James Brown: Getting Funky

By Siegfried Bilstein     2/24/11 6:00pm

Last week, Radiohead dropped their new album along with a video of Thom Yorke's bizarre dancing to their single "Lotus Flower." While watching Yorke dance is interesting, his moves are nothing compared to the godfather of soul and king of feverish dancing, the one and only James Brown. While younger people mostly associate James Brown hits like "Get Up Offa That Thing" or "I Got You (I Feel Good)" with cover bands at bar mitzvahs and weddings, James Brown's place in our cultural landscape cannot be underestimated; through his music he pioneered the new genre of funk, became a symbol for the civil rights movement and had a profound effect on hip-hop. It's fun, easily accessible music that, on a superficial level, sounds like one big party. It wasn't really until I started doing research into the history and origins of all the hip hop music I liked so much that I realized just how influential and important Brown was.Brown grew up extremely poor in Augusta, Georgia. Alternating between living with his father and his aunt, Brown was largely unsupervised as a child and dropped out of school in the seventh grade. He learned how to play various instruments from friends, most notably blues musician Tampa Red. Brown was frequently in trouble, and while playing on a detention center's inmate baseball team at the age of 16, he befriended musician Bobby Byrd. When Byrd noticed Brown singing to other inmates, he arranged for his family to oversee Brown's parole and his career began.

Over time, Brown became a chart-topper and was nationally known and commercially successful by the mid-1960s. Brown was known for his extravagant live performances, featuring very large bands with choreographed dance moves. He demanded excellence and discipline from his band members along with a strict tuxedo dress code. On the other hand, he wore studded, flashy outfits with heavily permed hair. He was also known for his cape routine - look it up on YouTube. The screaming throngs of people at his concerts will make you wish you had the chance to see him live.

As for his music, James Brown wrote hits and a lot of them. He made music everyone could sing along to and pioneered a funky brass and bass groove inspired by jazz and R&B that paved the way for bands like Parliament Funkadelic. That's right, without James Brown there would be no George Clinton, no Prince and no Red Hot Chili Peppers.

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While the lyrical content of much of his music is mostly about having fun, dancing, and girls, Brown was not afraid to delve into more controversial issues. Despite being a prominent black musician and growing up in the segregated south, Brown released a patriotic proto-rap "America Is My Home" in 1967. In the song he mentions how he went from being a shoe shiner to meeting the president for his work in drop-out prevention, and he subtly criticized the black community for not being proud Americans. In a time when civil unrest was high, his song was very unconventional. One year later, though, Brown would release the single "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud" just a few months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The song quickly became an anthem for the civil rights movement and associated Brown with social change, cementing his image as a representative of Black America. Brown became a big fundraiser for civil rights groups and penned more political songs like "Funky President (People It's Bad)" and "Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved."

The '80s saw increased interest in Brown's music, as several of his songs became heavily sampled by hip hop musicians. DJ Kool Herc, the man who invented the "break" (a sample of a drum fill looped over again forming the basis of a rap song), was a frequent user of Brown records in his DJing. As hip-hop developed, Brown samples became more common, and the use of his music has never really stopped. Many DJs claim "Funky Drummer" is the most sampled song of all time. "The Payback" and "Funky President" are frequently on top 10 lists also. You can hear parts of "Funky President" in Public Enemy's "Fight The Power" and "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" in Wu-Tang Clan's "Gravel Pit." In fact, even the famous "Woo! Yeah" sample from Lyn Collins' "Think (About it)" is James Brown's voice. For those who are unfamiliar with Collins, think "It Takes Two" by Rob Base or Girl Talk's "Double Pump" off of Night Ripper.

Hip-hop's reliance on Brown samples certainly hasn't waned, but the subtle usage makes it easy to miss. Listening to Brown's hits in the context of funk, hip-hop samples, and social activism paints a very interesting portrait of one of the greatest performers of the 20th century. Next time you get down to "I Got You (I Feel Good)" at an event, make sure you get real funky to pay homage to the godfather of soul.

Siegfried Bilstein is a Wiess College senior. Vinyl revisits classic music that is relevent to today's audience.

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