Feel like gettin’ down? Can’t quite figure out how to scratch that itch for the dirty grooves? Let me take you right on up to the Mothership. Do not attempt to adjust your radio. We got some interplanetary extraterrestrial FAWNK for you right here, enough grooves to get you to Alpha Centauri and back, conveniently all in one location.

This post has been a long time comin’.

1. CRUCIAL ALBUMS
   • Mothership Connection by Parliament. Classic, uncut funk. AMG gives this one five stars.
   • Maggot Brain by Funkadelic. “Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time…” So begins another classic album conceived by funkmaster George Clinton. The solemn guitar solo on the first track eventually gives way to some of P-funk’s most kickin’ grooves.
   • Songs In the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Stevie knows a thing or two about life. Pay attention and heed his words. I usually put this album on when life gets tough, and it always helps.
   • Donny Hathaway Live. This sucka met a pretty dark fate, but his soul was immaculate
   • There’s A Riot Goin’ On by Sly & the Family Stone. In an age that was defined by hit singles, Sly et. al. couldn’t help but put together entire concept albums with repeated themes and motifs.
2. PLAYLISTS I MADE
   • Bmore Fawnk — Made this last March to DJ for a party. Strictly speaking, this isn’t exclusively funk, but it is all awesome.
   • Celestial Soul — Specifically a playlist of the outer-space funk stuff. Obscure Stevie Wonder tunes, Bootsy spacebass, a lot of George Clinton, and just about anything else I could hear echoing through the cosmos
   • F-U-N-K — The original funk playlist
3. PLAYLISTS OTHER PEOPLE MADE
   • Anthony’s Funk Playlist — I copied this off some loonnng Facebook post made by Anthony Ant, trumpet player and emcee from Oakland, CA. He is very much about live music, so a lot of the tracks he listed noted that they had to be viewed live on YouTube. I did not add these tracks to the playlist. If you want to dig their live show The Glory Band (James Small on drums), go out in Oakland/South Berkeley any time of the week. You’ll see them at e.g. Starry Plough, The Layover, the Legionnaire, opening for PFunk at the Fox Theatre, the BART station, et cetera, ad infinitum. Talented-ass mo’ fockazzz…
   • Stro ‘N B — I debated posting this one because there’s kind of an awkward story behind this one. I got this one from a Boston sports commentator/admin we call AMac. The awkward part about this is that AMac is married to my sister… Yeah, I told you it was awkward… But here’s the thing: Just because he’s married to my sister doesn’t mean he can’t make the most legit 90’s R&B playlist out of anyone I know. Which he can, and has done here. Welcome to family, bro…
   • 90 hrs @ Ben’s Chili Bowl — If you travel much, you’ve surely seen those touch-screen Jukeboxes Of The Future, either in an airport or billiards bar, or in your run-of-the-mill tourist-trap tequila saloon. These cool High-Tech devices stream from the internet, which means they are playing Taylor Swift and Katie Perry for about 98% of their functioning lifetime. Not that there is anything wrong with either of those these two talented individuals… But what ever happened to curated playlists?? As the links in this post should make clear, I am a fan of music streaming services from the perspective of a music consumer (though not necessarily music creator), but I definitely think it’s important to still maintain libraries curated by humans. For this reason, I love Ben’s Chili Bowl on U St. in Washington, D.C. I got most of the albums in their jukebox, except for the Prince album, because, as is obvious to anyone who knows about Prince, Prince is not on Spotify. RIP Prince.

Enjoy this. Also, if you ever want to hire me as a DJ, I have access to 2 kW of sound and a subwoofer. My rates are modest! Send me a message. ALSO, I used Spotify’s Web API to write this post, so if you ever want me to do software development for you, I can do this as well. (My rates for engineering work are somewhat higher than what I charge as a DJ.)