What It Was

Right on. Right on. Nothing puts a dip in your hip and a glide in your stride quite like a gritty funk groove that hits the beat hard on the one. The polyrhythmic kissing cousin of classic soul and R&B, funk’s sinuous slap-bass lines and booming kick drums from its heyday in the late ’60s through the late ’70s went on to inspire a generation of hip-hop heads. Rhino rocks funk’s foundation with a four-disc collection of rump-shaking beats and hard-to-find pimpalicious jams that don’t fake the funk. What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves (1967-1977) will be available October 3rd.

What It Is! celebrates some of the genre’s biggest names with the late Wilson Pickett’s “Engine Number 9;” “I’m Just Like You,” a song recorded by Sly Stone under the pseudonym 6ix, and “Stanga” a tune he wrote and produced for Little Sister (which included Vaetta Stewart, Sly’s little sister); and Earth Wind & Fire’s “Bad Tune” from the acclaimed group’s debut. The boxed set also includes tracks by Little Richard, Allen Toussaint, The Commodores, Curtis Mayfield, Labelle, P-Funk guitar virtuoso Eddie Hazel, and The Meters, who can be heard with Cyril Neville on the classic “Gossip,” performing undercover as The Rhine Oaks on “Tampin’” and under their own moniker for “Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug (Push And Shove) Part 2.”

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Check Yo'self Before You Wreck Yo'self