When I sat down with the musician Dam-Funk at a hotel bar in Brooklyn, his drink order confused the waiter. “Can I get a Cadillac Margarita?” he asked. “Do you do margaritas here?” The waiter nodded affirmatively. “The Cadillac just has a little Grand Marnier in there. On the rocks.”The drink was appropriate, since we were there to talk about his new album, the latest release of what he refers as “modern funk,” the kind of music that can be equally enjoyed spacing out with your headphones on or bumping out of, well, a Cadillac. “Invite the Light,” which will be released on September 4, does not sound, on first listen, decidedly modern. What makes it modern is the seriousness with which Dam-Funk pursues his songs, and how willing he is to move away from contemporary ideas of popularity, incorporating a deep knowledge of music history into his work while looking ahead to what’s next. “The modern funk vibe that is going on right now is making it accessible for people who have different interests to check out a different form of music,” he said. “That’s my whole mission: provide a sound and welcome people into it, make songs that are not just about a beat but still not so heady that it keeps a layman away.”Dam-Funk is, for the most part, a one-man operation. He has no band and records all the music himself live. “There are no loops or sequencing. I love that sound, but I think it sounds more human if you play it like a band, even if it’s one person,” he said. The result is at once low-tech and expansive, a mish-mash of classic synthesizer sounds reminiscent G-Funk and a more contemporary, hip-hop bounce — retro-futurist, if you will.And as the title suggests, positivity is the main theme of the album. “I’ve experienced a lot of negative stuff,” he said of the last couple of years, as he’s become more famous. “I learned a lot of things about people’s character, and myself as well within that.” But making a moody, angry album, he said, would only put those feelings back into the world. “I’ve always been a positive person, or at least I like to think positive. My upbringing was a good upbringing. I’m not going to fake the funk. I didn’t have a horrible life. There’s nothing wrong with admitting your parents got up in the morning, and went to work, and made money, and then they bought groceries, and they didn’t trip or argue with each other. Those stories are missing.”The good life Dam-Funk talks about also extends to the guests on the album, all of whom are friends or mentors. Contemporaries such as Snoop Dogg (the two released the album “7 Days of Funk” in 2013), Ariel Pink, and Nite Jewel are all present. But if you dig deeper you’ll also notice a few names that you might not be familiar with, people like Junie Morrison and Leon Sylvers.“Junie is the king of funk,” he said with obvious glee. Morrison is a former member of the Ohio Players (Dam cites “Funky Worm” as the starting point of G-Funk), and later a key (and often unacknowledged) part of the Parliament-Funkadelic universe, where he penned classics such as “(Not Just) Knee Deep” and “One Nation Under a Groove.” He appears on “Invite the Light” on two tracks, one of which opens the album and sets the tone. “He’s funk,” Dam said. “The way he treated his whole career, the way he went under the radar, never sold out. So having Junie Morrison to bless this record, I hope it’s a message to people.”Leon Sylvers is even less known than Morrison, but his presence on “Invite the Light” is the result of a deep connection. The producer, who was closely associated with SOLAR Records (home of groups like Shalamar, Dynasty, and Lakeside), gave Dam-Funk his first professional gig as a session musician. “Leon was a person who I met through a friend of mine and he took a liking to some of the music I was doing on cassette tapes,” he said. “I was already collecting records and was an appreciator of Leon, and he taught me a lot about studio manner and production and just overseeing all of what he was doing.”Their relationship was not always perfect. “I’ve had some ups and downs with Leon,” he admitted. “But the point I made about bringing him on the album is that I still never forget what he did for me.” He’s happy to bring in the people who helped him out, the musicians who influenced him and maybe haven’t received the recognition they deserved, and put them under a spotlight. “Sometimes older artists might be at a certain part of their lives and thinking, does anybody appreciate me? I’m trying to show them that there are people like me who appreciate them, and show the younger artists these are the cats you need to respect,” he said.He encounters a lot of people who claim they are down with “modern funk,” he said, but they all cite the same influences. “Invite the Light” is engaged with rewriting the history of funk music, opening the doors for more voices to emerge from the darkness. “I’m tired of hearing about the same old stuff,” he said. “There are so many other great artists that deserve props. I like to try to turn people on to some of these things and not just always say the obvious. It makes the musical landscape better.”
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