"Funky Worm" is a song by American
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...
group the
Ohio Players
Ohio Players are an American funk band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their songs "Fire" and " Love Rollercoaster", and for their erotic album covers that featured nude or nearly nude women. Many of the women were models f ...
, from their album ''
Pleasure
Pleasure is experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find ...
''. It peaked at number one on the U.S. ''Billboard''
R&B chart in 1973 and also peaked at number fifteen on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100. ''Billboard'' ranked it as the
No. 84 song for 1973.
Influence
The song's
ARP synthesizer
ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan R. Pearlman, Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout the ...
solos, played by
Junie Morrison, have become a staple part in
hip hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
sampling history, being sampled by artists such as
MC Breed,
Too $hort
Todd Anthony Shaw (born April 28, 1966), better known by his stage name Too Short (stylized as Too $hort), is an American rapper. A pioneer of West Coast hip-hop, Shaw was among the first acts to receive recognition in the genre during the late ...
,
Dr. Dre
Andre Romell Young (born February 18, 1965), known professionally as Dr. Dre, is an American rapper, record producer, record executive, and actor. He is the founder and CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics, and co-founder of ...
,
Xzibit
Alvin Nathaniel Joiner (born September 18, 1974), better known by his stage name Xzibit (pronounced "''exhibit''), is an American rapper, actor, television presenter, radio personality, and record executive. He began his musical career in 1992, ...
, and
Game
A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...
. The high-pitched whine of the synthesizer on the song was often emulated by producers from the West Coast and became a staple in
G-funk
G-funk, short for gangsta funk, (or funk rap) is a sub-genre of gangsta rap that emerged from the West Coast scene in the early 1990s. The genre is heavily influenced by the synthesizer-heavy 1970s funk sound of Parliament-Funkadelic (aka P-F ...
music.
N.W.A
N.W.A (an abbreviation for Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip-hop group formed in Compton, California in 1987. Among the earliest and most significant figures of the gangsta rap subgenre, the group is widely considered one of the great ...
notably sampled "Funky Worm" on their songs "
Gangsta Gangsta" and "
Dope Man".
Ice Cube
O'Shea Jackson Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and film producer. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1989 album '' Straight Outta Compton'' contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popu ...
sampled "Funky Worm" for his songs
"Wicked" and "'Ghetto Bird", duo
Kris Kross
Kris Kross were an American hip hop duo, composed of rappers Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly and Chris "Daddy Mac" Smith, formed by record producer Jermaine Dupri. They were the youngest hip-hop group to gain commercial success, charting releases by t ...
' 1992 single "
Jump", Lil' ½ Dead's 1994 song "East Side, West Side",
Tim Dog
Timothy J. Blair (January 3, 1967 – February 14, 2013),Margaret Eby"Rapper Tim Dog slapped with arrest warrant on suspicion of faking own death,"''New York Daily News'', May 22, 2013. better known by his stage name Tim Dog, was an American rap ...
's single "Skip to My Loot" (featuring
Smooth B),
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's 1993 hit "
Boom! Shake the Room
"Boom! Shake the Room" is a song by American hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. The track samples the 1973 song " Funky Worm" by the Ohio Players. Released on July 16, 1993, by Jive Records, as the second single from the duo's fifth st ...
", and
Ruff Ryders 1999 song "Bugout" also samples the song.
It was also sampled in
De La Soul
De La Soul ( ) is an American hip hop music, hip hop group formed in the village of Amityville on Long Island, New York (state), New York in 1988. They are best known for their eclectic sampling, eccentric lyrics, and contributions to the evoluti ...
’s "
Me Myself & I”, off their 1989 album
3 Feet High and Rising. It was also sampled for the ring entrance for
L.A.X.
In popular culture
The song can be heard on the fictional radio station
Bounce FM, in the video game ''
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas''. The
Google Doodle
Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Bu ...
celebrating the 44th anniversary of
Hip Hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
(August 11, 2017) featured the song on a virtual record that allows users to "scratch.". The song can also be heard as a Player Anthem in the video game
Rocket League
''Rocket League'' is a 2015 vehicular Association football, soccer video game developed and published by Psyonix for various home consoles and computers. A sequel to 2008's ''Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars'', ''Rocket League ...
, where it was released in a pack called "Behind The Samples" for free on February 1, 2022.
An ancestral
caecilian
Caecilians (; ) are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians ...
– a worm-shaped
amphibian
Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...
– whose fossils were recovered from
Late Triassic
The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...
rocks in
Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
was named ''
Funcusvermis'' in reference to this song.
Charts
References
1973 singles
Ohio Players songs
Fictional worms
Songs about fictional characters
Songs about insects
{{1970s-single-stub
1972 songs