R&B FUNK LOUNGE MUSIC
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 soul, jazz and rhythm and blues (R&B).[2] It de-emphasizes 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.[3] 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 and thirteenths.
Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown‘s development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with 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[4]—and rock and psychedelia-influenced musicians Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix, fostering improvisation in funk.[5] Other musical groups, including Kool and the Gang,[6] Earth, Wind & Fire, Chic, B.T. Express, Loose Ends, Shalamar, The S.O.S. Band, Slave, The Whispers, Cameo, and the Bar-Kays began to adopt and develop Brown’s innovations during the 1970s and adding R&B essences to the genre from the early 1970s, while others like Parliament-Funkadelic and Ohio Players followed Hendrix’s path.
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R’n’B,[1] is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s.[2] The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when „urbane, rocking, jazz based music … [with a] heavy, insistent beat” was becoming more popular.[3] In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy,[4] as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.
The term „rhythm and blues” has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records.[5] Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term „R&B” became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. From 1960s to 1970s, several British bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands. By the end of the 1970s, the term „rhythm and blues” had changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the late 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as „contemporary R&B„. It combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music.
