Funk music is a fundamentally crucial genre when discussing the history of Black music genres. This genre was created at a time of extreme change for the Black community in the United States. Civil rights laws were passed to give voting rights and fair housing to the newly integrated citizens. Although the political and social climates of the late 1960s and 1970s seemed to end racial issues on the law books, it did not change the cultural climate of the USA, meaning the Black struggle in America would continue. During the post-civil rights and Black power eras, music genre’s soul and rock had been transformed into the groovy, dirty noise of funk music. Funk music was a platform for Black musicians to have a voice in the historical moment of the 1970s. Little scholarship has been written on funk music as a critical Black genre. Looking into the musicians who performed funk, the state of Black Americans in the 1970s, and other Black genres will show how funk stayed historically relevant throughout time as a genre for and by Black people. My presentation will showcase lyrical analysis, an evolution of funk, and the historical events that coincided with it.
