now tell me people, who was it invented this kind of disco-funk (with the emphasis on funk) heavy on the downstroke crunchy-thwacking snare rhythm?





as a postpunker-turned-funkateer, i used to be obsessed with records with that kind of beat, which at one point was almost all dance records



this is a particularly thwacking example, as was most of Steve Arrington's stuff, and probably Slave's too



that really strident downstroke snarecrunch, you don't really hear it in James Brown or Ohio Players

you can hear it coming a little bit with this things like this 1975 tune



was it Hamilton B who done it first?



at one point this next one would have seemed like the ultimate music to me



Gap Band probably took it as far as it could go



then probably as postdisco/boogie got to be less a band-oriented sound, more about producers + players + machines, the thwack-snare probably start to fade out

oh now i think of it, probably Parliament-Funkadelic had something to do with it, right?

this is a primo later example where the downstroke really dominates the record in a super-imposing way, like a great slash across the sound-stage



and then there was Cameo

pre-codpieces and "Single Life"/"Word Up" crossing-over-to-pop Cameo



i remember a DJ at Oxford in 1983 earnestly telling me that Cameo made the hardest toughest street funk around