Dam-Funk — pronounced Dame-Funk and born Damon Riddick — got his musical start behind the scenes. After laboring through the ’90s as a session keyboardist for a succession of West Coast hip-hop darlings — Westside Connection, Master P and MC Eiht and Compton’s Most Wanted — Dam-Funk turned his attention to the spiraling, groove-saturated funk of the late ’70s and early ’80s. He began throwing an acclaimed series of ‘Funkmosphere’ DJ parties in Los Angeles, vinyl-only affairs concentrated on gems from Parliament-Funkadelic, early Prince, Slave and Zapp.
Dam-Funk, 38, made his solo debut with 2009’s five-LP, two-CD ‘toeachhizown,’ which collected praise and blog buzz for its full-bodied, mid-tempo grooves, insistent drum machine beats and flowing synthesizers. He ingratiated himself to the indie crowd with a widely circulated remix of Animal Collective’s ‘Summertime Clothes.’
He makes a digression on this year’s ‘Adolescent Funk,’ turning back the clock with a collection of funk jams he crafted while still in high school. Recorded between 1988 and 1992, it shows that even at the tender age of 16, making music with an inexpensive Casio keyboard and a Radio Shack microphone, Dam-Funk was well on his way to honing the modern funk style that’s become his trademark
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