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Funky Friday – Episode 44: Cold Funk

Updated: Dec 6, 2025

🎧 Quick Links:

🎧 Listen live on KDOG 9 AM Pacific Time→ Here

🎧 Listen live on KCSM HD2 9 PM Pacific Time→ Here (On mobile, scroll down to the KCSM HD2 player)


📆 Add to Calendar — Funky Friday (Weekly):

• 9 AM KDOG

• 9 PM KCSM HD2


🎶 Catch the Replay → Here

📖 Full Episode Recaps + Setlists → Here

📂 Renegade Radio Site → Here


Episode Teaser



Airdate: 12.5.25 - 9 AM Pacific Time on KDOG & 9 PM Pacific Time on KCSM HD2


Happy Funky Friday, Renegades of Funk!


For Episode 44, we’re stepping out of the Thanksgiving heat and into the deep freeze of December — a month where the air bites, the nights stretch long, and the funk doesn’t warm up… it gets colder.


This is Cold Funk: a winter set built on icy grooves, cold-blooded basslines, sub-zero swagger, and the kind of deep, disciplined funk that can only be taught in the Winter Semester of the School of Funk.


No peppermint. No fireplace. just frost, funk, and the sound of a frozen turntable melting under vinyl heat.


❄️ SETLIST + RENEGADE NOTES


Act I — The Freeze Begins


James Brown – “Cold Sweat” (1967)

Personnel: James Brown – vocals/drums (uncredited) | Maceo Parker – sax | Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis – arrangement

Renegade Note: The Big Bang of funk. A cold shower of syncopation. No better way to open a winter curriculum than with the Godfather inventing the form in real time.


Shuggie Otis – “Ice Cold Daydream” (1971)

Personnel: Shuggie Otis – guitar/keys/bass | Johnny Otis – production

Renegade Note: A psychedelic frost-glide. Shuggie paints winter with wah-wah and sunshine — a paradox only he could pull off.



Act II — Cold-Blooded Funk


Rick James – “Cold Blooded” (1983)

Personnel: Rick James – vocals/bass/keys | Levi Ruffin Jr. – synth

Renegade Note: Electro-funk frostbite. Rick at his most stripped and dangerous. The synth line alone can freeze a dance floor.


The Bar-Kays – “Coldblooded” (1974)

Personnel: James Alexander – bass | Larry Dodson – vocals | Harvey Henderson – sax

Renegade Note: Memphis funk with icewater in its veins. Horns like sleet. Rhythm section like black ice.


Johnny “Guitar” Watson – “A Real Mother For Ya” (1977)

Personnel: Johnny Watson – everything

Renegade Note: Cold-hearted funk at its finest. Watson delivers swagger so frigid it needs a parka.


Act III — Humor, Swagger & The Cold Groove


Tone-Lōc – “Funky Cold Medina” (1989)

Personnel: Tone-Lōc – vocals | Matt Dike & Michael Ross – production

Renegade Note: A moment of winter levity. Hip-hop with a funk skeleton — and a title that earns its place in Cold Funk history.


Liquid Soul – “World’s On a Leash” (1996)

Personnel: Mars Williams – sax | Ricky Peterson – keys | Liquid Soul band

Renegade Note: Chicago acid-jazz-funk, crisp as lake-effect wind. A modern cold groove that tightens the back half of the set.


Act IV — The Deep Freeze (Cold Groove + Cold Reality)


Labi Siffre – “I Got The…” (1975)

Personnel: Labi Siffre – vocals/bass | Gordon Murray – drums

Renegade Note: One of the coldest grooves ever recorded. A minimalist funk masterpiece. Proof that space — empty, frozen space — is its own instrument.


Curtis Mayfield – “Hard Times” (1975)

Personnel: Curtis Mayfield – vocals/guitar | Lucky Scott – bass

Renegade Note: The line that defined our winter set:“Cold, cold eyes upon me they stare…”Curtis at his street-cold, soul-deep best. A winter truth set to a heavyweight funk strut.


Act V — Cold Precision & The Frosty Finale


Jaco Pastorius – “Soul Intro / The Chicken” (1977)

Personnel: Jaco Pastorius – bass | Peter Graves – arrangement | Brian Melvin – drums

Renegade Note: Precision funk. Icewater musicianship. A masterclass in the cold calculus of groove.


Herbie Hancock – “Hang Up Your Hang-Ups” (1975)

Personnel: Herbie Hancock – keys | Paul Jackson – bass | Mike Clark – drums | The Headhunters – ensemble

Renegade Note: The perfect Cold Funk finale — bright, sharp, metallic, winter-slick jazz-funk that melts the turntable just enough to send you home glowing.



❄️WHY COLD FUNK?

Because winter isn’t cozy. It’s honest. It strips everything down to the essentials —and funk was born from exactly that kind of raw truth.

Cold Funk honors:

  • cold reality (Curtis Mayfield)

  • cold grooves (Labi Siffre, Jaco Pastorius)

  • cold humor (Tone-Lōc)

  • cold swagger (Rick James, Johnny Guitar Watson)

  • cold titles (Cold Sweat, Freeze, Ice Cold Daydream)

  • cold space (Herbie, Jaco, Bar-Kays)

It’s not about temperature. It’s about tone, attitude, minimalism, precision —the way winter makes everything sharper, clearer, colder…and somehow more beautiful.

This is the Winter Semester of the School of Funk.Bundle up.Or don’t.The funk will keep you warm.


🔗 Quick Links:

🎧 Listen live on KDOG 9 AM Pacific Time→ Here

🎧 Listen live on KCSM HD2 9 PM Pacific Time→ Here (On mobile, scroll down to the KCSM HD2 player)


📆 Add to Calendar — Funky Friday (Weekly):

• 9 AM KDOG

• 9 PM KCSM HD2


🎶 Catch the Replay → Here

📖 Full Episode Recaps + Setlists → Here

📂 Renegade Radio Site → Here



Funk Facts


🎸 “I Got The…” — Labi Siffre (1975)

Sampled by Eminem, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang, Dr. Dre, and more. Recorded with such clean, cold minimalism that it’s become the blueprint for modern groove production.


🎤 Curtis Mayfield's “Cold, Cold Eyes…”

“Hard Times” was originally created for Baby Huey — Curtis wrote, arranged, and produced it as a stark look at urban struggle. Mayfield’s own version is even colder.


🎷 Jaco Pastorius: Funk Technician

Jaco called this tune “funk geometry.” It’s required learning in music schools and bass camps worldwide — a mathematical, winter-clean funk blueprint.


🎹 Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters

Herbie’s 1975–76 period is often called the “cold fusion” era — sharp synths, tight mixes, and hyper-clean arrangements that redefined jazz-funk.

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