Kokane – “Ridin’ On The Funk”
Kokane – “Mo’ Water”
Kokane – “I Need Representation”
Kokane – “Bakin’ Soda Free“
from Funk Upon A Rhyme (Ruthless, 1994)

In addition to being the place where rhythm is life and life is rhythm, the genre of G-Funk was intended to be a modern day take on the Parliament Funkadelic sound. And Dre and his many peers (and imitators) successfully adapted the bounce of the Funk Mob for sure, but they left the goofy and sometimes dark psychedelia behind in favor of traditional hip hop machismo. Of course, I’m not mad at all mad at the chronic, it’s one of a handful of near perfect rap records, but I often wonder what direction they’d have taken if they complemented the smoked out sessions at Dre’s mansion with a Funkadelic style week long acid binge.

Kokane may have done just that (musically that is, I don’t know what drugs he was fucking with outside of his namesake. In fact, history has shown that LSD and hip hop might not be the best idea). Mr. Kane’s 1992 debut LP, Addictive Hip Hop Muzick (released under the vaguely suggestive Who Am I? moniker) was a competent if not particularly memorable gangsta rap album. It didn’t even begin to hint at the madness that would follow. 1994’s Funk Upon a Rhyme saw him channelling that Funkadelic aesthetic to create a dark psychedelic affair that’d make tawl ross go crazy all over again. Like his debut, it was laced entirely by his cousin, Above The Law’s Cold 187 Um, but replaced loops with with a heavier sound, dripping with funk. Kokane’s raps shifted towards some space shit, drawing upon a cast of purely clintonian characters and implementing a staggered, nasally, sing song flow. The result was a more refined, coherent and downright fonky (forgive me, i’m trying my best to write about funkadelic without channeling that cornball rickey vincent, but i think it’s important to note the distinction between Parliament, which he would call “fonky” and James Brown/Meters type stuff, which the rest of the world would consider “funky”, y’know?). Consisting of front to back burners (including a welcome Alkaholiks cameo and culminating with an 8 minute death row diss track), Funk Upon a Rhyme is a mind melting bug out of a hip hop record without ever sounding soft, hippy or (too) self indulgent (where people like divine styler and the aforementioned warfield went wrong, respectively).

Since Funk… Kane’s been most visible as a poor man’s nate dogg, singing hooks on many inferior LA rappers records. He released the minor hit single “4 Ryderz Only”, Call Me Mr. Kane, a shelved project for Snoop’s Doggystyle Records and Don’t Bite The Funk. All of these are kinda nice, but not really seeing Funk Upon a Rhyme. His most recent album Mr. Kane Pt. 2 is the only one still in print and might be worth grabbing. There was an internet rumor floating around recently that he signed to G-Unit (but if we use the internet as our measuring stick who hasn’t signed with G-Unit?). He’s also found god a few times and has been hinting at dropping a gospel record, which I would probably cop.

One quick footnote: Digital Underground & Outkast also did the P-Funk thing to varying degrees of success. DU kinda ran with the silliness, missing the dark/apocalyptic tone and Kast, I dunno, I’m not a huge fan of stuff like the second half of Stankonia, it’s almost too derivative.

When I was looking for a link to tht Divine Styler record I found Uppity Music. Although I don’t love every selection on the site, the concept behind the blog, that “the engine of Rock Music Criticism is designed to pump up oddball-yet-great albums from White musicians, albums from Black artists who push the musical envelope are frequently marginalized and forgotten” is a compelling one. All dude needs are downloadable mp3s and I’m sold!