got soul, all right And I'm super bad Aah, yeah!

Hadley: There is not a lot of room for straying from the groove, and the only way you get that kind of cohesion, that kind of accuracy, that kind of tightness is by rehearsing it.

We would rehearse all the time as long as he could, as often as he could, you know.

I don't think he had anything else to do.

I played with James Brown, and, look, James Brown basically only played one chord for the whole song, so, you know, you just got to learn the groove, but come to find it wasn't as easy as that...

I want to go to the bridge.

Yeah!

Can I go to the bridge?

Yeah!

Can I go to the bridge?

'cause I was like... Can I go to the bridge?

Yeah!

"We're gonna change the bridge."

"Yeah.

I know.

I heard that time before."

I'm going to the bridge.

"Oh, Lord, when is he gonna take a bridge?"

Hit me.

"Hit me."

I didn't hit it, and that ended my stay with James Brown, but it didn't matter.

I played with James Brown.

Yeah!

Simpson: First concert I ever went to, my mom took me to see James Brown.

I'll never forget, he had two drummers, and I don't know what that meant, but to me, as a 14-year-old kid, it meant this is gonna be so funky, he's gonna wear one out.

He needs backup.

Ha ha ha!

James Brown: Uh!

Wesley: We were in California at the time.

James Brown called up, said, "Send the band over here.

We're gonna record a tune."

James Brown brought a bunch of kids in the studio, and he said, "Say it louder."

They said, "I'm Black, and I'm proud" Say it loud, I'm Black, and I'm proud Say it loud... Wesley: It became an anthem for the Black movement.

James Brown: Say it loud I'm Black, and I'm proud... It was everywhere.

It was everywhere.

Simpson: I was 14 when he came out with "Say It Loud, I'm Black, and I'm Proud."

And until the day I die, it will be the most significant song ever for me because it taught me Black pride.

It just set off, like, fireworks, and it allowed us the ability to just unapologetically be who you are.

And it's no accident that it is one of the architects of funk that gives us that anthem.

Now we demand a chance to do things for ourselves We're beating our head against the wall And working for someone else We're people, too We like the birds and the bees But we'd rather die on our feet Than keep living on our knees Say it loud... Simpson: It was so empowering for me.

"Say it loud.

I'm Black, and I'm proud.

"You know, I'd rather die on my feet than to keep living on my knees."

Those kind of messages.

Say it loud Jones: We were tired of all the repression, all the "Stay in the line.

Don't look up.

You know, "Keep your head down.

Be a good Negro."

Man: Same people that are listening to Martin Luther King and others say... Joan Baez We shall overcome someday Man: They're listening to Amiri Baraka saying... Women: Who will survive America?

Very few Negroes, no crackers at all Who will survive... We had this energy of a Black revolution, and James Brown put it in the beats, put it in the music.

It was on the radio.

"Say It Loud, I'm Black, and I'm Proud."

Go ahead, James.

Jame Brown: Say it loud Vincent: And folks are like, "Whoa, give me some of this."

Brown: Say it loud Morrison: I'm Black, and I'm proud Alomar: And you know who was saying, "I'm Black, and I'm proud"?

All those young kids.

Brown: Say it loud Alomar: There's no melody.

All you gotta do is scream it.

"I'm Black, and I'm proud."

That's all you gotta do.

You want to sing along?

There it is.

Brown: Say it loud Crowd: I'm Black, and I'm proud.

Simpson: I really felt there was no one in the world more important than James Brown.

He was bigger than the president or kings to me.

He really was.

[Cheering and applause] [Bass guitar playing] That's the bassline to "Doing It to Death," otherwise known as "Gonna Have a Funky Good Time," and, man, that thing was so funky.

James Brown: Hit it.

Lookit here.

Ah!

We're gonna have a funky good time We're gonna have a funky good time... Scot Brown: James Brown had this approach to music where I call it simplexity, simplexity.

It's simple, but when you put it all together, it's complex.

Miller: And then Fred Wesley played the funkiest trombone solo that ever got recorded.

I don't think anybody's gonna argue with me.

Miller: This was a funk solo, and a funk solo had repetition in it.

Miller: Ba da da ih da da da da-da-da Ba da dit da ba da da da da Ba da da biy ya da Wesley: Everybody who hear that solo remembers it, you know?

Somebody say, "Are you Fred Wesley?"

I said, "Yeah."

"Da da da da da da da," the first thing they say, and I say, "Oh, yeah.

OK. All right."

Uchenna Ikonne: I usually think that James Brown is one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century... Come on, hey, hey, keep going Ikonne: because the rhythmic concept that James Brown introduced to American popular music basically brought the elements that we thought of being background into the foreground, and because what James Brown did was so simple, or at least it seemed simple, it's hard for people to understand that it is genius.

The Monkey, Mashed Potato Jump back, Jack, see you later, alligator Man: Everything in funk music is folded into percussion.

Drums.

Guitar.

Even the vocals are folded into percussion.

Ain't too hip About that new breed, babe All right Ain't no drag, ow!

Papa's got a brand-new bag Papa Miller: Like a holy grail, James Brown, he discovered the one.

Do the Jerk, do the twist What is the one?

The one?

The musical terminology the one?

I don't really know, but I know that that was the thing, like that's what Bootsy talks about, that James taught him.

1, 2, 3.

And you hit on the one.

One.

You know.

One.

You know.

Here you go.

One.

And then you want to break it down.

Break down.

One.

2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Collins: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.

[Playing funk music] 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2.

1.

You gotta keep hitting that one.

Wesley: James Brown found out that if you hit the one strong, that what comes after that is funky.

Vincent: Take a song like "I don't want nobody "to give me nothing.

Open the door.

I'll get it myself."

And James Brown's band hits... Da-do-do-do-do-do-do I don't want nobody to give me nothing Open up the door, I'll get it myself I don't want nobody giving me nothing Open up the door, I'll get it myself Vincent: James Brown tapped into something.

Like Nikolai Tesla says, there's this electricity that's in the atmosphere that we can tap into.

Well, James Brown tapped into that.

1... 1... 1... Miller: When you're dancing, you might not be counting, but you know that beat's coming, and that's when your body, like, syncs up.

1... 1... King: Landing on the one does something magical.

It literally mobilizes you and makes you want to shake your something.

[Crowd cheering] Baby!

Get up... Vincent: And you feel it.

You feel the concussion of it coming at you in a different place that kicked you upside the head and made you let all the funk loose.

Turn it loose All right Hey!

Got to have it Doo doo doo All right, now Simpson: People like to dance.

People like to move.

When you give them something to move to, it happens.

All right, come on Good God, come on Byrne: Why does this music make you want to dance?

I'm trying to in my little brain trying to figure out what is it about this music that makes you want to dance.

Kool & the Gang: La di da di da La di da di da La di da di da... Lawrence Sherman: Listening to any music starts with vibrating air molecules going into our ears... Kool & the Gang: La di da di da... Sherman: and I think this starts to go all the way up to a pathway that winds up on the side of the brain over here, and that's called the auditory cortex.

[Kool & the Gang's "Funky Stuff" playing] It goes right to parts of the brain that are involved in motor function, movement.

When you think about what's happening in funk, your brain is saying, "OK.

I'm dealing with some really interesting rhythm here."

Your body is in tune with it.

You're actually moving to it.

It's a direct connection because of the rhythm, because of those projections to this motor center which is gonna make you move your arms and move your legs and shake your booty.

There's no question about it.

Kool & the Gang: Can't get enough Of that funky stuff Sherman: Funk is kind of taking us higher because it's driving this liking/wanting response that's all about feeling good.

If you're with other people doing an activity like dancing together, that turns on what is called the dopamine reward system, and so when we like something, we get this not only dopamine reward, but something else gets triggers--endorphins.

Endorphins are things that make you not feel pain or not care about pain... so when you're with a group of people experiencing something together like that, you can actually drive this sense of self-acceptance and acceptance within the group.

Kool & the Gang: La di da di da La di da di da... Byrne: You become one with the community, one with the music, and you give up a little bit of your own self in order to gain this greater thing, and it's completely transcendent.

We dance as a form of communication and expression that is outside of language.

It is about the carnal, the fact that we are actual human beings made of flesh with fear and desire, and I think that's so important, and that's the part of us that often was neglected, and so it found a home in this music that allows us to be desired and desirable.

[The Blackbyrds' "Happy Music" playing] Ikonne: Certain rhythms have a way of putting you into a trancelike state or activating a kind of euphoria.

The listener had to be exposed to these rhythms for a sustained period of time for the euphoria to really kick in.

Blackbyrds: Happy music lets you feel good All the time Vincent: Funk is something that takes you over.

Most Western music is about the melody and about the song, but when you get to funk, you're talking about music based on the groove.

Repetition of chants, repetition of riffs, grooves, it's like you learn at some point, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with that."

That's not a shortcoming.

That's a good thing.

Miller: When I played in funk bands coming up, when we found the right groove, we would play that groove for an hour and a half.

Nobody changes anything.

The bandleader in our group when we got the groove right, he would say, "OK.

I got to run some errands.

Y'all keep playing that groove till I get back," and then you start to discover a deeper part of yourself, man.

You know, you're just lost in it.

Blackbyrds: Takes your troubles Off your mind... Martin Luther King Jr.: I have a dream that my 4 little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

[Crowd cheering] Cynthia Robinson: Sing, get on up And dance to the music Questlove: Sly and the Family Stone's the musical version of I Have a Dream.

There's Sly.

There's his brother.

There's his sister.

The White guy's the drummer.

Dance to the music They're all wearing these interesting kind of colors on stage.

Sly got his afro.

It's multiracial.

It captured what was happening in the Bay Area, that whole Summer of Love vibe, but it was also deeply embedded in Black music.

All we need is a drummer For people who only need a beat, yeah Hadley: If you say, "All we need's a drummer," that's--that's African, right?

All we need is a beat.

Listen to the voices Boom boom boom boom... Hadley : That's a statement of not just the importance of the beat, but also optimism, like, "Let's go."

Duff: Sly and the Family Stone were aspirational.

They really wanted a future where we could all get along, be together, have fun.

So it is very much a flavor of hippie funk.

Dance to the music We're gonna dance to the music We're gonna dance to... Washington: James Brown was funky in a pocket.

Then Sly just jumped off the stage and just took it to a whole 'nother psychedelic rock funk level.

[Playing "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"] Alomar: And then when you had Larry Graham slapping the hell out of that bass, how could you not understand that ain't usual?

Dance to the music All night long Christian McBride: Bass players all around the world were like, "What is he doing?

What's that sound?"

We heard that, we said, "What is it?"

We had never heard a bass like that.

We weren't even sure it was a bass.

Mama so happy Questlove: The most revolutionary aspect of "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)" is Larry Graham's right thumb.

Larry Graham said he just kind of started using his thumb to kind of mimic a bass drum, you know?

[Playing Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"] Questlove: That song was so monumental that everyone that heard that song rehearsed it and practiced it ad nauseam... in their garage bands... in their high schools... amongst themselves.

I remember going to this bass camp, and there were probably 50 electric bass players sitting in a room, and all 50 of them, you know, they were just like... And I was like... "Hey, um, do any of you guys play with your fingers?"

Stiff all in the collar Fluffy in the face Questlove: Larry Graham figures out a way to take a riff... but to make it a feeling because he's expressing in a way that no one's ever expressed before... a--a feeling of Blackness.

I want to thank you for letting me Be myself again Vincent: Sly Stone changed the game.

He gave everybody the template for incorporating soul, gospel, rock, jazz, joy, and inclusion into funk that is so powerful you can't run from it.

Clinton: Sly came along.

He became extremely pop with funk.

I mean, his stuff was funky but slick.

Clever and good musicians and everything.

Funk became the thing to do.

[The Parliaments' "(I Wanna) Testify" playing] Clinton: Friends, inquisitive friends Are asking me what's come over me By the time we got the hit record "Testify," Motown was peaking.

It was always about Motown to me.

We was always trying to prove we was worthy of being with Motown.

Jordan: George Clinton is writing and producing and arranging for Motown acts, but Motown is a respectability place, and he realizes that that's not his strength, and so, he won't last at Motown much longer.

Clinton: You could not beat that stuff, but I mean, you got to come up with a hit single every time you put a record out, and everybody was changing to rock and roll because the Led Zeppelins and the Cream and Rolling Stones and all that, Beatles, they was taking over.

So we chose funk.

Jordan: They played 4 nights at the Phelps Lounge.

First night, it's the Parliaments.

You know, matching suits, doo-wop.

You know, a couple of spins, grabbing the microphone, and, you know, that's what they're doing.

We still had Motown all in us, but we learned that you play Motown loud, it was just like playing rock and roll.

Jordan: On the last night, George Clinton goes into the bathroom.

He puts his head in the sink to wash out the process, comes out in a baby diaper.

["Mothership Connection (Star Child)" playing] Well, all right Starchild Citizens of the universe Recording angels We have returned to claim the Pyramids Partying on the Mothership, I am the Mothership Connection If you hear any noise, ain't nobody but me and the boys out here tonight.

We gonna turn the mother out tonight.

Are you ready?

Get down with it.

Are you ready?

Robert "Kool" Bell: So we're all in New York.

George come up to us, said, "Listen, man.

I'm going funkadelic."

"What do you mean, funkadelic?"

Clinton: Psychedelic was the thing that was happening.

We just do "funk" and "delic" together.

We became Funkadelic.

Sing!

Parliament-Funkadelic: If you hear any noise It's just me and the boys, hit me Ah, you gotta hit the band Clinton: Well, all right.

Jeanette Washington Perkins: I joined Parliament-Funkadelic fresh out of high school as a vocalist as part of the band.

We gonna turn the mother[beep] out.

Perkins: It was just sort of this hard presence that they were just trying to present... A dip in your hip and come onto the Mothership.

Perkins: so you still had to be that aggressive but also be feminine, which is kind of a hard thing to do.

You know, it's like, "I'm gonna pump this out, "but you know I still wanna... have my feminine side, too"... [Playing "Take Your Dead Ass Home (Say Som'n Nasty)"] moves that... things like that, yeah.

What do you think?

Y'all did it.

If you ain't gonna get it on Take your dead ass home Clinton: We started clowning.

We went on into absurd.

We wore diapers.

We wore sheets.

We wore wigs.

Louder!

Parliament-Funkadelic: If you ain't gonna get it on Take your dead ass home Clinton: Everybody was smoking weed, tripping on acid.

You can just lose yourself in it, and that was the thing.

[Playing "Let's Take It to the Stage"] Y'all ready to give up the funk?

[Cheering and applause] I want you to free your mind, and your ass will follow tonight.

[Cheering and applause] Clinton: We wanted to be more than just a singing group.

We wanted it to be a play.

We wanted to have a funk opera.

We had seen Pink Floyd do that, so we had our own mythology.

Everybody funkin' and don't know how... Melissa "DJ Soul Sister" Weber: Parliament-Funkadelic is like a cult.

Ha ha ha!

Announcer: And it came to pass that Dr. Funkenstein returned to find that the planet had fallen prey to the dread... Jordan: It's almost like reading a comic book but seeing it in real life.

Parliament: Ha da da dee Da hada hada da da ah Ha da da dee da hada hada da da Ha da da dee da hada hada da da Flash light, red light Perkins: If you're going to make a full sound, you're gonna need some female vocals.

Most of all, he needs the funk Help him find the funk Most of all, he needs the funk Help him find the funk It's that sauce that you put on your spaghetti that makes it better.

Flash light Oh, I will never dance Clinton: We had Bernie Worrell, who was a classically trained keyboard player.

Bernie could play anything on the keyboard.

Just had the funk in him... but he also revolutionized funk music because he would play the bass on the synthesizer.

Clinton: Which was a new sound that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and King Crimson used in rock and roll.

Bernie actually was playing what he thought Larry Graham would play from, you know, Sly and the Family Stone.

He actually imitated Larry's style.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo... Ooh, flash light Stop light, stop light, ah Miller: Bass players just saw their whole careers just crumbling in front of their eyes.

I guess I'll go count the sheep Ha da da dee da hada hada da da - Shake your funk - Ha da da dee Ha da da dee da da da That chant right there.

- Funk - Ha da da dee da hada... Clinton: Grade school.

Sixth grade.

Had a Jewish friend.

That was his bar mitzvah.

I remember him practicing.

Ha da da dee da hada hada da da And it just stuck with me all those-- so when I got that groove and stuck that in and not thinking about it, but it just fitted.

Ha da da dee da hada hada da da Boyd: I was on a city bus one day and "Flash Light," you know, was out.

People rocking boomboxes and, you know, "Flash Light" comes on and everybody on the bus starts jamming, and the bus turns into, like, this, you know, mobile disco.

Flash light, red light Boyd: And, I mean, even the driver was grooving to it.

The song instantly created a commonality amongst all the riders on that bus.

Flash light, flash light Questlove: As a people in this country that really didn't allow us to express any emotions whatsoever, music was our therapy.

And so, when they say, like, funk is freedom, that's what they're talking about.

Woman: Ooh, yes All right, y'all, yes, all right Oh, yes, oh, yes, yes, sir Hadley: I'm of the opinion Black people have always been funky.

You know, Black people have always been funky.

Positive Force's "We Got the Funk" playing] Woman: All right, y'all, yeah Mikki Taylor: It's in our DNA.

Whether it's music, whether it's fashion, whether it's art, there's always a heavy dosage of funk in it when it's in the hands of Black people.

We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah I mean, you had to be funky just coming here under those conditions and everything and surviving.

Hadley: Black people have had to continuously make something out of nothing, to make something not just necessary but to make something fly.

Michael Wimberly: Rock and roll, jazz, hip-hop, it is the innate funkiness that's passed down within us.

Kirk Franklin: That is the DNA of who Black people have always been.

[Choir singing] Wesley: The way Black people express themselves in funky music, they also express themselves to Jesus the same way, you know?

Everybody say, "Yeah" Now everybody say... [Continues, indistinct] Wesley: It's the spirit that gets in you.

It's secular, and it's spiritual.

Singer: Let everybody say Whoa That's the way Black people express themselves.

You know, you just let it all out, you know?

Lord, every... Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord Every... Now everybody say... Hadley: We come to church, and we find a way to tarry with God but also to tarry with each other, and you could let the hard edges of life fade and grow soft for a moment, and there's something incredibly cathartic about sharing that burden with each other.

Singer: Let everybody say Hadley: And so funk is doing the same thing.

It's giving people a Saturday night that they can go to and they can tarry together.

You know, it's that constant Saturday night/Sunday morning relationship.

You've got these secular styles that are sometimes prohibited in those sacred spaces.

There's a lot of borrowings where secular traditions are borrowing from gospel, and you see elements of funk beginning to rise, but it's not fully "funkified."

Franklin: Whoo!

Ha ha ha!

G.P.!

Chorus: Lately, I've been going through some things That's really got me... DeFrantz: But when Kirk Franklin came up with that song "Stomp," it was like, "Well, the church house is the funk house."

Now you know, glory, glory!

And, of course, it always was.

It gave us a way to explore funkiness inside a spiritual practice and spiritual deliverance.

Franklin: Makes me clap Makes me clap my hands Makes me wanna dance And stomp Oh, you better put them hands together And have a Holy Ghost party with me, uh!

You just take the George Clinton sample.

So wide, you can't get around it Franklin: Can I get a witness up in here?

Ooh ooh ooh Whoo!

Franklin, voice-over: And so, you know, that's what brings the funk.

Chorus: I promise the stomp The whole stomp Nothing but the stomp Franklin, voice-over: It ain't over.

It ain't over.

You know?

Uh!

Stomp Franklin, voice-over: What makes funk gospel is when gospel begins to add chords that are intentional to affect emotion like... We want the funk It's right there.

Da da da do dun Da da daaa, da dun dun Right?

That's funk.

Da da do dun Gospel go... Da da da dun Da da, da da da dun...da You know.

See, that's what gospel did to funk.

You know, like, it lifted it and then it made it back stanky again.

You lift it and you make it back stanky again.

With funk, it is forever stanky.

Franklin: Let me hear you, even in the back.

Come on.

Franklin: I remember being a young boy and going to a Black choir musical.

I'll force you to do it again.

It's you Forever, Lord Lord... Franklin: You a little boy hearing that, I mean, what else is that going to be but funky?

Alomar: I got all my musical education from the church, honestly.

I'm a Pentecostal minister's son, and, incidentally, I found this chord called the 7th chord.

It's a dominant 7th chord.

That's the one that got me in trouble in church because when I would play... [A major chord] Bringing in the sheep Bringing in the sheep majors, but then I learned the 7th... [A7 chord] Bringing in the sheep Bringing in the sheep We will-- Ms. Gonzalez--"Carlito, that's not Christian music.

That's the devil's mus--" Man, devil's music?

Once they started labeling the 7th chord as the devil's music, I knew I was in trouble.

Woman: Whoo!

Franklin: A bass player that played at a local church is probably the same bass player that played in a local funk band, but the thing about the local funk band, they had to pay for a space to rehearse.

They had to pay for sound.

They had to pay for this thing, where in the church, you had a place where you could shed almost every time you got together, and you also had a captivated audience... and if you're doing good, they standing up.

They're talking about, "Oh, play Tyree!"

you know, you know, "Play, Raekwon!"

you know, you know, and now, you know, if you're killing, it's because in the church, there's no barrier.

There's no barrier for the response and for the-- and getting to know if you can, you know?

There's gonna be some young musicians over there talking about, "Ooh!

Ooh!"

[Cheering] Franklin: In real time, you know if you funky or not.

In real time, you know if you dope or not.

Swing down, sweet chariot Stop and let me ride Hadley: Swing down, sweet chariot Stop and let me ride Clinton: And say "Swing down"... Hadley: "Swing down, sweet chariot" has a history that goes back to the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but its reinterpretation by Parliament-Funkadelic puts funk in a spiritual context.

Everybody, swing down... Clinton, voice-over: We have a band that everybody was straight out of the church.

So there was an overabundance of gospel in our songs, even though we were singing songs about smoking weed, the overall feeling in it was always gospel.

Our show is always gospel, even when it's being silly.

Swing down, sweet chariot Stop and... Clinton, voice-over: Having that as a backdrop, having the Jimi Hendrix, James Brown as the other side of it, oh, it was Blacker than Black.

Said swing down, yeah... Perkins: We would be in this groove.

You know, so we're there for a little while, and then Glenn would come in.

Do you want to ride?

Do you want to ride?

Do you want to ride tonight?

Hadley: If you were in church, you were singing to bring down the Holy Spirit.

But they were singing to bring down a mothership.

The mothership coming, yeah, yeah Ah... They tuned into something ancient... Swing down... Vincent: And yet it's moving you into the future.

Man: Roger: We're programming your roll.

OK. Ytasha Womack: Parliament-Funkadelic took their world into space.

And at the time of what we call the Great Space Race, the idea of going into space still felt very much like science fiction.

Buck Rodgers: Look.

Another one of those spaceships.

Womack: All of this happening while you have people on Earth just trying to get basic rights.

How come I ain't got no money here and Whitey's on the moon?

And so it became this irony, and yet the idea of going into space was such a inspiration.

DeFrantz: Funk is a way to think about somewhere else.

Like, "Here isn't really working?

How could I be somewhere else?"

Take me to your place in space I'm sick and tired of the rat race DeFrantz: So when we get to all the interplanetary narratives, we're taken away from here and now towards somewhere else.

I'll take you out to see the place Where the man in the moon has a smiling face Oh, yeah DeFrantz: What if we just had our own planet systems?

What if we just claim coming from other places, so that we could be free?

Then we could build the worlds we want to see.

I am Sun Ra, ambassador from the intergalactic regions of the Council of Outer Space.

The Hit Crew: Come along and ride On a fantastic voyage The land of funk Jason King: You're literally riding in a ship going somewhere, and I think that's a metaphor for how people perceived the power of funk, that it could actually transport you.

It could beam you.

Captain, someone has activated the transporter mechanism.

Kirk: Fire phasers.

Clinton: That was a thing, playing out of this world.

Jimi Hendrix, to me, was that, you know, was taking music, they say, outer space.

Hit Crew: The land of funk... Miles Marshall Lewis: If you go back to the sci-fi of the early 20th century, there were no Black people, whereas after George Clinton and Earth, Wind, and Fire started injecting us into the future, you started to see Lando Calrissian, you know, in "The Empire Strikes Back."

You've got a lot of guts coming here after what you pulled.

Murch: Afrofuturism was about saying, "We're going to build ourself out of new cloth.

We're going to come from outer space."

We're not going to root ourselves in the history of violence and stripping of personhood.

You know, we're going to recreate ourselves anew.

We are the new man, the new woman.

Check it out, check it out Oh Check it out, check it out, oh Check it out, check it out, oh Check it out, check it out Oh!

Womack: And now you have Labelle and their transformation, going from this girl group, and then all of a sudden, they had these amazing costumes and they're singing about quasars and stars afar.

Space children Are there any others... Hendryx: We started as The Blue Belles.

It was like a lot of girl groups-- the Chantels, the Shirelles, the Ronettes.

Walk through a storm... Hendryx, voice-over: And it was like nice dresses and bouffants, and it felt innocent in terms of, like, you were singing, you know, about love and about dating and boys and going to the beach, but inside of us, we had been different from other girl groups, anyway... Walk on... and we were presenting to an audience something that they hadn't seen before.

Labelle: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi... He sat in her boudoir While she freshened up And I think that first phrase set it up.

Hey, sista, go, sista, soul sista, go, sista Hey, sista, go, sista, ooh Go, sista Soul sista Come on.

Go, go, oh... Hendryx, voice-over: For me to get your attention, I've got to really do something to move you to where I am, to take you to a different place.

Go ahead and strut, y'all, oh... Hendryx: If you are chained to the bottom of a boat, you have to have hope and idea of a future to survive.

So to me, that is the core, that is the seed of Afrofuturism, is that I can see a future beyond the bottom of this boat.

Creep more, more, more!

Gitchie, gitchie, ya-ya, da-da Da-da, oh!

Gitchie, gitchie, ya-ya, here Oh, now, Mocha... Questlove: In the late forties and early fifties, there was the great migration of Black folk leaving the South, escaping the South.

Duff: A lot of families moved from the South to the North, because they saw a future in the North that they necessarily wouldn't have down South.

It was about building something new, and they could see that in the North.

Gonna tell the story, morning glory All about the serpentine fire The funk capital of the world, first, I used to think it was, like, Detroit.

Walking down the street Watching ladies go by, watching you Weber: The funk capital of the U.S. is New Orleans.

Maybe D.C. Maybe it was Texas.

Cincinnati.

Boogie nights Said, hold it tight, got to keep on dealing Dance with the boogie... Dayton, Ohio.

Certainly Ohio.

I would have to say Ohio.

Somewhere in Ohio, have to be in Ohio, because more funky bands come out of Ohio than anywhere else in the world.

[Indistinct] Thousands of people left the South, and many of them settled in these industrial cities in the Midwest.

Right on time, right on time Murch: You also have a time in American funding of education where you have music programs.

Hadley: We were still a country where a kid, especially a Black kid, could go to their public school.

Their public school had a band.

They could be handed an instrument.

Questlove: You're going to seventh period, like, "Uh, I'll play that one.

That looks interesting."

It was required.

It wasn't optional.

You have to learn an instrument.

[Ohio Players' "Fire" playing] Michael Veal: Most of those people came up to work industrial jobs, factory jobs.

That means they could own homes.

They could have garages.

That means the kids could rehearse in basements, and that helped the music flourish.

Jordan: Now they're making enough money to afford instruments.

That's why you get this hotbed of funk music, because funk really depends on instruments.

Warren: And everybody was in a band.

I was in three bands, and so, like, these huge bands came out of this region.

When you're hot, you're hot You really shoot your shot You're dyn-o-mite, child Next... The proximity of these cities are important.

You can get from Dayton to some other place in Ohio--Cincinnati-- in a short period of time, right?

You can get from Detroit and Chicago in a short period of time, right?

If you got 18 dudes in the band, instead of 18 airline tickets, right, you're just putting them all on a bus.

So the Midwest becomes this incubator for funk music.

We don't have funk as we understand it now without what's popping in the Midwest in the late sixties and early seventies.

Ow!

[Playing "America"] Hadley: Nobody's really thinking about Minneapolis until Prince comes along.

Aristocrats on a mountain climb... Hadley: He has such a strong vision at such a young age of what this music could be.

He becomes the center of that very identifiable Minneapolis funk sound.

America, America God shed His grace on thee, yeah America, America... Duff: Prince at his root was a Midwestern funk artist.

He grew up listening to the Ohio Players, James Brown, all of the major players.

Hadley: He's citing funk.

Even as he's building his own musical world, he's citing these bands and these artists who have come before him, so you see the direct lineage and flow through what will become his own incredible career.

Neal: The Minneapolis sound is Midwest funk because all these bands that are coming through there a young Prince is being exposed to it, and he's like, "Yeah.

We can do this, too."

Joy Neal: Prince becomes the conduit to think about modern funk in one way but not forgetting the innovators who came before him.

[Cheering] Good God!

Prince Paul: The hair, the splits, the mic work, the mus-- you know, it's-- I definitely consider Prince funky.

I mean, how could he not be funky?

Questlove: Prince realizes the power of taboo, the power of titillation, salaciousness.

Prince had the sound of the present and took the sound of the past and refiltered it into the sound of tomorrow.

[Vehicle horns honking] Ikonne: Africa has always been a pretty big consumer of American popular music.

Soul music started to get pumped in consistently, and it's something that took off like nothing else that ever had.

Many African countries, they gained their independence in the 1960s.

At that time, Africa was looking for an identity for itself, coming out of colonialism.

Funk showed a new form of Blackness a way you could be Black in the modern world.

[Congas playing] Lloyd Price: Well, James, it seems like we're going back home.

Yeah.

After such a long time, we finally got our heads together.

Every little band in Kinshasa and Zaire is playing a James Brown beat.

That's a total, total, total French-speaking country, and it's saying every one of your lyrics in English.

That says a whole lot to me.

It says that we're not coming.

We're there?

Black is here.

Orlando Julius Ekemode's "James Brown Ride On" playing] Welcome, James Brown, to Nigeria We Nigerians, we are proud of you Ikonne: In Lagos, James Brown was mobbed.

Ekemode: Soul Brother Number One Ride on... Ikonne: Right from the airport, people were running beside his car all the way to the hotel.

Brown: This is James Brown, and I'm looking forward to meeting all the Nigerian cats during my tour.

Ikonne: People didn't have to understand the words.

They understood the emotions that were embedded in those wails, the screams, the grunts.

Man: Soul Brother Number One-- James Brown!

Veal: James Brown was so popular across Africa because his music really brought out the Africanist qualities in African American music.

James Brown: I always wanted to go to Africa because I want to know where my soul comes from, the heritage.

I want to know where it really started.

Tell you, I have so much in common.

My music even got the drum, syncopation, the movements, and the sound.

Ikonne: People looked at James Brown as if he was an African.

People really felt that he was one of their own.

Veal: There were lots of African imitators of James Brown, and they tried to get that feeling.

Some of them even tried to sing and scream like James Brown, but it was really Fela Kuti in Nigeria who took that James Brown influence, internalized it, and pushed everything to the next level.

Wimberly: Fela saw James Brown and was blown away, but at the same time, he was coming from that rich foundation of Juju music and Yoruba traditional music.

Byrne: Fela had been in the United States.

He'd been in Oakland.

He'd seen the rise of the Black Panthers and others in Oakland, so he was aware of what was going on here, but he intentionally went back to Nigeria and decided, "We're going to do it our own way."

[Playing "Cross Examination"] Ikonne: At the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, he blew up in a whole new way when he invented this style of music called Afrobeat.

Clinton: They called him the James Brown of Africa.

He was definitely one of those African musicians that played, you know, R&B but African-style.

You know, just get a groove.

Ikonne: Fela did not adapt funk to Africa so much as he went back to the well that funk originally grew from and started building his own from there.

Veal: His secret weapon-- Tony Allen, the great drummer, who said, "We don't have to play it like the Americans.

"We don't have to play those American funk beats.

"We can take that structure and make it more polyrhythmic and really make it jump."

Paka, buh, buh, paka, tka, um Paka, buh, buh, paka, tupaka, um, paka tum, buh, buh Kuti: When you are a revolutionary and you talk the truth, people will come and slap you down.

Then you talk the truth again, they lock you in jail.

Jason King: Fela Kuti used his music as a platform for political expression, his social outrage at hypocrisy or establishment doctrine in Nigeria.

Kuti: Then when you are very strong and you talk again, they may kill you.

They may even burn your house down.

They want to see the police beating.

It's terrible.

I'll show you.

You must see it.

They beat the [beep] out of me.

Byrne: It was more than just a musical statement.

It became a political statement, and it was at a time when musicians were realizing they could include social statements in their music and have people dance at the same time.

Ah!

Byrne: I realized funk music doesn't only have to be about, get up off your ass and dance.

Ikonne: I guess Afrobeat could be viewed as African funk, but there were other African musicians who were making much more explicitly funky music.

[Manu Dibango's "L'hymne de la 8e Coupe D'Afrique Des Nations"] At the beginning of the seventies, we made a sort of anthem for the Cameroonian soccer team and the African Cup of Nations.

The side A was just a very conventional, very straight march... but the B-side was initially a filler record.

It was nothing that was meant to be serious, but Cameroon did not win the African Cup of Nations," and all the people of Cameroon were so upset that they broke the record and threw it away, but somehow it started showing up in record bins in New York just as the early disco scene was starting to take off.

Veal: Some DJs heard it and said, "Oh, no, no, no, no.

That's the hit right there.

Put that out," and then that thing blew the whole world up.

Manu Dibango: Mama ko mama sa maka makossa Mama ko mama sa maka makossa Mama ko mama sa maka makossa... Veal: What "Soul Makossa" showed was that there was funk coming out of Africa that could groove New York City.

It could groove L.A.

It could groove London.

It could groove Paris.

Ikonne: Manu Dibango spoke about playing that song at the Apollo Theater and seeing all these Black Americans just reaching across the time warp and connecting with this mythical Africa of their dreams.

There was a sense of recognition that people didn't even know how to put words to, but they just knew that there was something deeper.

There was something that was spiritual about it.

[Singing in African language] It was a beautiful cultural conversation, and that was really the first time that African Americans realized that there was a modern, contemporary, urban Africa that was producing funky music because everyone looks at Africa like it's traditional and it's ancient.

But the funk cast African energies in a modern light.

[Singing in African language] Boyd: Funk got the whole world dancing.

You certainly couldn't contain it culturally, and you couldn't contain it geographically, either, so just get it out there.

Our ears are very broad, a lot broader than any programmers are ever willing to give listeners credit for.

And you're accepting of anything if it moves you.

Hey, kid Shake it loose together The spotlight's hitting something That's been known to change the weather We'll kill the fatted calf tonight So stick around... Simpson: "Benny and the Jets" broke out of Detroit.

I played it twice that night on my show.

The next morning, the morning DJ is calling me at home, waking me up.

"What is this song you played last night?

'Jenny and the Nets' or something."

Elton is on the phone with the radio station, calling from England.

B-B-B-B-B- Bennie and the Jets... Elton John, voice-over: He said, "Listen, it's the number-one R&B record in Detroit."

And I went, "R&B?

It's number one?"

And they said, "Yeah."

I said, "Well, I'm a white boy from Pinner."

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit... Elton John, voice-over: And it's all because as I grew up as a kid, I loved to listen to R&B records.

Everybody that came out of England loved that kind of music.

B-Bennie and the Jets... Hadley: If you're not from here, you can just be like, "Well, I'm British."

"I'm from London," "I'm from Liverpool.

I just know I like this music."

And so that allows a point of entry that wasn't available because of how racism works in this country.

Simpson: He's like the biggest rock star in the world, you know, but it introduced him to a whole 'nother market.

All of a sudden, he's on "Soul Train."

B-B-B- Bennie and the Jets... Newby: It was all about that groove, being on those hard beats.

Bom, de-bomp, de-domp Just dropping on these hard beats.

How you going to be funky like that over in Europe?

You ain't never been to the 'hood and you pull out that!

Man.

Black folk all over were loving that record when that record dropped because it was-- because it was authentic.

A great welcome, gang, for the gifted singer, composer, producer-- Mr. David Bowie.

[Cheering] Bowie: At that particular time, the music that I was listening to was definitely the soul music that was really, really big in the clubs in America.

Hi, David.

Hello.

Thank you very much.

Bowie, voice-over: I kind of, you know, tried to do my own interpretation of that kind of music.

Carlos Alomar: I met him, and we got along really fine.

Here I was, a Puerto Rican with a gigantic afro and dashikis, and here he is with real orange hair.

And I told him, "Man, you are way too thin.

"You look like hell.

You need to come to my house and get a real meal."

[Playing opening sequence of "Fame"] And so we started developing this song.

So as you can see, that 1.

1, 2, 3, and... 1.

[Playing chord progression from "Fame"] Another part.

[Plays riff] When you have those three guitar parts answering each other, perfect syncopation.

Fame Fame Makes a man take things over Fame Fame Lets him loose and hard to swallow Jordan: "Fame" is one of those songs that becomes a hit with us first.

The Black community makes it a hit, and then it becomes a national and international hit with everybody.

But Black people saw the funk, they heard the funk in it, and they made it a hit first.

Fame Fame Bowie: What you need is in the limo... King: This funky music was almost in contrast to the way that he presented himself as this, like, Duke-like figure wearing a suit, who's really stiff, but the music is super funky.

Fame Fame Alomar: He appeared on "Soul Train," and let me tell you, he was, like, so nervous, but he was, like, so happy.

He was in heaven.

Is it any wonder I reject you first?

Bowie, voice-over: I think my stage movements, this is kind of my version of a James Brown movement.

Fame Fame Puts you where the things are hollow Fame Fame Fame Fame We did what we call "haul off and."

You ever hear people say, "I'll haul off and do this"?

We exaggerated it to the point that it was silly.

You know, "Ohhh...We!"

We want the funk Let me hear you.

Give up the funk... Clinton: We got that from David Bowie.

Gotta have some funk... Byrne: I think it was in art school, somebody had a copy of the first Funkadelic record, "Maggot Brain," with the woman buried in some pit or sand, with just her head sticking up.

And I thought, "What?

What is this?

What's going on here?"

[Playing "Mothership Connection (Star Child)"] Byrne: I saw them once live.

Clinton: Sing real loud!

I don't hear you.

Byrne: In the middle of the show, there was a chant that went up.

Burning down the house Burning down the house... They never used it in a song.

And I thought, "OK, it's an amazing phrase.

It's kind of up for grabs, then."

Burning down the house My house Is out of the ordinary That's right Don't wanna hurt nobody Byrne, voice-over: I felt like I can try and imitate James Brown.

I can try and imitate Fela.

I can try and imitate Kool & the Gang or whoever.

And I did try and do that, but I never got it quite right.

Burning down the house Byrne, voice-over: And I realized at some point, by missing, I ended up with something else.

I ended up with something that was more mine.

It's got a funkiness, but it's not like everybody else I've heard.

And it was a transformative experience for me.

Burning down the house You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack You may find yourself In another part of the world... Byrne: When "Once in a Lifetime" started getting played on Black radio and in dance clubs, it was like, "Phew."

That's validation.

Letting the days go by Let the water hold me down Letting the days go by Water flowing underground Into the blue again... Byrne: At the same time, the rock stations wouldn't play it.

They said, "This is too funky.

We don't play that kind of stuff."

Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was... Byrne: Then it speaks to the open-mindedness of the larger musical community that we're not gonna draw the kind of lines that had been drawn for us.

Same as it ever was Byrne: This was a kind of healing process for me.

This was a way to become part of a community.

Into the blue again Into the silent water Under the rocks and stones... Byrne: It was spiritual in a way.

I mean, it's very close to a church experience.

Letting the days go by, into the silent water... Byrne: It's transcendent.

Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was [Hip-hop beat playing] Neal: Funk was the ideal foundation for hip-hop, right?

Because it was this continuous groove.

It was just a natural marriage.

Duff: You can even narrow it down to one song in particular.

James Brown's "Funky Drummer" is one of the most sampled songs in hip-hop to this day.

1, 2, 3, 4, hit it Ba-ting, ttt, tat, t-tat, tat-un Tat, ka-dun-dun, tat, t-tat, tat-un Beats to the rhyme, the rhyme I just made Party at the jammie 'til lights the night fade Paul: James Brown is such a main staple of hip-hop because that's where we came from.

Yes The rhythm, the rebel Without a pause, I'm lowering in my level I'm gonna knock you out Mama said knock you out Questlove: Back in the seventies, the Nixon administration pulled away art and public school funding.

Many a hip-hop pioneer has come to me and says, "Yeah, man, I wanted to always be a saxophone player."

There's, like, one sax.

You know what I'm saying?

So it was just so limited.

And in some schools, they just didn't have that available.

I hold the microphone like a grudge B'll hold the record so the needle don't budge Questlove: Suddenly the turntable becomes an instrument.

[Scratching] Paul: You know, I'm a street cat.

You know what I'm saying?

With turntables, using what I had, you know, that was the hip-hop part of it.

I didn't have a band.

Clinton: Funk is the DNA, straight DNA for hip hop.

Parliament sample: Swing down, sweet chariot Stop, and let me ride Hell, yeah Sampled the bass, sampled the drum.

Parliament sample: Let me ride Dre: What all my homies saying?

Swing down, sweet chariot Stop, and... That becomes the new thing.

["(Not Just) Knee Deep" playing] Paul: When I made "3 Feet High and Rising," I mean, all I listened to was Parliament-Funkadelic.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh, all right Paul: My idea was to take that vibe and that feeling that I got from P-Funk to hip-hop.

[Vocal sample] Mirror, mirror on the wall Tell me, mirror, what is wrong?

Can it be my De La clothes Or is it just my De La song?

Clinton: When hip-hop come along, I had no idea they was going to make it a legitimate thing.

De La Soul showed up and paid us for it.

De La Soul: Me, myself, and I Funkadelic sample: Oh oh It's just me, myself, and I... Paul: Without funk, there would be no hip-hop.

If you took funk away from hip-hop, there clearly would be no hip-hop.

I mean, to me, it's as simple as that.

[Vocalizing] Ants in my pants, and I need to dance Paul: Funk is always evolving.

It's almost like an organism, you know what I'm saying?

It goes from one thing to the next thing, you know, to the next thing to the next thing.

It is not going anywhere.

It will always be because it's in our soul.

Positive Force: We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk... Boyd: Funk is able to come in and say, "Listen to the music and get into a groove."

Positive Force: We got the funk, yeah We got the funk... Boyd: It's OK to dance.

Dance the way you choose to dance.

- Brian's got the funk... - He's got it Free your mind, your ass will follow.

- Bernard's got the funk... - He's got it He's got the funk, yeah... Hadley: Funk says that it doesn't matter what dance you're doing, but you better do one.

- Bert's got the funk... - He's got it Hadley: You better get down.

You better move.

- Vickie's got the funk... - I got it She's got the funk, yeah - Colette's got the funk... - I got it She's got the funk, yeah You've done your best, you can literally leave it alone.

You've done all that's required of you, so do the best you can and then funk it.

Positive Force: We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah Yeah!

[Excited chatter] Yeah Hey, we got the funk.

Yeah Whoo!

Uh-huh, uh-huh OK, yeah!

Come on.

Yeah, yeah.

Come on, y'all.

Yeah Come on, y'all.

Party Ooh, ooh!

Uh-huh Ooh-ooh ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh... Yeah Yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah We got the funk We got the funk, yeah I got it.

I got it... We got it right away... [Continues, indistinct] We got the groove, girls.

We got the funk Yeah, whoo!

Singers: Oh, whoa, whoa, oh Oh, whoa, whoa Oh, whoa, whoa