Album Review: Dâm-Funk - Invite the Light
By Nichole Moorman, Contributor
[Stones Throw; 2015]
Rating: 3/5
Key Tracks: “Just Ease Your Mind from All Negativity," “Howugonfuckaroundandchooseabusta?,” “Glyde 2nyte”
You probably haven’t heard of him, but Dâm-Funk (pronounced Dame Funk) has been making waves in more than just the world of funk for a while now. Originally making his mark on hip-hop in the ‘90s G-Funk era doing live instrumentals, he decided to try a career of his own around 2006. Invite the Light is his second full-length album, following 2009's full-length debut Toeachizown.
At 20 tracks and over an hour and a half in duration, Invite the Light is a real time commitment, and because it is an album that is considerably instrumental, it is hard to get a sense of what the album is about. The grooves are heavy, though.
Invite the Light has all of the standard funk features: electric bass lines, heavy percussion and rhythm and continuous single-chord vamps. Besides its textbook structure, Invite the Light features some big and somewhat surprising names, including Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea and rappers Q-Tip and Snoop Dogg, along with Dâm-Funk’s trademark heavy synths.
“I’m Just Tryna Survive” tackles the current economic environment and names off social media sites rather oddly, and “O.B.E.” embraces the typical dance music ideology of getting up to dance (“Don’t cross your legs, don’t fold your arms”). Dâm-Funk makes some vocal appearances, but unsurprisingly, the music takes over. Funk is a dying genre, to put it bluntly, and Dâm-Funk doesn’t seem to be doing much to change that, or to convince the kids that funk is what’s happenin’. Funk is pretty cool, but Invite the Light doesn’t quite bring the genre to the time-sensitive and absent-minded 21st century.
