Entropy

In an ego-driven age when club-goers are too damn fly to dance, Entropy’s take-off-your-cool grooves are purposefully primed for relentless booty shakin’. Borrowing heavily from the psychedelic brew of Parliament Funkadelic, the good-foot rhythm section of James Brown and the fight-the-power ethics of Public Enemy, Entropy offers user-friendly funk for a new generation with its new release, Crawl.

Like Tony! Toni! Toné! before it, Entropy not only resurrects the lost science of the live set, but it also remixes traditional black forms of musical expression (blues, jazz, soul, funk) for hip listeners. While many so-called funk collectives are rip-off artists in disguise, Entropy assures consumers it is far from a cheap knockoff. “Though we were influenced by people like George Clinton, Prince and James Brown, being a copycat band was never in my mind,” says group member Rod Williams, who lends his talents on vocals and keys. “Those pioneers already put it down. Even when we do covers, we try to put our personal stamp on it [by] updating funk for a new audience.”

Crawl rocks funky joints such as the horn-heavy proclamation “We Came to Funk.” It proves the groove is in the heart on “Honey.” And it waxes politically charged poetics on “Deadline.” Besides getting your back off the wall, the collection also serves as a release from the culture of disrespect flooding commercial radio and corrupting impressionable minds. “Funk was derived as dance music with a message. The radio, with snap music and other nonsense, is garbage now. As a father, I feel a responsibility to give some useful information back to our people,” Williams says.

Entropy hosts Amalgamation at the Five Spot Fri., Aug. 3, at 9:30 p.m. $10.