Funk and jazz. Smoothed out but meaty, pungent beats made from an organ, Fender Rhodes piano, bass, and fat back drums. A woman’s soulful voice; doin’ it like Tina Turner said back in the day when she and Ike took the gentle, country, rock song “Proud Mary” and dowsed it with grease and lit it on fire: nice and easy then nice and rough. Yeah, we’ve been hearing this sound from Chaka Khan, representing the funky soul side of the sound to Norman Connors and vocalist Jean Carn playing their unique brand of multi-cultural, freedom jazz. For those opening your ears for the first time in the 1990’s, there was the Brand New Heavies, whose live action British-born acid jazz (the funk breaks from ’60’s and ’70’s artists like Horace Silver, drummer Idris Muhammad, and electric saxophonist Eddie Harris) injected a hip hop flava, which was the main seasoning on the neo funk and soul souffle of that time.