Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: dam-funk

  • 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:

  • Podcast: Jheri Curl June 2K18

    This year marks our fifth annual Jheri Curl June, and we’re going to make it a thing or die trying. Join us as we define the Jheri Curl Music genre and share our picks for the most essential tracks; then, starting Monday, we’ll formally kick off the month-long celebration of wet, silky ’80s R&B. Oh, and listen all the way to the end, because we also announce the winners of our two free copies of Dystopian Dance Party Issue 1!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Imaginary Genres – Jheri Curl Music

    It’s finally here! In case you weren’t aware, Jheri Curl June is our most sacred holiday season here at Dystopian Dance Party, and we wanted to do something special for its third annual observance (“Jh3ri Curl Jun3”). So, instead of resurrecting the same hoary old introductory post from 2014, we thought we’d offer a concise introduction to the genre we call Jheri Curl Music in the form of a short video. Please enjoy; transcript and video/audio credits are past the jump. And come back tomorrow for some more traditional Jheri Curl June fare!

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  • Dystopian New Year’s Party Podcast: Our Favorite Songs of 2015

    Well, here we are, at the cusp of the New Year: that sacred time when bloggers from all over congregate for one last chance to opine about the pop culture year that was. And we’re no exception–even though, as we note in the introduction, we’re barely up for the task, having spent most of 2015 listening to the same Ying Yang Twins records we’d been listening to since 2005. But what is pop-culture blogging, anyway, if not the chance to exercise one’s self-appointed, mostly illusory authority on an unwilling and mostly uncaring audience?

    I originally wanted this inaugural year-in-review podcast to include multiple forms of media, but quite frankly we’re even worse at keeping up with film, television, et. al. than we are at keeping up with music; and besides, seeing as music is 90% of what we write about on Dystopian Dance Party, it kind of makes more sense this way. So here, without further ado, are our favorite songs of 2015. Settle in, because this one’s gonna be even longer and more self-indulgent than usual!

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  • Introduction to Jheri Curl June

    In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new form of predominantly African American popular music began to take shape. Rooted in soul and funk music, but largely stripped of those genres’ grit; with elements of rock and disco, and at least one eye forever resting on potential radio play; the loosely-defined style has gone by a variety of names, including post-disco, pop/funk, and the maddeningly nondescript “urban.” But Callie and I have always preferred to call it “Jheri Curl Music.”

    Jheri Curl Music is not necessarily music made by artists sporting the once-trendy hairstyle invented by hairdresser Robert William “Jheri” Redding–though obviously there is a good amount of overlap. Instead, we see it as music that embodies the properties of the Jheri curl itself. Jheri curl, whether the hair or the music, is an intrinsically hybrid style: somewhere between Black and white, kinky and straight, silky and dry. It’s fussy and high-maintenance. And, like the Jheri curl parody “Soul Glo” in John Landis’ 1988 comedy Coming to America, it leaves a greasy residue on everything it touches. Not all R&B from the early to mid-’80s qualifies as J.C.M.; but when you hear that telltale sign–usually a particular kind of muted guitar, clean slapped bass, or synthesizer squeal–you will recognize it instantly for what it is.

    Along with its namesake hairdo, jheri curl music faded from mainstream popularity by the end of the 1980s: eclipsed largely by another hybrid R&B style, the hip-hop-influenced New Jack Swing (or maybe we should call it “hi-top fade music”). But it’s never really gone away. Tune in to the obligatory “old-school hour” on any Adult Contemporary R&B radio station worth its salt, and you’ll hear plenty of jheri curl alongside the smooth soul and quiet storm. In recent years, too, the career resurgences of jheri-curl innovators Prince and (posthumously) Michael Jackson–not to mention the coming of age of legions of ’80s kids–have driven a critical and popular reappraisal of music that would have been considered dated and kitschy twenty years ago. Indeed, the sound has been steadily creeping back into contemporary artists’ repertoires since the early 2000s or so: everyone from Snoop Dogg to Daft Punk has gone to the jheri curl well at least a few times, while artists like Dâm-Funk and Chromeo have made it a foundation of their musical styles.

    So for the month of June, we’ll be celebrating jheri curl music with a new classic jheri curl video every weekday. Why? Basically because we love J.C.M., and the month of June starts with a “J” (and “Jheri Curl July” just doesn’t sound as good as “Jheri Curl June”). We’ll also be adding to the Spotify playlist at the bottom of this and every other Jheri Curl June post, so you can have easy access to a bunch of classic Jheri curl cuts to bump in your home, car, gym, or hair salon. Today, I’m kicking things off with what might be my choice for the ultimate jheri-curl song, Carl Carlton‘s 1981 single “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She’s Built, She’s Stacked)”:

    “Bad Mama Jama” has a lot of things to recommend it as a classic of J.C.M.: including its lascivious lyrics in the tradition of the Commodores’ “Brick House,” praising a woman who’s “got all the curves a man like” and gets Carl “so excited viewing her anatomy.” But what really makes it for me is that bass synth line, as curly and wet as Carlton’s hairdo. The song is the essence of Jheri curl: sleek, stylish, and more than a little sleazy. I can’t think of a better way to kick off Jheri Curl June.

    See you tomorrow!