
John Blake reporting for CNN:
What happened to the funk?
I ask this because I also grew up during funk’s golden era. I watched live performances of groups like Earth Wind & Fire as they drove crowds to a funk frenzy. I studied “Soul Train” every weekend to catch the latest dance moves that I could never learn. I never purchased an Afro-Sheen blowout kit to look like my favorite funk performers, but I proudly carried an Afro pick with a handle shaped like a clenched Black fist to capture their defiant “Get the Funk Out Ma Face” attitude.
For my family and friends, funk wasn’t just a musical genre — it was a lifestyle and attitude built around what one music critic called “sweat and sociability.”
And then the music lost its groove. The ‘80s and ‘90s brought hip hop, grunge, rap and alternative rock. Today’s charts are dominated by plastic dance pop that feels like it’s been assembled by an AI bot.
I can’t help but wonder: Why did funk music lose its popularity? And did we lose something more than danceable rhythms when it went away?
Beautifully put — and tragically true. Funk wasn’t just a sound; it was a vibe, a movement, a cultural force that radiated pride, creativity, and human connection. When you heard Parliament drop the bass or Earth, Wind & Fire explode into a horn section, you weren’t just listening — you were participating. Funk demanded you feel it, not just consume it.
John Blake’s piece taps into something a lot of us feel but can’t always articulate: the loss of music as shared experience. Funk was sweaty, joyful, messy, communal. It came from real people with real instruments, flaws and all, and it celebrated the full spectrum of human culture — its pain, pride, humor, and swagger. And yeah, it had groove for days.
Today’s music industry — algorithm-driven, auto-tuned, and precision-packaged — too often feels like it’s missing that soul. The shift away from music education in public schools didn’t just kill brass sections and jam sessions; it silenced a pipeline of working-class creativity. Now, kids are told to produce loops and beats on laptops, not pick up a trumpet or learn four chords on a bass.
Some say it’s partly because the Reagan administration pulled funding to musical education programs in public schools. Kids didn’t learn how to play instruments anymore, so they turned to rap and hip-hop.
And yet — the hunger for funk never fully left. You still hear it in the DNA of artists like Anderson .Paak, Bruno Mars, Thundercat, and Vulfpeck. The groove lives, even if it’s buried under streaming stats and TikTok trends.
Maybe the real question isn’t just “what happened to the funk?” — but “how do we bring it back?” Not just the sound, but the spirit. The jam sessions. The dancing in the living room. The Afro pick in the back pocket. The sweat and sociability.
Thats the real revolution waiting to happen.