WE WANT THE FUNK!

WE WANT THE FUNK! is a syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, spanning its African and early jazz roots.

man in a recording studio playing a guitar
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
April 8, 2025
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Series and Special Projects
Headshot of Stanley Nelson
Producer/Director

Stanley Nelson

Stanley Nelson is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, MacArthur Fellow, and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal. Nelson has directed and produced numerous films, including Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, and Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple.

Headshot of woman
Co-Director/Co-Producer

Nicole London

Nicole London is the Grammy Award-nominated producer of Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which was also awarded a 2021 News and Documentary Emmy Award. Recent credits include Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, The Talk: Race in America, and 16 films now playing in the Segregation Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum.

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The Film

WE WANT THE FUNK! is a syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, spanning its African and early jazz roots, to the early work of James Brown and the rise of Parliament Funkadelic, through today. Distinctly urban, funk music reflected a post-Civil Rights Movement sensibility. The film examines the symbiotic relationship between the explosion of funk music and the political and racial dynamics in 1970s inner-city America.

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