1999- 5 days after the Columbine horror left the nation licking an open wound, 5 shots from a .357 Smith & Wesson echoed in the alley behind Roger Tee Enterprises, and funk machine Roger Troutman was dead at the hands of his older brother Larry, who saved the 5th and final bullet for himself.
1996- Tupac needs a hit to launch his first album since Suge bailed him out of jail. Dre cooks up “California Love” which features Roger freestyling the now iconic hook.
1980- More Bounce to the Ounce gives a generation of khaki creasing, house shoe slidin’ ridahs something to bump out the back of the lac, as they scrape through the streets of Compton and Long Beach.
1970-1977- After learning to play the guitar from a local bum in exchange for food, Roger soaked up the funk from his fellow Ohio natives: Slave and The Ohio Players. Roger first saw the talkbox (or as he called it the ghetto robot) between Stevie Wonder’s gums on a 1973 episode of Sesame Street, and started using the technique to sing hits originally recorded by women.
2010- Dudes like Dam-Funk and DJ B. Cause are keeping the Troutman legacy alive with muthafunkin mixes like this here
DJ B. Cause – Playin’ Kinda Ruff
Tracklist, videos, and a super dope 90’s slow jam mix from Hudson Mohawke awaits when you Read More
“The City of Chicago asked its Cultural Historian, Tim Samuelson, and the incredible 
Twenty ten just sounds better than two thousand and nine; with its built-in abbreviation and alliteration, it’s easily the baddest nickname since ‘99. It even looks cooler on paper; the zeros separated symmetrically by 1 look just like midi code and if you remove the 2 you’ve got the beginnings of a great cartoon face — see the eyes (zeros) and nose (1) in 010…?
Last Halloween, I dressed in a purple racing suit and proudly proclaimed myself, “Purple: The Color of FUNK” to those Haterade sipping few who second guessed my costume choice. Surprisingly, the gettup fetched more confused looks than props –folks struggled with the idea of assigning one color to an entire genre of music, but to me it’s easy: Prince wears purple, so do the baddest pimps, and Biggie –who not only ate his T-bone steak with “cheese, eggs and Welches grape,” but he lived for the funk and died for the funk. So what other color could it be?
I first saw Dam-Funk at Funkmosphere, his boogie night on Mondays at club Carbon on Venice Blvd. Dam was gettin’ busy behind the decks while blood-red lights cast low shadows of sweaty figures on the pros-only dancefloor. Salty droplets beaded on the walls, dripped onto the rims of drinks, and ran down the tiny TV screens that flickered with early 80’s music videos as chosen by Stones Throw honcho, Peanut Butter Wolf. The place was flames but there was Dam, cuing up a record, cool as a fan.
As a rule, I’ll believe anything an employee of Amoeba Music tells me, music related or otherwise. So when several Amoebites listed “anything from Mississippi Records” atop their “
Two dudes from London (and graduates from Cambridge) just launched what’s being hailed as, “the YouTube of radio.” It’s a shame that John Peel (pictured at the right) isn’t alive to see the launch of 
It’s really hard to follow an artist when they change their name every time they pop up on a blog (see Kool Keith). But, that’s just how Dayve Hawk rolls. Weird/Memory Tapes/Cassette are his monikers, but whichever mask he chooses to where, he can do no wrong.
Soul With A Hole
Another stellar Stones Throw Podcast, this time courtesy of label honcho Peanut Butter Wolf. Dig into almost an hour of all soul 45’s. Listen and Subscribe here
Grooving through this only made me hungry for more so I dug up a few more soul reviews for your aural pleasure. This first one comes from Dusty Fingers alum, Mayer Hawthorne.
And here’s a couple sides from the life-changing Mississippi Records cassette-only release, A Little Bit of Hurt.
Mississippi Records – A Little Bit of Hurt Side B
Mississippi Records – A Little Bit of Hurt Side A