“Make my mess the P-mess
I want my mess uncut
Make my mess the P-mess
'Cause I wants to get messed up.” 
I was driving through rural Missouri a few years ago when Sisqo’s “Thong Song” came on (yeah, this was quite a few years ago). They actually edited out every reference to “thong.”
. . . derogatory but not racial, when applied to a smell. Neither derogatory nor racial when applied to music. You’ve yet to provide a cite that even “seems” to support your assertion that “funky” has negative racial conotations.
Nope, it’s only because it sounds like another f-word. I remember reading in an article about Muzak Corporation that they will not play any songs with the word “funk” or “funky” in it for this very reason.
Got one better for ya…
Went to a local high school play based on a medley of George Cohan songs… Give My Regards to Broadway, Over There, Grand Old Flag, that sort of stuff.
Every reference to the word “gay” was changed to a variant of “joy”. (Like in “Mary”, they changed the line to “she was so joyous and airy”). :rolleyes:
Even more obliquely, a possible anti-semitic reference in one of his songs was completely changed. In the song Only 45 minutes from Broadway, the following verse was completely changed:
Apparently “rubens” refers to Jewish people. Even though it references “rubes”, and the word “jay” also means “unsophisticated, country”… apparently the line needed reworking to avoid pissing off the Offenderati. And so they did.
You know… when you’re editing the most patriotic songwriter of the Gibson Girl era, you might be going a bit far.
Where I live, I don’t think there are any radio stations that play songs that include “niggas,” “hos,” and “bitches” which would also play “Play that Funky Music.” I can’t decide if this means that your city is far less cool than mine, or far cooler, if you have such a station.
One of my favorite Steely dan songs is the theme from the movie “FM”. I had always heard one section of the lyrics this way:
“Give her some funked up Muzak, she treats you nice”
Imagine my surprise, confirmed by further listening, to hear that Don Fagen actually sings, “Give her some fucked up Muzak” on the album recording.
There probably is a radio friendly version that has “funked up Muzak” on it, but I can’t really recall.
My local “modern rock” station edits Everlast’s What It’s Like to a heinous degree. Bleeped out (besides the obvious) are:
Balls
Whore (kind of an iffy one for the “obvious” category maybe, but KROQ sure doesn’t edit it)
Green (in this context referring to marijuana, so it’s bleeped)
Dimes (as above)
Drugs
.45
Gun
Worst. Rock station. Ever.
You are waaay off base, I think. In my experience, “funk” has never been used to describe music in a derogatory way.
Outside of music, I have heard it used most often in conversation to describe, well, the (ahem) “scent of a woman.” (“P-funk” isn’t just a reference to Parliament-Funkadelic. It’s a play on the earlier meaning of the word.)
The term was first applied to music by the black musicians themselves, and it was decidedly not being used in a derogatory way. It was a positive thing, because of the word’s association with sexual intercourse. Wiki agrees:
I can see where this is all going. Before too long all references to colour will be censored.
-Michigan fans will only be able to cheer “Go!”.
-Traffic accidents increase as all lights are switched off.
-People tripping on acid will have say “look at all the shades of gray”
I’ve never heard the CD version (I don’t particularly care for Everlast), but this radio edit with its creative bleeping of those words has been the version that was played on radio since the song was released.
Wow, I had no idea. I just thought it was the one radio station with its head up its ass; now I see that the whole nation is in need of glass belly-buttons! At least the “good” modern rock station over the hill (as we north LA county types like to say) doesn’t resort to this particular edit.
I own the CD single (remember those) of “What It’s Like.” It includes the original version, a radio edit version, and another song. The radio edit has the first three edits mentioned by Queen Bruin, leaves “dimes” in and cuts out the last verse entirely, so we don’t even get to the “drugs” and “.45” and “gun”.
(BTW: Dimes is not a marijuana reference, at least not in this song. The lyric is “I stroked the baddest dimes at least a coupla times before I broke they hearts” Apparently it is slang for good-looking women. Urban Dictionary: dime)
:smack: I mondegreened it as “smoked the fattest dimes”. I really should learn to pay better attention I suppose.
I’ll admit that I may be wrong in my understanding of how white culture of the 20s through 40s reacted to the word funk, and the music that was called that. I certainly don’t disagree that the artists making the music at the time embraced the word, without any negative connotations. However, when I asked my father (born 1936, grew up in NYC area) about this, his impression was that funk music was both specifically for African American music, and derogatory. The Wiki article that others have mentioned includes this quote, too, which makes me wonder just how much mainstream culture accepted funk as a value neutral description:
I don’t disagree that the term has become as positive as anyone might like, now. And even from the 70s on.
I do believe that the racism of the early part of the twentieth century US culture was such that any music that was seen as distinctly African American in origin was, by definiton, inferior, until and unless it was co-opted by white musicians.
“Then they came for the white boys; and I said nothing, for I was not funky…”
But you are missing the central point, OtakuLoki. “Funk” as a music descriptor wasn’t a word selected by white people for its perceived derogatory meaning, the better to put down black music. It was a word that black musicians themselves first used to describe the music because of its positive associations.
Sex being a mostly positive thing. 
Now your messin’ with a son of a ______;
now your messin’ with a son a ______.
Heard Nazareth’s **Hair Of The Dog ** played this way a few weeks ago.
Oh, and was there funk music in the 1920s-40s? I thought it emerged (going by that name, anyway) in the 1960s to early 70s.
No, it’s still called The Beatles, just as it always was.