D.R.A.M. is a Virginia crooner with a mouth of gold. His auto-hit "Cha Cha" made Beyonce shimmy, and early fans have already staked out deep-cut favorites on his 1 Epic Summer mixtape. When we spoke to him back in April, he saw it coming. "There's people on this earth that don't love music," he said then. "We got one that anybody will fuck with."
But D.R.A.M. is a dude that loves music, at least the kind he likes. When he visited The FADER office yesterday, we started talking about funk classics, and it wasn't long before he was holding court, belting scriptures in Clinton and Collins over cups of tequila. Here's his six jams, and one surprisingly fitting bonus he couldn't hold back.
1. Funkadelic, "America Eats Its Young" (1972)
D.R.A.M.: That bitch right there is a precious one truly/ But it's not nice to fool Mother Nature. The deepness about the way they symbolically talked about America back in the early '70s—I'm feeling like shit is just now getting fucked up, but they knew always. Because they was around, like how [George Clinton] was talking about certain things that he would experience—but they're hearing this righteous man over here and this hippie man over here, and he was just blendin in or whatever, with different people that was around. That shit is mad beautiful, with the lady in it sounding like she's being tricked, and it sounds like she's getting, like, fucked, but at the end she does, AHH!, and then you know she's being hurt. But the whole time you don't know if she's being pleasured or being punished. Damn, that shit was mad deep.
2. Funkadelic, "Field Maneuvers" (1979)
It's just an instrumental, but it goes dananana-dada-DA... Let me look on Google. Something like Uncle Jam Wants You to Funk... Yo, all I'm giving you is Funkadelic. These are the motherfuckers, man, Funkadelic. I understand you got The Gap Band and all that, and I fuck with them, but whenever I hear funk, it automatically makes me go to the whole P-Funk movement. I think it's called "The March," or "The Military" or something like that.
3. Parliament, "(You're a Fish And I'm A) Water Sign" (1978)
I was just fuckin blown away. My motherfuckin favorite. It was just about you spotting a lady that you think looks nice, and you let her know it's time to fuck. I swear to god. I want to be on the seaside of love with you baby/ Let's go swimming, it's mating time/ I want to be on the inside of love with you, baby/ You're the fish, and I'm the water sign/ Let's get—yo, that shit is hypnotizing man.
4. Booty's Rubber Band, "Love Vibes" (1976)
From you to me, from me back to you. I'm gonna really goddamn overdraft my account and just get that shit off iTunes so I can have it on my phone.
5. Funkadelic, "(Not Just) Knee Deep" (1979)
I don't care that everybody knows it. But the fifteen-minute version! If you can stand and rock out for the fifteen-minute version, then you're a real funk man. Cause they got different little cadences and skits within that shit. That shit crazy.
6. Funkadelic, "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)" (1978)
Friends of the roto rooter/ Music to get your shit together by. Yo, The Doo-Doo Chasers. Real nigga shit, I love music so much. I got so many.
7. Chris Brown, "No Bullshit" (2010)
"(You're A Fish & I'm A) Water Sign" is the best song ever made, to be honest. I love so much music! Top ten favorite song of my life, my whole life. That's in the top ten. That, and there's that Chris Brown shit, Aaaall night, Aaaall night. That shit hard, bro! I heard that shit, I was like Chris, goddamn!
