Farley Jackmaster Funk
People Get Ready - He's Back!
5: You said you're about to drop an album - several, actually - with these 74 tracks you've put together. What can you tell me about it?
FARLEY: My new album is half-secular and half-Gospel. I have two sistas named Valerie Griffin and Sonja James - they are my soulful big mouth mamma jamma church House girls. They're very spiritual and they have two cuts on the album. Also, there are my other spiritual powerhouse sisters who happen to be the cousins of the famed Oscar Award winner Jennifer Hudson: Debra Windham, Krista Alston and Moma Sweat. Also my main diva, Felina Bunn, who I'm releasing first. The joint is called "Hatin' People".
Then there's the diva known as Denice ("No Mic's Strong Enough to Hold Her Voice Back") Nelson, and my smooth divas Yvette Freeman (smooth to the core), Krisma (sweet to the ears), and Ms. Marshé Whaley, who I can only describe by saying she put tears in me and my wife's eyes at Church one night and I had to hunt her down through friends and saints to work with her. Then there's a male vocalist, David Dub, who is like my pop/House guy. He's just like Justin Timberlake to me, with some serious uunnnff. Of all of the guys I've worked with in my whole entire life, he's in the top three of them, period. He has a tremendous gift from God.
There's also Minister Reggie Hall. What can you say about Reg that hasn't been said? He is as cool as the other side of your pillow. And the king of all male vocalists in House Music ever, Mr. Daryl Pandy, who was the artist on our biggest House Music song to date, delivers the ending punch to this album for 2008.
There are acid tracks, vocal tracks, pop, Gospel House - it covers a very wide area. I didn't really go for getting a lot of established names on the record, like Barbara Tucker or someone like that, because my singers that I'm working with are as good or will be as good as any of the big name singers. I feel like I have to give an opportunity to these young people who need to be discovered. And the only reason I bring up Barbara is because I love Barbara and I was going to do something with her and some other girls, but I said, "This is a Chicago thing, and I really want to bring up some of these new girls." There's so many of them with so much talent! By me doing Gospel House and having 74 songs that I'm going to put out this summer, I have so many singers to work with. Greg Gibbs another one - George introduced him to me. He sounds so much like Luther Vandross, you wouldn't believe it. It's ridiculous! I've never heard somebody take on the persona of someone else, and totally match someone else's voice.
I'll have a total of seven albums dropping around June for my club. I'll also be the moderator for the remix panel at the Winter Music Conference. Also, we're going to do a record called "Put Obama in Chicago House". DJ Pierre and I were just talking about it, brainstorming and putting it together. George will be on there, Ron Carroll, Roy Davis Jr. and some more. We'll put it together and do a video and do our part, with him being from Chicago and the play on the words "House", "White House" and "House Music". We'll be putting it together starting next week in Harrison Crump's studio. We have to do this record. He's an old househead, you see? So it works out really good.
5: You're releasing the albums you mentioned on your own label?
FARLEY: Yes, I'm reactivating House Records.
5: Wow! Now that is a classic. When was the last time you released anything on House Records?
"I love to be brutally honest and I love to shock people with my testimony. Four years ago, my wife and I didn't even have heat in our home. I couldn't even afford heat. I could have borrowed the money from someone, but I said no. God wanted me to go through this for a reason."
--Farley
FARLEY: Man, it's been so long... twelve years. I'm going to do both digital and vinyl, but the vinyl release will be very limited. That will be something for the nostalgic people who may want a record that says "House Records" on the label. It's going to be crazy.
Also, I want people to know that all of the bootlegged stuff that's out there floating around on the internet - that is not me. Larry Sherman stole all of my old music along with the guys from Canada, Casablanca. I'd say that 95% to even 100% of the music that you see out there with my name on it right now wasn't licensed from me. This is my first release in the last seven years - that's why this is so big for me.
5: There are all kinds of rumors about how you incorporate preaching at a show. I want to give you the chance to address things like that directly so people who heard it from a guy who heard it from another guy can hear the truth.
FARLEY: I'll put it to you like this. Back in the day - I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't invent this - but I learned this from a steppin' DJ back in 1974 who started playing Martin Luther King over "Summer Madness". That's how that whole thing started. Now, if I can bring a positive message by taking playin a instrumental track and mixing a Martin Luther King speech over it saying exactly what I'm saying, it's okay, but it's not when I do it on the spot? Figure that one out.
When Farley comes to a party, he's going to get on his mic and he's going to preach like Martin Luther King. If that was on vinyl and a DJ was mixing what I'm saying... what's the difference? When I come in, I'm going to turn the music down and get on the mic. I've always been a very verbal person and I've always done that. It's who I am. You can't ask a person to be anything but what they are. That's what I've evolved into, and people still enjoy the music that I play.
Some people lie and say I do it the whole night - that's not true. I may do it two or three times in a night and pick my spots. And most of the time it's around a good record - of course, you never want to play a bad record and try to tell people stuff! I make sure I pick my time. I pull out one of my best records, get their hands in the air and then say what I want to say and it goes down strong. I haven't lost any work because of it in America. None, but in some places in the UK I have, because drugs and alcohol rule some people instead of losing themselves deep into the groove.
5: What's the reaction in the Gospel industry to this? I imagine that some Christians must believe clubs are terribly decadent places.
FARLEY: It always depends on who you're talking to. It may be someone that God has touched and they understand that God has a witness in the world anywhere you may go. But there are those who are close-minded. There's a hypocrite in every group - Baptist, Pentacostal, Catholic. God spoke to me when He said, "Be True to HIM." When Moses had the Ten Commandments, he didn't always go to the nicest places to tell people about God. He went to Pharaoh. JESUS ate with sinners. Now I've been saved for thirteen years and I've been up and down. I've made mistakes, I've sinned, I've done wrong, I had to beg GOD for forgiveness - the whole thing. People might say, "Whoa, Farley thinks he's perfect!" Far from it! I'm trying to get there, you know what I mean? But for me, there's no other way for me to continue and have meaning in my life if I am not living the way that my father God has for me and to tell people what I know about Him.
5: You've described some pretty high peaks and pretty low valleys - I don't think there's much in this industry you haven't been through. Why speak on it when you could probably perpetuate the myth?
FARLEY: I love to be brutally honest and I love to shock people with my testimony. This is going to freak people out: Four years ago, my wife and I didn't even have heat in our home. I couldn't even afford heat in my house. I could have borrowed the money from someone, but I said no. God wanted me to go through this for a reason.
One day, you're going to ask all of the DJs you interview, "Give us your darkest, darkest testimony." We need to humanize this thing. People see us all the time and we're the life of the party. They don't realize you may be going through something at home. I didn't have any heat in my house and my car was possibly the oldest car you could ever find.
I have been all over the world telling people about God. But some promoters didn't like what I was doing. The party people liked what I was doing, and I could pack 8,000 people in the house or whatever but the promoter is thinking, "Wait a minute: you're telling people about sin and that's how we make our money. We make our money with people falling down drunk and you're trying to tell them about God?" Worldwide, I lost work. Not in America, but worldwide, because I was standing up for the Gospel of Christ Jesus. I would talk about the Lord on the mic, so they took the microphone out of the DJ booth because they knew I'd talk.
5: Is it true you took the headphones and used them as a mic anyway?
FARLEY: Oh yeah! I didn't have a microphone when I was young, and someone showed me that you can take the headphones and plug it into the microphone jack. It won't be as clear as a mic, but you can talk through them. So when this club hired me and took the mic out - no problem! I took the headphones, plugged them into the microphone jack and said what I needed to say. It didn't bother me one bit. It's so important to me to get it out. I lost a tremendous amount of work because of it, but if I had a chance to do it all over again, I would lose it all over again. The relationship with God is so important. Money can get us food, get a new car - all these different things. I'd rather not have that and have good health, and God controls our health. Don't get me wrong - I still like having money, cars, homes and even that bling bling thing kid, but if GOD ain't first in my life, you can keep it all.
I've been blessed. The ups-and-downs - being on the radio, being off the radio, the Playground, going into Hip-Hop, going completely broke on Hip-Hop, having to go back to this thing I started called House Music only to find it's completely foreign and they didn't want to let me back in... Now I'm back on top of this, traveling the world again and doing what I do. And I'm still preaching.
5: Who are your favorite five artists, DJs or remixers right now?
FARLEY: Felina Bunn (artist), Ron Carroll (artist), Kelly G. (remixer), Wayne Williams (DJ), and Deli G (DJ).
5: Which one of your peers in Chicago is your House Music hero?
FARLEY: No one comes close to Steve "Silk" Hurley. Just check what he's done over the years: the #1 remixer in the world, a four-time Grammy nominee, the first #1 House record ever in the UK... He's worked with the biggest artists in the world as a remixer including Michael Jackson plus two tons more. If you only knew where he started from you would be amazed. GOD brought Steve where no man could have put him, and that's on top of the world, but yet feet still on earth.
In addition to his forthcoming records and his new club, look for Farley at this Summer's Chicago House Music Park Tour. Get in touch with Farley at myspace.com/farleyjackmasterfunkcom and by email at farleyjackmasterfunk@hotmail.com.
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