PBS’s Independent Lens series tackles the history and cultural impact of funk music in its latest 90-minute documentary, We Want the Funk! The film, co-directed by Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, opens with Miles Davis and Luther Vandross collaborator Marcus Miller playing a little funk sample. Miller can play pretty much any instrument, but, it being funk, he is riffing on a bass.
Percussion, primarily courtesy of bass and drums, but coming from every other instrument, including voice, will be identified as the genre's core element. No surprise there. You probably already knew whether you had studied the topic or not.
But Nelson and London leave no stone unturned in delving into the what, where and why of a form of music that emerged out of the 1960s and rather quickly came to impact global music – an impact that still exists today. They turn to musicians, historians, and even scientists to illuminate their topic.
We Want the Funk! is must-watch television on PBS
Of course, they have a ton of outstanding archival footage of some of the most exciting music created over the past half century.
After Morris’ brief bass riff, We Want the Funk! poses a question. This is the same device Questlove (who appears briefly as one of the talking heads) employed to open his recent Sly and the Family Stone documentary. Referring to Sly, who as a seminal funk artist gets a lot of screen time in this latest movie, Questlove asked, “What is black genius?’
Here, the question posed by the directors is somewhat broader: “What is funk?”
Of course, there is no concise answer. George Clinton, another godfather of the genre, comes close when he notes that funk music “is free from all the rules.” Others fall back on the commonsensical definition – I can’t define it, but I know it when I hear it.
The movie will attempt to define the genre in greater detail later, but it first establishes the historical setting. Nelson and London turn to all manner of scholars. Sure, there are music historians, but there are also dance, fashion, and cultural historians.
Donnie Simpson, the famed DJ, is a constant voice, offering his personal interactions with funk. He grew up with it and was in an ideal position to study its growth and impact.
After the quick historical backdrop – post-war evolution of a new youth-centered culture, Berry Gordy’s attempts to create Motown as a crossover brand of pop music – we get to the 1960s when assimilation into the American dream gave way to reclaiming pride in Black culture.
The first shot was fired by a musical giant who would supply one of the anthems of the decade – “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Or as Labelle’s Nona Hendryx offers, “The definition of funk – it would be James Brown.”
The movie uses Brown as a launching pad for the rest of funk’s varied history. It then evolved through Sly Stone and George Clinton, spreading to the discos and the world. Feta Kuti and Afrobeat. White artists like Elton John, David Bowie, and David Byrne. An ever-expanding circle of pop music and pop culture would fall under its spell. Funk was a natural precursor of hip hop.
But there’s so much more than a mere tracing of history and song in We Want the Funk! The chance to hear from legendary musicians like James Brown’s trombonist Fred Wesley (who, it is noted played the “funkiest trombone solo ever recorded” on “Do It to Death”) and Carlos Alomar, the guitarist who collaborated with David Bowie during his Thin White Duke mid-1970s era visit to funk-town, is priceless. Seeing Larry Graham slapping his bass borders on the sacred.
There is even a noble attempt to explain precisely why funk does what funk does. The irrepressibly nerdy David Byrne is juxtaposed with an actual neuroscientist to illustrate a funk rhythm's effects on the brain, jazzed up for the film with clips of cartoon characters shaking their hips.
As for the musicians, they explain the innovation James Brown brought to the fore. As one of them explains, he got the background elements – the rhythm section – into the foreground. He emphasized the magical “One.”
If you don’t know what the “One” is, then you really need to watch this movie. It is a rhythmic approach that defines funk, and through these musicians, it’s not hard to see how it really represents a great deal more than a genre of music.
Marcus Miller, who opens the film and provides a great deal of musical context throughout, makes the point early on that “there’s no sad funk song.” I’m sure you can debate that if you care to. “Family Affair” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” two of the most iconic funk jams of the ‘70s, certainly have sad elements.
What you can’t deny, and what We Want the Funk! brilliantly establishes, over and over, is that even if there is a sad funk song, you still want to dance to it. Whether it’s scientific, cultural, musical, or magical, we all want the funk.
We Want the Funk! is available to stream through PBS and assorted other streaming services.