James Brown, "Too Funky in Here" (1979)
Writers, composers, and artists of all kinds push the boundaries of existing meanings and signs to the point where they transform or "break" them. Words like "funky," "bad," "the man," and so on were radically revised in the 1970s to create a new, oppositional vernacular. James Brown's 1979 hit "Too Funky in Here" inverts the term "funky" (smelly, dank) to create a new musical idiom with thumping baselines and tight grooves . . .
