Philadelphia funk band The Funkitorium may just be the city’s unofficial Ambassadors of Funk Music. Within the past three years they’ve started the first annual funk music festival Funktoberfest, released numerous singles and have headlined an incredible tribute to the Godfather of Soul James Brown at World Cafe Live. This Friday they’ll present not only the second annual Funktoberfest running Friday through Saturday, they’ll also be dropping their first EP In Between Planets, on their label Funktarrecords. Our editor Toya Haynes spoke with three of the members of The Funkitorium, Arthur Thomas (vocals), Remus (vocals), and N Dot (Producer and DJ), about their music festival and why funk music is for everyone.
Toya (PSN): What made you decide to do funk music? The reason why I ask that question specifically is because I think funk sometimes gets lumped into R&B. Not even lumped in, it kind of gets left out. If you look at the charts, it’s R&B/Hip Hop. But funk? That’s specific. So why funk music?
Remus: With funk being the radical expression of soul and the grandfather of so many different genres, it only felt right to give it its proper flowers. So that’s why when the opportunity was presented, it was a no brainer for me to say yeah. Everyone who does music today has had an influence of funk in it. So why not give it its own lane again? Like you said, over the years it has been merged into other genres of music and kind of lost its own individuality. So you know, why not funk?
Arthur Thomas: Exactly what you said. My immediate response is why not funk? Funk makes everybody move no matter what age. My daughter is five and she can’t stop moving to it. And then we have the elders that come out to the shows. They get up and they’re up dancing. It’s something that makes everybody of all ages feel good at the end of the day. It’s a universal language.
Before I met N Dot and we started making some of these songs, I was in a state of depression. I didn’t want to do music anymore. I was a rapper for eight, almost nine years. I didn’t like how I felt making hip hop and just trying to keep up with the trends and the popularity contests. Then I found my happiness again, making funk music, making soul music. Doing that, I’m not gonna say kind of, but absolutely set me free. It set me free to be an artist and express every feeling I’m going through. So that’s why I would say funk music.
Toya (PSN): You talk about your daughter enjoying funk music. Do you guys remember your earliest memories of funk music?
N Dot: I probably have some of the craziest because that’s what I heard when I was growing up. So like, for me, my dad was a preacher so we didn’t get a chance to listen to a whole lot of stuff but it was tons of P-Funk and James Brown at my house. When I walked through the door and I heard James (Brown), you knew it was a good day. A lot of the good times in my youth were attached to funk.
Remus: Like you said, early childhood, like the Saturday mornings when you clean the house and you hear Earth, Wind and Fire, Bootsy (Collins), Ohio Players, etc.
Toya (PSN): Tell us about Funktoberfest. Now this is the second year. When you came up with the idea, what made you say this is what Philly needs, a whole festival of funk? Tell me how that came to be.
Arthur Thomas: It’s like a holiday, you know what I mean? You get a day full of what we love to do all year round. The idea sparked from me wanting to always do a festival when I was a hiphop artist. While in the Funkitorium, I noticed we would get invited to a festival and be the only band that sounds like us there.
With Funktoberfest, You hear some funk bands that are on the way up and you get to see all different types of funk music too.
Remus: It’s like a unity day. Because like what we said earlier, funk transcends age, it transcends color, transcends race, all of that. It’s universal. You can try to stay still if you want to, but funk is gonna make you move.
Toya (PSN): Last year the festival was one day and this year the festival spans two days. Tell me about that decision to expand.
Arthur Thomas: The two day decision was me going out on a limb. But I think after last year I had so many other bands reaching out throughout the duration of this year. I can’t just narrow this down to eight. I also see an opportunity to just build this festival out to be something bigger.
We’re gonna party with people. We’re gonna eat some good food from the trucks. You know, we’re gonna take a million pictures and enjoy some of the best music in the city. And that’s what I envision, that’s what I wanna bring to life.
Toya (PSN): I have one final question for you guys: let’s say you got to put together the funk Mount Rushmore. You get four. Now here’s the thing: You can do musicians and singers. They don’t have to be all singers. They don’t have to be all musicians. Give me your four.
N Dot: The Godfather James Brown gotta go first. Absolutely.
Remus: Got to put George (Clinton) up there, yeah.
N Dot: George. Can’t do it without George and P Funk.
Arthur T: It wouldn’t really be the sound without Bootsy Collins.
N Dot: He was in both of them and he kept it going when they stopped.
Toya (PSN): That’s true. I tend to give props first to the people that begat everything. But this is your Mount Rushmore, not mine. You got one more left.
Remus: Sly Stone?
Toya (PSN): There’s no wrong answer, but that’s the name I was waiting for.
N Dot: Know what though? That fourth, that fourth can come down to so many people.
Arthur Thomas: I would put myself. I’m there already, but people don’t know it yet. So, you know, I’ll put myself in that first spot, but we’ll see. We’ll see after my career is done.
Funktoberfest runs from Friday September 23-Saturday September 24 at The Attic Brewing Company. For more on The Funkitorium and this weekend’s Funktoberfest, visit www.thefunkitorium.com.