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UK funky: a short-lived sound whose influence lives on | Musique Non Stop

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Friday, August 29, 2014

UK funky: a short-lived sound whose influence lives on

It was an uneasy alliance of artist with different ambitions but UK funky primed us for Afrobeats and the all-conquering pop-house


If you want to understand British club musics eternally giddy flux, the diaspora of black British dance producers from the late 2000s UK funky scene can tell you a lot. Look at Rinse FM stalwarts Roska and Marcus Nasty each pushing wide-ranging but tough sounds with a new EP and label respectively or at the pop-dance of Ill Blu, the brooding sound of Cooly G and the brainwarped trip-outs of Coolys Hyperdub labelmate DVA. Each is utterly different to the next, yet all broke through in the brief flowering of funky from 2006 to 2010.


Back then, funky could encompass yearning soul such as Frontline by Ill Blu & Princess Nyah and Tell Me by DJ NG and Baby Katy (later Katy B); instrumental oddness like Apples Mr Bean and Cooly Gs Narst; and MC-led playground chants like Gracious Ks Migraine Skank and KIGs Heads, Shoulders, Knees And Toes. All were united by a pumping house undercurrent, clattering grime and dancehall rhythms, and car-window-rattling bass: it was the sound of Londons pirate radio stations and clubs for a few summers. But it couldnt last.


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by Joe Muggs via Electronic music | The Guardian

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