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Forum nameThe Lesson
Topic subjectI'm glad you said this:
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=2715469&mesg_id=2715560
2715560, I'm glad you said this:
Posted by AFKAP_of_Darkness, Sun Jul-01-12 11:16 PM
>He'll never funk as hard as the greats and holding him to any
>set standard means that he's doomed to fail. His niche has
>never been funk, just R&B.

You know, last weekend I was listening to Brown Sugar and I thought "Damn... This shit is dope, and unique!"

I've said before that D does not have a unique musical voice or sound or persona, but I think on BS he was actually in the process of developing one. I think that "Alright" in particular--while I don't necessarily think it's the best song on the album--best represents what D's aesthetic was (and imho, should have been).

I can remember around 1998 when news of D's followup leaked and it said he wanted to raise the stakes to elevate himself above rivals such as Maxwell and Chico Debarge by going full-on Funk, following the footsteps of Ohio Players and P-Funk... I can actually remember being very concerned and unenthusiastic about that idea.

In my opinion, D had a really fresh niche he was working: super-soulful singing over lo-fi hip-hop drums and moody, almost ambient keyboard textures. I thought (and think that sound was almost as radical as what Prince was doing with funk and new wave in the early 80s.

But then he decided that he wanted to go and do a watered-down version of sounds that other bands had done much, much better and that he will never measure up to.

That being said, this Chicken Grease stuff don't even work as a "tribute" to funk IN MY OPINION. It's just... some mediocre shit, really. I mean, like I said: maybe it's me. But do y'all reall *dance* to Chicken Grease? Does that stuff really grab you the way that a James Brown or Cameo record does? Or do you have to kind of force yourself to feel it?