Finding the Funk is a road trip in search of the past, present and future of Funk music. Starting with Funk's roots in Jazz and the James Brown bands of the '60s we travel to the Bay Area to celebrate Sly & the Family Stone, then to Dayton the birthplace of so many of Funk's originators, then onto Detroit where from the ashes of Motown, P-Funk's Mothership arose, and then to LA where a new crop of musicians are creating their own Funk history. On our journey into Funk, we talk to legends Sly Stone, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, Maceo Parker, Bernie Worrell, and Steve Arrington and their descendants Mike D, D'Angelo, Sheila E, Shock G and Sade's Stuart Matthewman. Narrated by Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of the Roots.
01-31-2014
1h 18m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Nelson George
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Questlove
Ahmir Khalib Thompson (born on January 20, 1971), known professionally as ?uestlove or Questlove (also known as BROther ?uestion, Questo or Brother Question), is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist and record producer. He is best known as the drummer for the Grammy Award-winning band The Roots, which is now the in-house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He has produced for artists such as Common, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa and more recently, Al Green, Amy Winehouse and John Legend. He is a member of the production teams the Soulquarians, The Randy Watson Experience, and The Grand Wizzards.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Questlove,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
James Brown (May 3, 1933 - December 25, 2006) was an American singer and songwriter, eventually referred to as "The Godfather of Soul"(GFOS). Brown started singing in gospel groups and worked his way on up. He has been recognized as one of the most iconic figures in the 20th century popular music and was renowned for his vocals and feverish dancing. He was also called "the hardest-working man in show business".
Brown began his professional music career in 1956 and rose to fame during the late 1950s and early 1960s on the strength of his thrilling live performances and string of smash hits. In spite of various personal problems and setbacks he continued to score hits in every decade through the 1980s. In addition to his acclaim in music, Brown was also a presence in American political affairs during the 1960s and 1970s.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
George Clinton (born July 22, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost innovators of funk music, along with James Brown and Sly Stone. Clinton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.
Description above from the Wikipedia article George Clinton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
William Earl "Bootsy" Collins is an American musician and singer-songwriter. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the early 1970s, and later with Parliament-Funkadelic, Collins's driving bass guitar and humorous vocals established him as one of the leading names in funk. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.
Sylvester Stewart (born March 15, 1943), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. AllMusic stated that "James Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it," and credited him with "creating a series of euphoric yet politically charged records that proved a massive influence on artists of all musical and cultural backgrounds." Crawdaddy! has called him "the founder of progressive soul".
Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. (born September 19, 1952) is an American musician, record producer and composer. The co-founder of Chic, Rodgers has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, and the chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Known for his "chucking" guitar style, Rolling Stone wrote in 2014 that "the full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom".
Formed as the Big Apple Band in 1972 with bassist Bernard Edwards, Chic released their self-titled debut album in 1977, including the hit singles "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance". The 1978 album C'est Chic produced the hits "I Want Your Love" and "Le Freak", with the latter selling more than seven million singles worldwide. The song "Good Times" from the 1979 album Risqué was a number one single on the pop and soul charts, and became one of the most-sampled songs of all time, "ushering in" hip-hop via the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", inspiring Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", and anchoring the Daft Punk hit "Around the World".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Nile Rodgers, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George Bernard Worrell, Jr. was an American musician and record producer. Born in Long Branch, New Jersey, Worrell was a child musical prodigy. He later studied at the Juilliard School and received a degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1967. After meeting George Clinton, frontman of the Parliaments, Worrell relocated with them and their backing band, the Funkadelics, to Detroit, Michigan; both groups became collectively known as Parliament-Funkadelic. Worrell co-wrote and played piano and synthesizers on many of their recordings, as well as writing horn and rhythm arrangements. In the 1980s, Worrell performed and recorded with Talking Heads, appearing on the live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, the studio album Speaking in Tongues, and in the band's concert film, Stop Making Sense. In 2016, the New England Conservatory of Music awarded Worrell an honorary Doctor of Music degree. Worrell died at his home in Everson, Washington, on June 24, 2016, at the age of 72, from a combination of prostate cancer, liver cancer and lung cancer.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Diamond was born in New York City to an upper-middle-class Jewish household. He attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York for six months. In 1979, Diamond co-founded the band The Young Aborigines. In 1981, Adam Yauch, aka MCA, a friend and follower of the band became their bass player, and on the suggestion of their then-guitar player, John Berry, the band changed their name to the Beastie Boys. By 1983,Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) joined, and their sound began to shift away from punk to hip-hop. In 1992, Mike D founded the Beastie Boys' now-defunct record label Grand Royal Records. He is also interested in interior decoration, and designed Brooklyn-themed toile wallpaper; it was used in the renovation of the Marquee nightclub in Chelsea, which reopened in January 2013. A year after the passing of MCA in 2012, Mike D told Rolling Stone he was "excited about making new stuff again" and released "Humberto Vs the New Reactionaries (Christine and the Queens Remix)" in July 2013. A remix of Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band's "Bad Dancer" by Mike D and Adam Horovitz was streamed online in August 2013. The pair is credited with “additional beats, programming and other curve balls.”
Sheila Escovedo (born December 12, 1957), known under the stage name Sheila E., is an American singer and drummer. She began her career in the mid-1970s as a percussionist for the George Duke Band. After separating from the group in 1983, Sheila began a solo career, starting with the release of her debut album in 1984, which included her biggest hit song, "The Glamorous Life". She also saw a hit with the single "A Love Bizarre". She is sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Percussion".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Sheila E., licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Gregory Edward Jacobs (August 25, 1963 – April 22, 2021), known professionally as Shock G (and his alter ego Humpty Hump), was an American musician, rapper, and lead vocalist for the hip hop group Digital Underground. He was responsible for Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance", 2Pac's breakthrough single "I Get Around", and was co-producer of 2Pac's debut album 2Pacalypse Now.
