Let’s face it—your playlist is probably suffering from a severe case of funk deficiency that’s slowly killing your credibility, emptying your soul of groove, and making your parties about as exciting as a DMV waiting room. The 1970s unleashed a tsunami of Black funk excellence that shaped everything we’re dancing to today, yet somehow, these pioneering bands have been criminally under appreciated.
Time to fix your musical blind spots and discover the bands that made funk what it is—before your Spotify algorithm completely gives up on you.
20. The 24 Carat Black
Have you ever been so ahead of your time that people only recognize your genius decades later? That’s essentially what happened to The 24-Carat Black, the musical equivalent of a time traveler who nobody believed.
In 1973, they dropped “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth,” a concept album exploring urban struggle that the music industry treated with all the enthusiasm of a cat being offered a bath. Fast forward a few decades, and suddenly everyone from Jay-Z to Kendrick Lamar was sampling their tracks, making The 24-Carat Black the musical equivalent of that investment your uncle kept telling you to make in the ’90s.
19. The Hues Corporation
“Rock the Boat” wasn’t just a catchy tune—it was a sonic Big Bang that helped create the disco universe, yet The Hues Corporation gets about as much credit for inventing disco as Al Gore does for inventing the internet.
This Los Angeles trio crafted a perfect fusion of soul and early disco that would ignite dance floors with the unstoppable force of free appetizers at a wedding reception. While they struggled to repeat their chart-topping success, their pioneering contribution to disco remains more influential than most music historians care to admit.
18. Black Merda
In an era when rock music was whiter than a polar bear in a snowstorm, Detroit’s Black Merda (pronounced “Murder”—because subtlety is overrated) burst onto the scene like a Molotov cocktail at a garden party. These musical revolutionaries fused psychedelic rock with funk when crossing such streams was considered as dangerous as crossing the beams in Ghostbusters.
Their guitar-heavy sound was like Jimi Hendrix jam-sessioning with Parliament while James Brown shouted encouragement from the sidelines. The music industry, displaying all the progressive thinking of a Victorian etiquette manual, promptly ignored them—proof that the only thing more powerful than revolutionary music is institutional racism.
17. The Sylvers
While the Jackson 5 hogged the spotlight like that one friend who always dominates the karaoke machine, The Sylvers—nine siblings from Los Angeles—were quietly crafting some of the most infectious grooves known to humankind. Their harmonies were tighter than skinny jeans after Thanksgiving dinner.
“Boogie Fever” wasn’t just a hit—it was a legitimate medical condition affecting millions of Americans, causing uncontrollable hip movements and spontaneous finger-pointing. As disco faded faster than your New Year’s resolutions, so did The Sylvers’ chart presence, but their joyful sound remains the perfect antidote to, well, everything about modern existence.
16. Mandrill
If Mandrill’s sound were a person, it would be that impossibly interesting friend who speaks six languages, has lived on three continents, and somehow knows how to both fix your carburetor and make authentic paella. This Brooklyn-based group created a fusion of funk, rock, jazz, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms so genre-defying it gave music journalists existential crises.
Their tracks “Fencewalk” and “Ape Is High” deliver the kind of groove that doesn’t just invite you to dance—it files the paperwork, hires the moving van, and basically relocates your entire body to the dance floor. While mainstream fame eluded them with the skill of a cat avoiding a bath, their complex rhythms have been sampled more frequently than free coffee at a car dealership.
15. Rose Royce
If you think Rose Royce was just “that Car Wash song,” you’re committing a musical crime roughly equivalent to saying Picasso was “that guy who couldn’t draw faces properly.” This Los Angeles ensemble possessed more musical versatility than a Swiss Army knife at a camping crisis.
“I Wanna Get Next to You” showcased their romantic side with the smooth expertise of someone who’s never had an awkward date, while “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” delivered emotional devastation with surgical precision. Despite creating some of the most technically impressive and emotionally resonant music of the era, Rose Royce received about as much lasting recognition as whoever came in second in last year’s Grammy categories.
14. Death
In the “you couldn’t make this up if you tried” category of music history, three Black brothers from Detroit named their band Death and created proto-punk in the early 1970s, roughly when the rest of Black America was getting deep into funk and soul. This is the musical equivalent of opening an artisanal avocado toast shop in 1950s Middle America.
Their 1974 single “Politicians in My Eyes” hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to a china shop, featuring guitar work that would make your favorite punk band sound like elevator music. In an era when Black musicians were expected to play funk, soul, or jazz with the rigid predictability of a train schedule, Death’s hard-driving rock represented a middle finger raised so high it practically touched the stratosphere.
13. BT Express
Picture a bass line so perfect it rearranges your molecular structure. BT Express specialized in creating precisely this type of biologically transformative funk—music so infectiously rhythmic it should have come with a surgeon general’s warning. Formed in Brooklyn, this ensemble engineered grooves with the precision of NASA calculating a Mars landing.
Their breakthrough hit “Do It (‘Til You’re Satisfied)” wasn’t just suggestive—it was a direct command from the Funk High Council that millions of disco dancers found impossible to disobey. Their horn section didn’t just play—it conducted a full-scale invasion of your ear canals, establishing a funkified beachhead from which your resistance to dancing could be systematically dismantled.
12. Slave
Some legends begin with a whisper, but Slave’s began with a bass slap heard ’round the world. In the late 1970s, when most folks were perfectly satisfied with their existing understanding of what a bass could do, Dayton, Ohio’s Slave decided that convention was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
Steve Washington’s bass didn’t just support the music—it was the music, with the other instruments simply grateful hangers-on attending the party of the century. Their 1977 hit “Slide” showcased exactly what made them special—a groove so persuasive it could convince vegetarians to try bacon and introverts to dance in public.
11. Funkadelic
If the 1970s could be distilled into a single band—all its excesses, innovations, absurdities, and genius—you’d get something approximating Funkadelic, a group so mind-bendingly original they made actual psychedelics seem redundant. While Parliament got magazine covers, Funkadelic was in the lab cooking up musical experiments that would alter DNA for generations.
Albums like “Maggot Brain” featured guitar solos (particularly Eddie Hazel’s title track masterpiece) that didn’t just bend minds—they folded, spindled, and mutilated them beyond recognition. Their album covers looked like they were designed by someone experiencing simultaneous hallucinations of both heaven and hell, while their lyrics contemplated everything from personal freedom to cosmic consciousness.
10. The Brothers Johnson
Struggling to find funk that’s sophisticated enough for dinner parties but still guaranteed to make your uptight neighbors call with noise complaints? The Brothers Johnson were funk’s answer to the question “What if we took raw groove and sent it to finishing school?”
Their cover of Shuggie Otis’ “Strawberry Letter 23” was like a gourmet chef’s take on comfort food—recognizable but elevated to transcendent levels—while bangers like “Stomp!” demonstrated they could still throw down when the situation demanded. Producer Quincy Jones helped craft their sophisticated sound, proving once again that everything he touched turned to gold faster than a medieval alchemist’s wildest dreams.
9. The Chi-Lites
In an era of macho posturing that would make a peacock seem subtle, Chicago’s Chi-Lites created soul music so emotionally vulnerable it gave men permission to feel feelings—a concept roughly as revolutionary in the 1970s as suggesting the earth might not be flat in medieval times.
Led by Eugene Record’s falsetto (a voice so high it could communicate with dolphins), the group specialized in heartbreak ballads like “Oh Girl” and “Have You Seen Her” that still rank among the most effective tear-extraction mechanisms ever created. Their harmonies were tighter than the seal on your ex’s emotional availability, while the lush instrumentation provided the perfect backdrop for emotional sniping.
8. Brass Construction
Step into the sonic hurricane created by Brass Construction, a nine-piece Brooklyn ensemble whose horn section didn’t just play—it conducted shock-and-awe campaigns on unsuspecting eardrums. When they performed “Movin’” live, venue owners reportedly checked their insurance policies for “damage caused by excessive funkiness” clauses.
Led by Randy Muller, this group approached funk with the meticulousness of German engineers designing luxury automobiles—every component precisely calibrated for maximum efficiency. Their multi-layered brass arrangements hit with the subtlety of a rhino in a china shop, while their rhythm section laid down grooves so solid you could build skyscrapers on them.
7. The Dramatics
While many funk bands were content to make you dance, Detroit’s Dramatics aimed higher—they wanted to make you dance while experiencing the full range of human emotions, preferably in a single song. Their performances weren’t just concerts; they were full-production Broadway shows squeezed into three-minute R&B songs.
Their emotional storytelling through hits like “In the Rain” and “What You See Is What You Get” showcased their perfect harmonies and dramatic delivery (hence the not-so-subtle name). Led by Ron Banks’ soaring falsetto—a voice so high-flying it required FAA clearance—the group navigated the complex emotions of love and heartbreak with the emotional intelligence of a team of therapists.
6. Heatwave
If the other bands on this list represent American funk’s regional dialects, Heatwave spoke funk as a universal language, creating a United Nations of groove where musical diplomacy transcended borders. Founded by American serviceman Johnnie Wilder Jr. while stationed in Germany, this multicultural group featured members from the U.S., U.K., Czechoslovakia, and Jamaica.
Their global breakthrough “Boogie Nights” delivered a disco-funk fusion so perfect it should be preserved in a time capsule as evidence that the 1970s wasn’t just about questionable fashion choices. Meanwhile, “Always and Forever” remains the slow jam that launched a thousand romances and probably contributed to a measurable percentage of the late-70s birth rate.
5. Ohio Players
Some legends begin when funk reaches its commercial peak while simultaneously pushing artistic boundaries with all the restraint of a toddler who’s discovered sugar. The Ohio Players became household names in the 1970s with a string of gold and platinum albums that parents nationwide strategically shelved out of children’s reach, thanks to album covers that made Playboy look like Better Homes & Gardens.
Behind the provocative packaging, tracks like “Fire” and “Love Rollercoaster” delivered infectious rhythms, distinctive horn arrangements, and lyrics that left very little to the imagination. Led by vocalist and keyboardist Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner, the group combined musical sophistication with a theatrical approach to funk that captured the era’s adventurous spirit.
4. War
In a decade defined by division, War created a multicultural sonic utopia that made the United Nations look like amateurs at bringing people together. This racially integrated band from Long Beach, California, fused funk, rock, soul, jazz, and Latin rhythms into music that defied categorization with the stubborn determination of a cat refusing to get in its carrier.
“Low Rider” became the unofficial anthem of Southern California car culture, while “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” offered a message of unity so simple yet profound it makes you wonder why we needed philosophers at all. “The World Is a Ghetto” addressed urban realities with the unflinching honesty of a drunk aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, paired with grooves so irresistible that even the most rhythm-challenged listeners found themselves head-nodding.
3. The Delfonics
If most funk bands hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Philadelphia’s Delfonics were the velvet glove—engineered with lush strings and airy harmonies that caressed your eardrums like sonic luxury sheets with an impossibly high thread count. Led by William Hart’s falsetto (a voice so heavenly it probably made actual angels question their career choices) and Thom Bell’s sophisticated production, the group created soul music that didn’t just play—it enveloped you.
Their romantic ballads “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” and “La-La (Means I Love You)” floated over elegant string arrangements like musical clouds, creating a sound that worked equally well for romantic evenings, breakup recovery, and—as Quentin Tarantino demonstrated in “Jackie Brown”—surprisingly tense crime film sequences.
2. Kool & The Gang
Before they became the go-to band for every wedding reception with their 1980s pop crossover “Celebration” (the song that has launched a million conga lines of reluctant participants), Kool & The Gang were legitimate funk innovators who helped define the genre throughout the 1970s.
Their early albums showcased a horn-driven approach to funk that packed dance floors with the efficiency of free food at a college event. Tracks like “Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging” demonstrated their ability to craft grooves tighter than the lid on a new jar of pickles, establishing them as funk royalty years before they donned the pop music crown.
1. The Commodores
Before Lionel Richie abandoned ship to become the balladeer your parents slow-danced to throughout the 1980s, The Commodores were funk’s Swiss Army knife—capable of delivering both booty-shaking funk and tear-jerking ballads with equal conviction.
This Tuskegee, Alabama group showcased their instrumental prowess on tracks like “Brick House” (architectural metaphors for attractive women being apparently irresistible in the 1970s) and “Machine Gun” (which features a drum solo that sounds exactly like what happens when you give a talented drummer too much coffee). Meanwhile, their ballad game was so strong it probably caused a measurable increase in slow dancing and meaningful gazes.
