Paying Tribute to the Queen of Funk, Betty Davis

Wednesday (2/9) morning in Homestead, PA, singer and songwriter of fierce funk grooves and Afrofuturistic style Betty Davis died at 77 years old. 

Ms. Davis, who was first known as Betty Mabry, shared her last name with her husband of one year, legendary jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis. Her music was the introduction to funk and the influencer of artists from Prince to Janet Jackson to Janelle Monáe.

This trailblazing artist would moan, growl, tease, and rasp through her songs that held a bluesy sound to it. She had posed in lingerie, neo-Egyptian regalia, and even in space warrior garb, with her unforgeable afro always present.

Betty Davis’s songs were about love and its many forms. Nasty Gal was her last studio album; in the 1980s, she left the music business almost completely. Or at least she tried. Listeners and musicians have nonstop discovered her and her music, and he gained respect over the years even when she was no longer present in the music scene.

“This lady was hip before hip was hip," Lenny Kravitz tweeted. She was sampled by many artists ranging from Ice Cube to Method Man and so many more. 

In the 2017 movie, Betty: They Say I’m Different, she is shown as a young girl listening and taking influence from the blues that she knew growing up -- artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Big Mama Thorton, Emore James, and Chuck Berry. For those interested, there is a movie showing event going on right now. 

Betty studied fashion as a teenager at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and she would bring her songs along with her. She worked as a model for Wilhelminia Agency and appeared in plenty of magazines, even as a pinup in Jet magazine. In 1964, she released her first single, “The Cellar”, which was apparently named after a private club at Broadway and West 90th street. Ms. Mabry was said to have been a disc jockey and hostess at the club, where many artists and musicians would attend. In 1967, the Cambers Brothers recorded a song of hers, “Uptown”. Later in 1968, her then-boyfriend, Hugh Masekela, produced the single “Live, Love, Learn” for her.

Betty Davis wrote all the songs on her albums, and she produced two herself: “They Say I’m Different” and “Nasty Gal”. Her songs were known to be an aggressive, jaggedly syncopated funk -- anything that was not shy. While her music was popular at clubs, there was not much traction for her on the radio, where she would be denied any commercial access. In 1976, she recorded another album, which included the autobiographical “Stars Starve, You Know”. The song complains, “They said if I wanted to make some money / I’d have to clean up my act...”

She was never forgotten in the music scene, even when she phased herself out. Betty Davis was ahead of her time.

Ms. Davis only wanted to make good music, and she lived up to it fully. Her music influenced and inspired many artists, and we will mourn her loss but remember the footprint she left in music forever!