Rickey Vincent literally wrote the book on funk. The college professor, writer, and radio DJ, who resides in Berkeley CA with his wife and two sons, is the author of the acclaimed music history book
Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of The One (
St. Martin's Press) which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. If you don't already have this book, with a forward by
George Clinton, I highly recommended it since it is the most comprehensive study on funk.
In addition to being an author & journalist, Vincent has taught at
City College of San Francisco and
SF State University where he taught a course entitled
Protest Music Since 1965: Funk, Rap and the Black Revolution. Rickey is also a longtime Bay Area radio DJ at stations
KALX and
KPFA, where he still hosts his popular weekly funk show
The History of Funk, Fridays at 10PM on
94.1FM.
The widely respected funkateer's musical knowledge (and music collection) is unmatched. I recently caught up with Vincent to talk about the funk/hip-hop connection and the impact of funk and black music in general on both American and global cultures, among other things. The conversation inevitably turned to godfather of soul / funk pioneer
James Brown a few times during the interview.
Vincent is currently finishing up last minute details on his next book
Party Music -- a fascinating historical account of the
Black Panther Party's own funk band, Oakland's
The Lumpen, who took popular funk songs and rhythms but substituted more revolutionary lyrics. (Look for a future interview with him about this upon its publication.) For more information on the author, you can visit
Rickey Vincent's website or his
MySpace. You can also read his book or check out his show on
KPFA.
