Editing Brit funk (section)

==Influence==
1980s pop groups such as [[Haircut One Hundred|Haircut 100]] and [[Wham!]] tapped into the style and sound to help launch their careers.<ref name=BBCBritFunk/> This scene was significant in reducing racial boundaries in the clubs and raised the profile of black and white musicians working together, notably [[Spandau Ballet]] who collaborated with [[Beggar and Co]] to produce the hit single "[[Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)|Chant Number One]]". Following the song's success Beggar and Co provided brass for other artists. According to Maunick, during Spandau Ballet's early days they watched Light of the World's rehearsals and asked them for musical advice.<ref name=petridis /> During the success of the jazz and Brit funk period, "chanting" became popular in discothèques and nightclubs. This football crowd style of interacting with the music continues in British clubs today.<ref name=BBCBritFunk/> Hi-Tension's Patrick McLean has said that their frequent use of chanting was influenced by the early 1970s [[glam rock]] which they had grown up with.<ref name=petridis />

Inspired by soul, jazz, hip-hop and funk, Brit funk exploded onto the scene in the 1980s, one of the first times black artists (primarily of Caribbean descent) received mainstream success in the UK. Between 1980 and 1983, in particular, many Brit funk acts came into the scene.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last1=Strachan|first1=Robert|title=Britfunk: Black British Popular Music, Identity and the Recording Industry in the Early 1980s|date=2014|publisher=Aldershot: Ashgate|page=81}}</ref> However, what separated these British artists from Americans is widely debated. Some theories include a unique British wit/humor, inspiration from Euro fashion, stripped down aesthetics, and accents. However, a popular theory is that Brit funk's success in the British mainstream is due to its classification as pop music with lighter themes that are less concerned with the politics and identity found in reggae. Songs like [[Linx (band)|Linx]]'s "You're Lying" (1980), [[Beggar and Co]]'s "Somebody Help Me Out" (1981)<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.allmusic.com/song/somebody-help-me-out-mt002...|title = AllMusic &#124; Record Reviews, Streaming Songs, Genres & Bands|website = [[AllMusic]]}}{{Dead link|date=July 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and [[Central Line (band)|Central Line's]] "[[Walking into Sunshine]]" (1981) appealed to those who wanted either relationship or sociopolitical commentary. Major labels' choices to market mostly love songs marked a larger gender divide. It was incredibly rare to find female musicians; however, female vocalists were often essential to the integration of "soul" vibes into the funky melody. Beyond this vocally feminine sound, the way consumers heard Brit funk shifted as the role of live performance joined the popularity of the 1970s DJ in clubs. By the 1980s, it was common for clubs to bring in Brit funk performers alongside DJs incorporating both an open and intimate space on the dancefloor. Brit funk was marked by these dualities: feminine and masculine, pleasure and politics, exclusionary and accessible.<ref name=":1">Strachan, Robert. John Stratton, Nabeel Zuberi, Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945. Routledge, 2016.</ref> In 2017, former members of Hi-Tension, Light of the World and Beggar & Co formed a new band, The Brit Funk Association and began reviving the genre performing a repertoire from their respective catalogues.

Robert Strachan's "Britfunk: Black British Popular Music, Identity and the Recording Industry in the Early 1980s" highlights Britfunk's history as well as how Black music in the UK intersects with race, class, politics, nationality, culture, and gender. To start, Britfunk was significant for expressing Black British identity and drew from a range of African American music genres such as soul, jazz, electro, and hip-hop. the musical genres embodied by Britfunk are not bound by the borders and cultures of the Caribbean, which is where Black Britishness is most strongly linked. As a result of Britfunk's unboundedness, it was able to spark "fluidity of identity and space where strict cultural boundaries in terms of identity, gender and ethnicity could be negotiated, blurred and articulated" (Strachan 69). Moreover, in the construction of Black British identity, Britfunk was less like reggae in the sense that it had less "conscious engagement with politics and identity" and more elements of mainstream pop.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Strachan |first1=Robert |title=Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945 |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge}}</ref>

More recently, [[Tyler, the Creator]] acknowledged the influence of Brit funk on his work when he gave his acceptance speech for the [[Brit Award for International Male Solo Artist]] at the [[2020 Brit Awards]].<ref name=petridis />

=== Continuities between Brit funk and disco ===
Gaining inspiration from various musical genres, Brit funk continued and built off of technological and symbolic themes present in U.S. [[disco]]. Author Robert Strachan described that Brit funk became recognised for its "use of electronic production, drum machines, electronic bass and the stripped down aesthetic of electro presented a slick, ultra-modern musical aesthetic combined with visual codes accessed from American disco acts."<ref name=":0" /> Furthermore, Brit funk seemed to follow in disco's footsteps in regard to expression of gender and sexuality. Writers including Tim Lawrence, [[Bill Brewster (DJ)|Bill Brewster]] and Frank Broughton discussed how disco ushered in a unique moment in which gender and sexuality queerness gained "recognition" in mainstream music.<ref name="Lawrence 2011 230–243">{{Cite journal|last=Lawrence|first=Tim|title=Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor|date=2011|journal=Cultural Studies|volume=25|issue=2|pages=230–243|doi=10.1080/09502386.2011.535989|s2cid=143682409|issn=0950-2386}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Brewster, Bill|first=Broughton, Frank|title=Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey|publisher=Grove Press|year=1999}}</ref> The disco genre fostered a culture that highlighted and celebrated a sense of fluidity and "multipleness"<ref name="Lawrence 2011 230–243"/> that was revolutionary in its day. Like disco, Brit funk also represented a unique moment of fluidity in gender expression and sexuality.<ref name=":1" /> Britfunk was emerging in a time in the UK in which gender-play was entering the mainstream pop scene from strains of UK club scenes and formed around unique identity politics.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Stratton|first1=Jon|title=Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945|last2=Zuberi|first2=Nabeel|date=2016-04-15|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-56948-2|pages=81|doi=10.4324/9781315569482}}</ref> Such politics were highly entangled with pleasure on the dance floor which was the essence of U.S. disco as well. Such pleasure in both Brit funk (and disco) was ambiguous, "in terms of gender and sexuality ..."<ref name=":0" /> Strachan said that many Brit funk artists "were clearly drawing upon outré and undoubtedly gay styles that had emerged in the club scenes",<ref name=":0" /> and the aesthetics of Brit funk can now "... be read as escaping fixed notions of identity."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Robert|first=Strachan|title=Britfunk: Black British Popular Music, Identity and the Recording Industry in the Early 1980s|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|year=2014|pages=83}}</ref>