We Want the Funk!

What is funk? The question turns out to be more complex than it seems. “All we need is a drummer,” Sly Stone once said. So is it music where only the beat matters? We Want the Funk! digs much deeper.

Funk was the soundtrack of an era, the late 1960s, as Black Americans were expressing their identity with growing urgency. The founding father of funk, James Brown, electrified audiences with music built entirely on repeated riffs. His songs gave voice to a new Black self-awareness: “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud!”

Musicians like Sly Stone and Prince carried funk forward, paving the way for the emergence of hip-hop in the early 1980s. Through a rich array of interviews and rare historical footage, the film also explores funk from the perspectives of religion, geography and music theory. Pioneer George Clinton has the last word: “Funk is how Black people show their emotions. To forget and to heal.”