Black History – FUNK & DRUGS/CRACK EXPOSE

FUNK & DRUGS

Too bad Sly won’t reappear for us……….I don’t think he realizes how much he is loved by his people. He is a good person for today’s "music stars" to look at. At his peak…..NOBODY was bigger than Sly, I mean NOBODY !!!

His appeal trancended race, gender, and nationality. His music even trancended categoy. It was rock & soul & jazz & dance & blues all at the same time. (hmmmmm sounds like a pretty good definition of FUNK to me )

But he lost it all………..because of DRUGS !!! For those who are at the top of their game now…….they would do well to examine the tragic career of Sylvester Stewart & think about just how far the fall can be from the top !!!

I grew up listeneing to War. My brother was into all of this music and that’s how I got into it. I really hae no favorite song. I listened to all their music. I just thought it was all good. They were an integrated band that made it because of their sound. Yes they made a major social impact. I know a lot of folks that use to smoke marijuana socially and listened to War and many others. But beyond the drug use by people listening to War I considered them and still do to be Badddddddddddd.

You bring up an interesting point. In your opinion did WAR produce "pro drug music" ??

All Day Music:

"Down at the beach or party in town …makin love or just ridin around" "Rollin in the grass till long after dark"

I remember "days" like this one….all too well

THE ULTIMATE CHILL OUT RECORD !!

Although somewhat late in the War chronology – GALAXY…ranks up there…Take me to your place in space…It’s outta sight…

I recall too…as a young adolescent male…listening to SPILL THE WINE

I stood high up on a mountain top…naked to the world…

Now that’s pretty damn deep !!

Are you sure it was just wine you were spilling up there on that mountain ?

The members of tha Funk Mob in addition to their great musical talents, did some very thought provoking writting. You would have to I would think if most of the stuff that was produced is based on science fiction. The state of America (America Eats It’s Young, March to the Witches Castle), mortality/spiritualism, are some of the things thatare interwoven in their music. There are also some questionable lyrics when it comes to Black male/female relationships in the sounds. Some sisters I know do not like P-Funk for those reasons. The strong combination of Funk and philosophy can’t be escaped however.This is just off thetop of my head, so I welcome any other observations.

I have seen "scholars" refer to the lyrics of P-Funk in two

different ways:

1. "James Brown on acid"

2, "Jimi Hendrix being silly"

Now if you take those two statements and think about them a bit, there is a common thred between them of "drug usage". I think it’s fair to say that drugs play a signifigant role in the lyrics of P-Funk. George has admited that he wrote a lote of the stuff while under the influence. Remember also that the reason James Brown fired Bootsy, because of his excessive drug use. It all makes sense to me when you actually sit down & listen to the lyrics….they had to using drugs to write that stuff !!!

I recently heard that Bootsy has sobered up, an interesting rumor considering his music sounds more psychedelic to me now than it ever has (have you heard the Zillatron album?).

Bootsy is by far my biggest funk influence, every time I hear a bassline that I totally get into he’s behind it Without him, I feel that Bill Laswell’s (of course my favorite producer) nineties cyberfunk visions would never have happened (i.e. Praxis). As to the question of where drugs fit in, I believe funk originally started as a black outgrowth of the predominantly white dominant drug rock scene in the mid-sixties. Drugs fueled both movements and pushed the funk farther

A lot of people who happened to indulge in getting high during this period are very creative now and were back then. Set aside the so-called schollary observations, they still were sexist in their depiction of sisters, or is that just the Black male machismo thang. I am regardless a Funkateer to the highest degree, in case anyone is wondering, but I still feel that drugs or no drugs, you cannot escape the philosophical messages in P-Funk’s music. Another point folks….. if the music state were influenced by drug use, how did the use of alcohol by artists play a role in all this?
And what about the artists who did neither? Did that mean those folks were confined to one hit wonders? And what about folks who had a history of domestic violence like Ike Turner,or the Rev. Al Green , or Marvin Gaye. How did this affect their creativity?

That one statement was pretty loaded, wasn’t it?

Know the best way to ride on the mothership?

Be on drugs flying and sit back and listen to the music and words and read an album cover. they took you out there and back. I always started with the flip side of the albums. they usually were so far out you had no choice but to take a ride lol funkadelic album covers were works of art with a lot of stuff written on them. definitely made you think and open upyour mind which was easy being under the influence. i’m not

home so i can’t quote titles for you :-{ but any real funkateer knows the flip sides too

Believe me, I am not devoid of Funk by all means. As a matter of fact, I could tell you some of the expierences I had when younger that would blow you away!! I was one of the folks who was into sex, drugs, and music. I am lucky to be alive and still have a mind to express those times to others. Cosmic Slop, Hard Core Jollies, Electric Spanking of War Babies, America Eats Its Young, and Magot Brain are a few I can name off the top of my head. In the previous posting, I just wanted to point out some factors that indeed affected the music and the people who made and listened to it .

Hey! Think! It’s ain’t Illegal Yet!!

I agree that drugs had quite a bit to do with ALL of the music that came out of the 1970’s. That is an inescapable fact. I also think that drugs had something to do with the demise of some of these groups as well. Many of these folks have now "sobered up", which is part of the reason for the resurgence of the FUNK today.

BUT……I disagree with your point that FUNK was "fueled by drugs" !!!

The FUNK of the 1970’s should be seen as part of a larger movement towards freedom. Bootsy, George, etc expressed their position in a very creative way.

Have you ever noticed how the idea of "Leaving Earth To Find Freedom"seems to crop up over & over again in the music of people like Charles Earland (Leaving This Planet), Sun Ra (Space Is The Place), P-Funk (Mother Ship Connection) ??

On one level it is pretty easy to dismiss these as "drug references, but……could it be "deeper" than that ?

You weren’t supposed to tell anyone about that……..it was supposed to be a secret !!!…………

Seriously…… those album covers were indeed works of art that required lots of "intense study" in order to "get it"

1/2 the fun of buying a new P-Funk album would be the hours that you had to spend, trying to decipher all of the hidden "wisdom" contained on the album cover !!! CD’s sorta take away all of the fun……don’t they ?

Well, I think drugs were an escape from the racism that many of the funksters faced in the record industry… Perhaps the songs you just mentioned were references to an escape from racism through chemicals. Of course I’m not championing or even condoning drugs, just mentioning my point that many movements have been fueled by drugs (i.e. speakeasy jazz, beat culture,fusion, roots reggae, acid rock, punk, hip hop, acid house, and now the newisolationist dub)… A coincidence that funk has crossed over with all of these?

CRACK EXPOSE

The San Jose Mercury News has just published an extensive 3 day expose on the crack epidemic. It’s available for viewing on the web at http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/ It chronicles the accidental birth of crack in 1974, the involvement of the CIA and DEA starting during the Reagan administration, the funneling of drug profits to a CIA funded army in Latin America,the marketing of a drug dealer in LA that led to its wide spread use, and much more. The web site also includes FBI files, court records, interviews, and audio files from actual FBI tapes to substantiate it’s stories. It is entensive and I suggest that you view it offline if you have the capability.

Please leave your thoughts of the article.

This sounds interesting, I will check out this web site and get back to you. Certainly this is on topic as drugs have certainly been a major factor in the destruction of many of the artists that we discuss on this BB !!!

Check out day three, it’s titled "The impact of the crack epidemic on the black community and why justice hasn’t been for all."!

I just got thru reading "Day 3"…………….and I urge everyone else who has a desire to understand just why the drug problem in this country has reached such epic proportions to check out http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/ The story is facinating and alarming. It is a straight news story, but it reads like a gangster novel.

Thanks for leting us know about the story !!

Why should justice be for all when they are trying to knock out the Black community….it’s like "Furious Styles" said in BOYZ IN THE HOOD….."We ain’t the ones flyin and floatin that sh** in here."

Ain’t that the truth if ever I heard it!!!!!!

I’ll definitely check out the expose.

Thanks for bringing this Expose on Crack out to our corner of cyberspace……..

I’m a "crack addict that chooses not to use….today", and it was an eye opener to read the background of the crack explosion in the Black Community….

I was glued to the screen as I had been previously clued to a crack pipe….

What was particularly appalling to me was the disparity in treatment for "Freeway Ross" and his suppliers…..as well as the different sentencing of crack dealers and powder dealers…

This story on the one hand angers me, but on the other it strengthens my resolve to reach other suffering addicts and those families of addicts..

Thanks again……………..peace

….clean and serene……one day at a time……

Wanted to say a special thanks to you on the assistance on moving to and thru the WEB…………..’preciate it…

….net working, and working the net……..

Anytime bro.

In my opinion this "Crack Expose" piece needs some wider exposure. Drugs are an overwhelming problem in the Black community and further education not only about the dangers, but about the real source of these drugs should be made known to a wider audience.

He is the truest of funkateers, that is by combining a love for the music with a love for his people he keeps us informed about the isssues that impact us. The San Jose Mercury website has recieved 650,000 hits in one week as a result of this story and was recently featured in the EUR electronic magazine. But of course the readers of this BB knew about it long before…..

BTW – thanks for taking the message about the importance of this story over to the Damali BB and staring a discussion thread over there about the story………it is an important story that needs as much exposure as possible !!!

(continue to beat the drum)

I agree……when we have an expose that is as thorough as this, it definetly needs wider publication…….

On the other point about WEB navigation………hey, it’ll work..

….provide the road map for those that need it..

Just to follow up on the story, on Friday the Black American Political Association of California protested at LA City Hall. They, along with other black groups have demanded a full scale investigation the story’s allegations of CIA involvement in providing cocaine and guns to LA gangs. A motion to do that by City Councilman Nate Holden was approved by the city council which will ask the US Attorney General to start an investigation. I think this story is gonna be big!

I think investigations like this should be started in every major city in the United States. I’m certain that this problem is not unquie to the west coast. We have a BIG crack problem here in the east as well.