Stefano Funk
First a song:
My initial exposure to Funk was through Hip-Hop: perusing sample databases on sites like the-breaks.com. (which is a bit dated now, but there's still whosampled.com). Initially I would learn about classic funk tracks by seeing how often they were sampled (in particular, "Funky Drummer" and "More Bounce to the Ounce" are--to this day--some of the most sampled songs in Hip-Hop). As I got deeper into the Funk (not just knee deep), the inverse would happen. I'd go digging through crates or learn about Funk tracks through friends, fellow dancers, DJs and then I'd find a Hip-Hop song that used the sample. The above is an example
The original, "Get Up to Get Down" by Brass Construction has an inspiring, driving bass line that literally makes you want to get up to get down. The lyrics, while simple, are deep. More on that later.
Anyway, I've started playing the electric bass. I'm terrible at it, which is nice. Sometimes, it's just fun to do fun shit. Fuck trying to be "the best" or even good, just enjoy it. But stay humble and respectful. And damn, it is fun!
Herein are various ramblings about culture (dance, music, fashion, art, language) , absurdity, socio-political themes.
Welcome.
It's probably best we start off with a song. Of course, the title of this post is an homage to Digital Underground and it sums up the content here (that word evokes digestible packages of consumer media, but alas a blog is not art--so content it is--even if this blog leaves you with indigestion).
Anyway, here's another song:
An Ode to a Marcus Books
About a year ago, I visited California. Identifying with my youth in New York and my adulthood in Montreal, I considered myself a resolute urbanite. I liked San Francisco. It calls itself the city. It envisions itself as an urban environment. I found it beautiful. Everyone does. That should, by now, be a platitude. More than that, staying in Japantown near the Fillmore District, I found the city accessible. I went to Sweater Funk in the Mission. I went to Motown on Mondays on Divisadero. We ate Bento across the street from Hotel Tomo. I took a jiu jitsu class on Post. I danced tango at Baobab. San Francisco’s geography and diversity allowed me to weave these disparate experiences into a sense of self: the city fit me. I felt for the first time in years a sense of home. As a young black person, I was well aware of San Francisco’s history of racist housing policy (from stories of Willie Mays to James Baldwin in Take This Hammer) and its frighteningly declining black population. But the capstone of my visit, enriching my deep affection for funk and soul music (as my escapades to Sweater Funk and MOM can attest), was a two hour conversation I had with Karen Johnson from Marcus Books.
We talked about James Jamerson, the bassist for the Funk Brothers, Motown’s legendary house band. Karen’s soothing voice and patient intellect seemed so very San Francisco. It was then that I knew where I needed to live: here. Here, in San Francisco. She talked to me about the history of the Fillmore District. She told me about Jamerson’s unique musical style, changing the way I listened to Soul Music. She told me how fog shaped people’s sense of their self: living in a city where fog can hide the horizon creates both a unique sense of individual and of community.
Last summer, I moved here. I came here to work as a programmer. Recently, I started work at an exciting digital art startup. Before coming I was excited to be around the energy of the Fillmore District, I was excited to visit Marcus Books. I was sanguine about the lack of diversity in tech, noting that since 2000, the number of Blacks and Latinos in Silicon Valley has gone from about 3 and 4 percent respectively to about 2 and 3 percent and that the 80s was the best decade for women in computer science. I knew what I was getting into. Every place has its challenges. But there would be a friendly neighbourhood bookstore, where I could get away from it all and feel grounded.
Then I read the bad news. Regardless of the details of how this happened (predatory lending perhaps?), the fact remains that San Francisco is on the verge of losing a vital piece of its black history. Indeed, as the oldest Black owned bookstore in the country, San Francisco in on the verge of losing a vital part of the entire nation’s history.
I saw Karen recently. She told me she had moved to Oakland. Before moving to San Francisco, people told me I wouldn’t like it, that it’d be too white, that I would prefer to live in Oakland. Sometimes, I think they’re right. I can’t go into the speculative superlative of “the worst thing about this” — I can say I was particularly hurt by the fact that no one seemed to care. While the city was up in arms over Adobe Books, The Bold Italic made no mention of Marcus Books. SFist mentioned it in passing. Local commentary on SFGate seemed to indicate that San Francisco doesn’t care about Black people.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m here, because I refused and continue to refuse to give up hope, but I also know that we don’t matter here. In a city where we were once one in seven, we are now one in seventeen and much more likely to be homeless or jobless than the general population. In a city whose Black community produced Danny Glover, Aisha Tyler, where two musical geniuses named Sylvester settled, we have ceased to exist. I would hope that if we disappear, someone will still be able to read about us in books. Perhaps at a locally-owned independent bookstore.
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For more information about Marcus Books, go here.
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Leon Ware - Why I Came to California