Funk drum patterns.

1. 1960s

   1. 1967
      

      Landmark

      Cold Sweat

      James Brown

      Root: often called the first funk record; all weight on the one, a late snare in bar one, and the first give-the-drummer-some
   2. 1969
      

      Landmark

      Cissy Strut

      The Meters

      Zigaboo Modeliste's syncopated New Orleans second-line funk; critics heard his drums as the lead voice
   3. 1969
      

      Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

      Sly & the Family Stone

      Greg Errico's sparse backbeat leaves room for Larry Graham's slap bass; later sampled for Rhythm Nation

2. 1970s

   1. 1970
      

      Landmark

      Funky Drummer

      James Brown

      Root: Clyde Stubblefield's improvised ghost-note groove and eight-bar break, one of the most sampled recordings ever
   2. 1970
      

      Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine

      James Brown

      Jabo Starks with Bootsy and Catfish Collins: the new J.B.'s lock a minimal, insistent one-chord groove
   3. 1973
      

      Landmark

      What Is Hip?

      Tower of Power

      Co-written by drummer David Garibaldi: a tight, busy sixteenth-note groove under Tower of Power's horns
   4. 1973
      

      Jungle Boogie

      Kool & the Gang

      George Brown's raw drums under chanted hooks and horns; later sampled for Madonna's Erotica
   5. 1974
      

      Pick Up the Pieces

      Average White Band

      A crisp, tight pocket behind a horn-led instrumental that reached No. 1 in the US
   6. 1974
      

      Fire

      Ohio Players

      Siren-led hit with a heavy, straight funk backbeat; No. 1 on both the Hot 100 and the soul chart in 1975
   7. 1977
      

      Brick House

      Commodores

      Sung by drummer Walter Orange over a steady mid-tempo funk backbeat; a Commodores signature
   8. 1978
      

      One Nation Under a Groove

      Funkadelic

      P-Funk at its most danceable: a rolling open groove that held the soul chart's top spot for six weeks

3. 1980s

   1. 1980
      

      More Bounce to the Ounce

      Zapp

      Slow, raw electro-funk bounce that inspired Genius of Love and was sampled by EPMD, Ice Cube and Biggie
   2. 1981
      

      Super Freak

      Rick James

      Straight, punchy punk-funk beat under a looping bass riff; the riff later became U Can't Touch This
   3. 1982
      

      Outstanding

      The Gap Band

      Laid-back mid-tempo boogie-funk groove; a No. 1 R&B single from Gap Band IV and a long-running sample source
   4. 1986
      

      Landmark

      Kiss

      Prince and the Revolution

      Skeletal drum-machine funk with no bass: the kick runs through a non-linear reverb to fill the low end
   5. 1986
      

      Word Up!

      Cameo

      Mid-80s Cameo, which had swapped live drummers for drum machines: tight, spare programmed funk

4. 2010s

   1. 2014
      

      Uptown Funk

      Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars

      Bruno Mars on live drums layered with LinnDrum programming: an 80s-style funk revival that topped charts

Press play to loop each record's busiest two bars. Patterns are machine-detected from the recordings, not verified transcriptions.