We Want the Funk!

Synopsis

Directors: Stanley Nelson and Nicole London

U.S., 90 min., 2025

So named for the iconic George Clinton song, WE WANT THE FUNK! is a syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, spanning its African and early jazz roots, to the early work of James Brown and the rise of Parliament Funkadelic and Fela Kuti's Afrobeat, through its influences today on both new wave and hip-hop. The film also explores the symbiotic relationship between the explosion of funk music and the political and racial dynamics coming out of the post-Civil Rights Movement and 1970s inner-city America. Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Attica, Miles Davis: Birth of Cool), and co-directed and produced by Nicole London, the film is also a joyous and body-moving celebration of Black culture and the spirit of resistance. As George Clinton says in the film, “You’re free of all the rules and you just let go and let the groove take over.”