Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: stones throw records

  • Jheri Curl June: DāM-FunK’s “Searchin’ 4 Funk’s Future”

    Jheri Curl June: DāM-FunK’s “Searchin’ 4 Funk’s Future”

    We make a big deal every year about “late-era Jheri Curl Music” and its apparent obsolescence at the hands of, chiefly, New Jack Swing; but the truth is, reports of J.C.M.’s death have always been greatly exaggerated. Yes, the wetter, silkier side of contemporary R&B did fall out of favor, replaced by harder beats and more hip-hop-inspired posturing; but there have always been keepers of the electro-funk flame, whether through direct samples, influence, or simply existing artists continuing to plough their furrow despite the pop world’s ever-shifting winds. It’s to these artists, the Jheri Curl faithful, that we’re turning our attention in the last few days of JCJ.

    And to kick things off, I can’t think of a better artist than Damon Garrett Riddick, better known as DāM-FunK. The Southern California-based Riddick isn’t a Jheri Curl revivalist so much as a disciple; he started making music as a teen in the late ’80s and early ’90s, some of which can be heard on the 2010 compilation Adolescent Funk. But he didn’t release his debut solo album, the sprawling 2-CD/5-LP (!) Toeachizown, until 2009, well after his chosen brand of synthesizer-assisted grooves had acquired a patina of retro cool. This contradiction is woven into the fabric the album itself: On the one hand, its ’80s credentials are legit, with production by no less a personage than first-wave Jheri Curl architect Leon Sylvers III; but on the other hand, its presence on underground hip-hop label Stones Throw, home of J Dilla and Madvillain, situates it indelibly in mid-to-late-2000s crate-digger culture.

    None of which, incidentally, is a bad thing: in fact, DāM-FunK’s cult positioning grants him an artistic freedom and fluidity few of the artists we typically cover here ever had the opportunity to flex. Case in point: “Searchin’ 4 Funk’s Future,” a musical mission statement of sorts that stretches its atmospheric synth pads, vintage drum programming, and Riddick’s muffled falsetto to an experimental near-eight-minute runtime. If J.C.M. Mark I took as its template Prince‘s run of early-’80s albums, then Mark II–at least as interpreted by DāM-FunK–sounds more like a high-generation Prince bootleg; and speaking as a big fan of Prince bootlegs, that’s a really interesting space to occupy.

    We’ll be back tomorrow to highlight more post-Jheri Curl jams; in the meantime, playlists are below:

  • Dystopian New Year’s Party Podcast: Our Favorite Songs of 2016

    So we’re a few days late, but better late than never, right? Here, finally, is our annual New Year’s Party podcast, in which we summarize our favorite songs of the last year as we make way for the new one. It’s a little less self-indulgent than the first one from 2015–by which I mean that it’s only two and a half hours, instead of two hours and 45 minutes. But we actually used real microphones this time, so at least you can hear what we’re saying! Check it out for the good music and eggnog-and-Hennessy-fueled rants; and then check out our extended Spotify and TIDAL playlists for more songs we didn’t have time to talk about, including tracks by A$AP Ferg and Future, A$AP Mob featuring Juicy J, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, Trinidad James featuring Mystikal and Lil Dicky, Nite-Funk, JEFF the Brotherhood, Frank Ocean, Mac Miller and Anderson .Paak, D.R.A.M. with Erykah Badu, 6LACK, the Weeknd and Daft Punk, and the Rolling Stones. So here’s to the one thing that made 2016 tolerable–the music–and maybe, just maybe, a 2017 that won’t suck literal ass.

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