Damn, that’s funky.
No, Dam, that s**t is fonkkky.
No, no, no: it’s just Dam Funk
The L.A. bred ‘Ambassador of Funk’ Dam (Damon Riddick) Funk knows better than most people that “Funk” doesn’t only apply to the music, but is an overall ethos, a world vision that one can ascribe to, and an indoctrination famously aligned with P-Funk. “It’s a lifestyle—it’s being ‘free’ at all times,” says Dam.
And maybe it’s his voice that exudes the funk, a sort of cool, tempered, melodic wispiness, or rather it’s what he’s hiding behind those nebulous, impenetrable glasses—whatever it is, it seems as though the spiritual form of Funk has manifested itself on Dam’s physical body. And even his vernacular: “The drums are the backbone. They are inspired by the ‘motherland’! The chords are from the ‘mothership’!”
But this ethereal dimension that Dam produces through his work, one that propels us to cosmic heights, is weighted and entrenched in a history of playing music. He is worldly, after all. Dam started out on the scene doing keyboard sessions with the likes of Solar Records Producer ____ (Shalamar, the Whispers, The Sylvers) and worked on the other end of the spectrum with West-Coast gangsta rap artists such as MC Eiht, Mack 10, and Ice Cube. Dam also had the opportunity to develop his chops playing drums with live bands around Los Angeles.
His maturation as a musician and the development of his own sound has yielded a distinct amalgam that incorporates melodic “chords mixed with hard hittin’ claps and beats that are based in Funk,” says Dam. “I embrace synthesizers and drum machines very much. This is the sound I dig. Modern-Funk.” Modern funk in the sense that Dam is not drawing influence from the grittier funk borne out of the 60s and 70s, but rather pastiches his own sound from artists such as Slave, (early) Prince, Mtume, Loose Ends, Roger and Zapp, P-Funk and even sonic luminaries/spearheads like Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren. “I was doing this sound that you hear from me today before G-funk was even a term,” says Dam. Having roots in actually playing music has inevitably shaped the way Dam interprets music. In understanding how chords connect with each other, Dam intuits the progression and modulation with deft precision to manipulate the audience as he pleases.
Dam, like fellow peer Madlib, can be considered a curator of music in that he is trying to revive and reintroduce a music that seems to have escaped the taste of our cultural mainstream. The stigma attached to the 80s is that the music is just as bad as the perms and teased hair. What dam is trying to show us through his music and DJing is that we have overlooked something, like a glitch on a VHS. “It’s simply time for this genre and era to be respected. This is one of my missions through sharing the styles with people.” And as a DJ, Dam makes sure to shout out artists and track names in order to spread awareness of the music he loves: “Hell, the DJ didn’t make the fuckin’ music…the artist did!” Dam in turn serves as a conduit in which we can access this forgotten music and acquire a newfound appreciation.
Dam crystallizes a distinct moment in the Musical Timeline, an era of buzzy synths and excoriating boogie, and he still harkens to the traditional methods of that time to record his music. “I first started making home made tapes (yes, tapes!) in my bedroom. There was no easy to use computer software back then. You had to use elbow grease to see a completed song. This is why I still record the same way now, most of the time. I like the work involved.
The term “old-school” comes to mind when thinking of Dam’s aura and sensibility, and it would probably be an accurate representation of him. This is a man who prefers analog to Protools, a man who relishes the do-it-yourself process and vintage recording gear rather than the easy, synthetic capabilities of computer software.
So, as the maxim goes: out with the old, in with the new. Yet the essence of Dam Funk seems to muddle this aphorism. Although he is an extension of his past, he is moving forward to reshape the sound and perception of the music he loves. And it is this forward motion that brings him back to the modern world. He must live in the past to bring a new present.
Dam is currently in the process of putting out a 5xLP concept-album called: A Funk Odyssey. Wanting to rekindle a time in the ‘70s in which the ‘Prog Rock’ era proliferated the notion of a ‘Concept Album’, Dam is transferring this idea to the genre of ‘Funk’, the first of its kind.
--Written by Justin Bolois
I found this haven off of Grant and Green Street in San Francisco. This is the basement, filled with musty, dirty crates of vinyl, unalphabetized and uncategorized for the most part. Because of the construction taking place next door, the lights would intermittently flicker on and off every ten seconds or so. Caked with dust and dimly lit, one could easily mistake it for a bomb shelter. 
