Dâm-Funk's recent work has a lot going for it, but one of the things that tends to get underplayed is its mystery. And for all the revelatory material on Dâm-Funk's watershed 2009 releases, his idiosyncratic take on vintage electro-funk had to come from somewhere. The Toeachizown series came across not just like a breakthrough, but a long-brewing culmination of a deep but largely backgrounded career. And the dude was old enough to come up in the roller-boogie era his current music pinpoints so distinctly-- can somebody's style really be retro if it's always been a part of him?
Adolescent Funk sheds a bit of light on Dâm-Funk's underheard formative years, focusing on a series of demos and hometapes he made between 1988 and 1992. That period was a heady one for funk and R&B-- Michael Jackson and Prince running top-speed victory laps; Teddy Riley lighting new jack swing's fuse; g-funk reintroducing bounce to the airwaves-- and the songs on this comp reveal an enthusiastic kid with a Casio SK-1 trying to figure out what he could learn from it all. How you hear this music really depends on whether you like late-80s R&B enough to hear a promising amateur's take on it: "Sexy Lady", "Raindrops", and "Attitude" in particular have a certain Class of '89 vibe to them, though the best cut here, the hypnotic "When I'm With U I Think of Her", has all the qualities of a long-lost lo-fi house classic.
Not that his curriculum was limited to then-contemporary sounds. The "Freak of the Week"-paraphrasing melody of "I Like Your Big Azz (Girl)" is the album's second-most obvious nod to late-70s Funkadelic (the collection's title being the first). And while it sounds like Sign 'O' the Times made an influential impression on Dâm-Funk, so did Dirty Mind: check the punchy new wave throb of "It's My Life!" A lot of the characteristics that manifested more strongly in Toeachizown were already in their prototype phase here, especially Dâm's ambidextrous, two-keyboard rhythmic counterpoints and his tendency to ride out grooves until their tight-knit structure makes it feel like they're sprawling comfortably.
Then there's another side of Dâm-Funk that didn't really manifest on Toeachizown-- his slickly jovial voice that raggedly combines R&B lover-man smoothness with a sort of halfway-squeaky funk archness. And while young Damon Riddick didn't quite have the vocal chops of, say, Al B. Sure!, his personality drives these songs enough to compensate for it. "It's My Life!", "UCanDoItIfUWant2", and "I Love Life" all ride on affirmations of proudly doing your own thing; the latter song even ends on a message against suicide. The love songs are a bit more angst-ridden-- the self-explanatory "Sexy Lady" notwithstanding, most of them focus on disillusioned breakups ("Do You Feel Like I Feel?"), emotional clashes ("Attitude"), and restless dissatisfaction ("When I'm With U I Think of Her"). And then there's "The Telephone Call", where our protagonist is bothered by constant telephone calls ("It must be a bitch") when he's trying to work on his music. That it comes across as charismatic rather than self-absorbed attests to how much fun Riddick must've been having putting all this together.
Even so, the rawness of Adolescent Funk fits better as a point of origin for all the great stuff Dâm-Funk does now than as an actual complement to it. Stones Throw majordomo Peanut Butter Wolf picked out the tracks for this, and his judgment's trustworthy enough that I'm convinced this was the best stuff he could excavate. But even the choicest early demo tapes still sound like early demo tapes, and if the tape hiss on this doesn't distract you, the occasional tripped-over beats and undercooked lyrics will. (If you ever want to hear how not to overreach on a drum solo, "The Telephone Call" is Exhibit A.) There's plenty here for rare-groove enthusiasts with an 80s fixation and Toeachizown converts interested in a bit of backstory. But knowing where he's taken these sounds since then? It just makes you want to hear that funk all grown up.
