This lesson looks at some of the most quintessential funk grooves that featured in the songs:

• Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine – James Brown (Drummer: John “Jabo” Starks)
• Super Bad – James Brown (Drummer: John “Jabo” Starks)
• Cold Sweat – James Brown (Drummer: Clyde Stubblefield)
• Cissy Strut- The Meters (Drummer: Zigaboo Modeliste)

A feature of funk grooves is their syncopation (displacement of notes). For example the snare is often displaced by one 8th note from is regular position of beat 2 or 4 to 2& or 4&. This can be seen in the grooves for “Super Bad” and “Cold Sweat”.

DownloadFunk Grooves 1
Download

John Starks talks about how he came up with some of these grooves.

Check out Zigaboo playing it live.