Deep Funk

In London, deep in the heart of Soho’s darkness, a DJ named Keb Darge spins the greasiest, nastiest grooves ever waxed, calling ’em “deep funk.” To get your heart thumpin’ and hips poppin’, we’ve pulled some super-rare tracks that Darge resurrected from funkateers both illustrious and obscure. In “I Know You Got Soul,” former Famous Flame Bobby Byrd lays down a mighty, gritty-voiced slab o’ funk powered by James Brown backing band the J.B.’s . George McCrae locks into a distinctly primal groove in “I Get Lifted,” with a sexy Eurodisco beat thumping beneath his smoking jacket-smooth vocals. And Lyn Collins preaches the feminist gospel in her sample-staple “Think (About It),” informing her sisters, “We got to use what we got to get what we want.”

In Next Steps, artists from Motown, the Crescent City, and points beyond carve their groove in your ear buds.

Synth riffs buzz around like a swarm of angry hornets as “Blow Your Head” opens, and then the rest of Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s jump in with a lip-splitting horn chart and wakka-wakka guitar to blow them — and us — away. Rock Hall of Famer Allen Toussaint’s “Goin’ Down” steams like New Orleans on an August night, with horns and tenor saxes honking back and forth like fireflies sending their signals out across the bayou. And in “I’m Goin’ Left,” the late Syreeta Wright floats her silky, soulful vocal on top of a Stevie Wonder-produced synth-and-percussion groove that hammers ahead like a steam-powered love engine. In Deep Cuts, a doctor, a gang, and some groovers serve up a plateful of straight-up stanky tracks.

From the moment the bass pumps through the speakers with the pulse of an ex-con who sees flashing lights in the rearview, Carleen & The Groovers, led by the rarest of all funkateers — a female drummer — jump out on the good foot with “Can We Rap.” Legendary Crescent City soul man Dr. John, in comparison, lays back with the coiled-spring composure of a swamp gator as he growls his way through “(Everybody Wanna Get Rich) Rite Away,” his gravelly vocal scattered over a second-line-style funk-jazz shuffle. And on “Give It Up” from their 1973 self-titled debut album, Kool & The Gang play it even cooler, with electric piano and a dry martini sax riffing against a suave, uptown-smooth rhythm track.

Every Friday night, deep in the heart of London’s West End, a group of DJs and dancers invades a dark club called Madame Jojo’s, where the bass rumbles and the horns blare with such gut-throbbing intensity you can hear them a block away. Inside, a whip-thin man with a shaved head and the unlikely name of Keb Darge digs into a box of 45s, his hands emerging greasy with the rawest slabs of the rarest funk ever pressed into wax. Some of its champion players have names you’ll recognize, but others — like the Kashmere Stage Band and Banda Black Rio — used to be known only to the most devoted of collectors. This is music that demands you shake everything you’ve got to its beat, where the groove comes in only one size: XXL. And we’ve assembled the deepest of the deep for you in one funk-filled feast — just a mouse-click away.