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.

Incorporating the dramatic fonts used in the design of the album cover being promoted, the designers of these fine stickers created a nice compliment sure to garner extra sales.



Used to promote Robert Plant's
top 20 hit, this sticker furthers the classicmodern rock feel of the
album cover. Cool 80's pink lifted from the artful embellishments
found to the left of the photo...








up next, R&B top 20 hit from George Clinton...


Sticker gets a little lost
as cover is already quite busy






Up next, a foreign selection...


Nice gold foil sticker promoting the lovely Geula Gil's version of the "Jerusalem of Gold", which is a huge song in Israel...