Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Early funk, specifically James Brown, fused jazz and blues, and added a syncopated drum groove.
Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure ("The One"), and the application of swung 16th notes and syncopation on all basslines, drum patterns, and guitar riffs.Slutsky, Allan, Chuck Silverman (1997). The Funkmasters-the Great James Brown Rhythm Sections. Rock- and psychedelia-influenced musicians The Chambers Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament-Funkadelic fostered more eclectic examples of the genre beginning in the late 1960s.Explore: "Funk." Rhythmne. Retrieved 2020-09-16. Other musical groups developed Brown's innovations during the 1970s and the 1980s, including Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, Fatback Band, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Bootsy Collins, Earth, Wind & Fire, B.T. Express, Hamilton Bohannon, Bohannon Biography AllMusic. Retrieved 24 October 2025 One Way, Lakeside, Dazz Band, The Gap Band, Slave, Aurra, Roger Troutman & Zapp, Con Funk Shun, Cameo, Bar-Kays and Chic.
Funk derivatives include avant-funk, an avant-garde strain of funk; boogie, a hybrid of electronic music and funk; funk metal; G-funk, a mix of gangsta rap and psychedelic funk; Timba, a form of funky Cuban dance music; and funk jam. It is also the main influence of Washington go-go, a funk subgenre. Funk samples and breakbeats have been used extensively in hip-hop and electronic dance music.
Etymology The word funk initially referred (and still refers) to a strong odor. It is originally derived from Latin (which means "to smoke") via Old French and, in this sense, it was first documented in English in 1620. In 1784, funky meaning "musty" was first documented, which, in turn, led to a sense of "earthy" that was taken up around 1900 in early jazz slang for something "deeply or strongly felt". Even though in white culture, the term funk can have negative connotations of odor or being in a bad mood (in a funk), in African communities, the term funk, while still linked to body odor, had the positive sense that a musician's hard-working, honest effort led to sweat, and from their "physical exertion" came an "exquisite" and "superlative" performance.Thompson, Gordon E. Black Music, Black Poetry: Blues and Jazz's Impact on African American Versification. Routledge, Apr. 15, 2016. p. 80.
In early jam sessions, musicians would encourage one another to "get down" by telling one another, "Now, put some stank on it!" At least as early as 1907, jazz songs carried titles such as Funky. The first example is an unrecorded number by Buddy Bolden, remembered as either "Funky Butt" or "Buddy Bolden's Blues", with improvised lyrics that were, according to Donald M. Marquis, either "comical and light" or "crude and downright obscene" but, in one way or another, referring to the sweaty atmosphere at dances where Bolden's band played.Donald M. Marquis: In Search of Buddy Bolden, Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 108–111 Who Started Funk Music , Real Music Forum As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when funk and funky were used increasingly in the context of jazz music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company. According to one source, New Orleans-born drummer Earl Palmer "was the first to use the word 'funky' to explain to other musicians that their music should be made more syncopated and danceable." The style later evolved into a rather hard-driving, insistent rhythm, implying a more carnal quality. This early form of the music set the pattern for later musicians.Merriam-Webster, Inc, The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories (Merriam-Webster, 1991), , p. 175. The music was identified as slow, sexy, loose, riff-oriented and danceable.
The meaning of funk continues to captivate the genre of black music, feeling, and knowledge. Recent scholarship in black studies has taken the term funk in its many iterations to consider the range of black movement and culture. In particular, L.H. Stallings's Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures explores these multiple meanings of funk as a way to theorize sexuality, culture, and western hegemony within the many locations of funk: "street parties, drama/theater, strippers and strip clubs, pornography, and self-published fiction."Stallings, L. H. Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures, U Of Illinois Press, 2015, pp. 1–29.
Characteristics
Rhythm and tempo
Like soul, funk is based on dance music, so it has a strong "rhythmic role".Learn Guitar: From Beginner to Pro. Book Sales, 2017. p. 254 The sound of funk is as much based on the "spaces between the notes" as the notes that are played; as such, rests between notes are important. While there are rhythmic similarities between funk and disco, funk has a "central dance beat that's slower, sexier and more syncopated than disco", and funk rhythm section musicians add more "subtextures", complexity and "personality" onto the main beat than a programmed synth-based disco ensemble.
Before funk, most pop music was based on sequences of eighth notes, because the fast tempos made further subdivisions of the beat infeasible. The innovation of funk was that by using slower tempos (surely influenced by the revival of blues in the early 1960s), funk "created space for further rhythmic subdivision, so a bar of could now accommodate possible 16 note placements." Specifically, by having the guitar and drums play in "motoring" sixteenth-note rhythms, it created the opportunity for the other instruments to play "more syncopated, broken-up style", which facilitated a move to more "liberated" basslines. Together, these "interlocking parts" created a "hypnotic" and "danceable feel".
A great deal of funk is rhythmically based on a two-celled onbeat/offbeat structure, which originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions. New Orleans appropriated the bifurcated structure from the Afro-Cuban mambo and conga in the late 1940s, and made it its own.Palmer, Robert (1979: 14), A Tale of Two Cities: Memphis Rock and New Orleans Roll. Brooklyn. New Orleans funk, as it was called, gained international acclaim largely because James Brown's rhythm section used it to great effect.Stewart, Alexander (2000: 293), "Funky Drummer: New Orleans, James Brown and the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music", Popular Music, v. 19, n. 3, October 2000, pp. 293–318.
Harmony
Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. Some examples of chords used in funk are minor eleventh chords (e.g., F minor 11th); dominant seventh with added sharp ninth and a suspended fourth (e.g., C7 (#9) sus 4); dominant ninth chords (e.g., F9); and minor sixth chords (e.g., C minor 6). The six-ninth chord is used in funk (e.g., F 6/9); it is a major chord with an added sixth and ninth. In funk, minor seventh chords are more common than minor triads because minor triads were found to be too thin-sounding.Studley, Greg. Essentials of Rhythm Guitar: Complete Guide. Jun. 21, 2016. Some of the best known and most skillful soloists in funk have jazz backgrounds. Trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonists Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo Parker are among the most notable musicians in the funk music genre, having worked with James Brown, George Clinton and Prince.
Unlike bebop jazz, with its complex, rapid-fire chord changes, funk often uses a static single-chord or two-chord vamp (often alternating a minor seventh chord and a related dominant seventh chord, such as A minor to D7) during all or part of a song, with melodo-harmonic movement and a complex, driving rhythmic feel. Even though some funk songs are mainly one-chord vamps, the rhythm section musicians may embellish this chord by moving it up or down a semitone or a tone to create chromatic passing chords. For example, the verse section of "Play That Funky Music" (by Wild Cherry) mainly uses an E ninth chord, but it also uses F#9 and F9.Serna, Desi. Guitar Theory For Dummies: Book + Online Video & Audio Instruction. John Wiley & Sons, Sep. 24, 2013. p. 156
The chords used in funk songs typically imply a Dorian or Mixolydian mode, as opposed to the major or natural minor tonalities of most popular music. Melodic content was derived by mixing these modes with the blues scale. In the 1970s, jazz music drew upon funk to create a new subgenre of jazz-funk, which can be heard in recordings by Miles Davis (Live-Evil, On the Corner), and Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters).
Improvisation Funk continues the African musical tradition of improvisation, in that in a funk band, the group would typically "feel" when to change, by "jamming" and "grooving", even in the studio recording stage, which might only be based on the skeleton framework for each song.Vincent, Rickey. Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One. St. Martin's Press, Nov. 4, 2014; p. 18 Funk uses "collective improvisation", in which musicians at rehearsals would have what was metaphorically a musical "conversation", an approach which extended to the onstage performances.Lacy, Travis K., ""Funk is its own reward" : an analysis of selected lyrics in popular funk music of the 1970s" (2008). ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 22. pp. 51–52
Instruments Bass guitar
Funk creates an intense groove by using strong guitar riffs and basslines played on electric bass. Like Motown recordings, funk songs use basslines as the centerpiece of songs. Indeed, funk has been called the style in which the bassline is most prominent in the songs, with the bass playing the "hook" of the song.Boomer, Tim; Berry, Mick. The Bassist's Bible: How to Play Every Bass Style from Afro-Cuban to Zydeco. See Sharp Press, Jul. 1, 2009. p. 25 Early funk basslines used syncopation (typically syncopated eighth notes), but with the addition of more of a "driving feel" than in New Orleans funk, and they used blues scale notes along with the major third above the root.Boomer, Tim; Berry, Mick. The Bassist's Bible: How to Play Every Bass Style from Afro-Cuban to Zydeco. See Sharp Press, Jul. 1, 2009. p. 22 Later funk basslines use sixteenth note syncopation, blues scales, and repetitive patterns, often with leaps of an octave or a larger interval.