So, what is “funk”…

You really can't define the Funk. In a typical four/four stomp, Funk comes down hard "on the one," sure. And Funk often uses such instruments as guitars and keyboards more rhythmically (like percussion) than melodically.

But no two people would give you the same definition of Funk. You can illustrate it by example, as a way of describing it, but you can't really define it.

So we cannot define the Funk, but we know it when we see it. Some stuff just got the Funk, while other stuff just does not.

Little Richard's version of Tutti Frutti damn sure got the Funk - Pat Boone's version does not. Hit the Road, Jack by Soul Brother Ray Charles has got it - that same song done by the Lennon Sisters does not. The Isley Brothers and the Beatles found the Funk in Twist and Shout, as did Al Green and Talking Heads with Take Me To The River. Different types of Funk, but Funk just the same.

The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, is the recognized Founding Father of Funk. Brown made his reputation as the 1950s' Soul Brother Number One, a blistering soulman who could stomp out uptempo numbers and scream out slow-grooving ballads with hurricane force. But in the mid-1960s, Brown's music underwent an utter, unalterable sea change. It grew more strident and powerful, more primal and urgent. Somehow "hotter."

The Frankenstein of Funk upon which subsequent mad doctors such as Sly Stone, the Bar-Kays, Cameo, Earth Wind & Fire, Kool & The Gang, Prince, and of course the various mutations of Parliament-Funkadelic based their own creations. 

So put a glide in your slide,
a dip in your hip,
and come onboard
to the Mothership.