For Andre Cymone, funk is not a genre he has returned to; it is a language he never stopped speaking. It is breath, motion, and memory. It is human music, learned early and lived fully. The Resurrection of Funk – which is slated for release this summer – arrives not as nostalgia or revivalism, but as response to the present moment, to cultural amnesia, and to the growing distance between music and the people who make it. Protest music does not need to be dour to be effective; joy, movement, and celebration lift spirits and restore resolve. 

Coming from The Resurrection of Funk, Cymone has released the single “The Revolution’s On Yo In “O” Net.”  Cymone said of the track: “I wrote this song as a musical reflection of a new world order coming to life. It’s a wake up call to a paralyzed society to not succumb to the heard mentality the corporate media would have you do. Revolution’s are born when the masses wake up to injustice. This track is made to make you stop and think stand and represent. 

The world has changed in so many way, the idea that individuals can become so rich thanks to the Internet that they can literally buy whole industries, like the music industry. There’s a lyric in the song that asks “who gets paid when the music’s free”. It’s also inspired by Gil Scott Heron’s, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” lyric. He was profound in his prediction and here we are. The medium is the message. The Revolution’s on Yo In “O” Net.”

The Resurrection of Funk is deeply tied to Minneapolis; not just as geography, but as ethos. There is a direct line from the city’s history of unrest and organizing to the music that emerged from it. Community centers, neighborhood bands, and shared cultural spaces weren’t accidents; they were responses. Funk, in this context, becomes protest without bitterness, resistance without despair. It is joy as strategy. Dance as defiance. Release as fuel.

Cymone’s musical foundation was born from a reality that came with its own soundtrack. It shaped his idea of funk as something functional: music that moves bodies, centers communities, and carries memory. That melodic sensibility became central to his approach. When Cymone and Prince first met as young musicians, they were equals who had finally encountered their match. Each came armed with curiosity, discipline, and an instinct for sound beyond convention.

Their first band, Grand Central, emerged not from ambition but alignment; a convergence of two multi-instrumentalists pushing their instruments past expected roles. Cymone’s bass lines were melodic, assertive, and compositional; Prince’s keyboards and guitar work were exploratory and disruptive. Together, they built a new sonic architecture. The Minneapolis Sound was not a style borrowed or blended; it was constructed.

Cymone’s imprint is deeply embedded in the early records and stage performances that introduced this sound to the world. His contributions shaped not only Prince’s earliest solo releases, but also the DNA of the bands that followed. (In On Time: A Princely Life in Funk, Morris Day directly acknowledges Cymone’s role, recalling a conversation with Prince in which he notes how many of Cymone’s bass lines became essential components of those compositions.)

Cymone’s early solo records embraced New Wave and futurism at a time when no Black artist was expected (or encouraged) to do so. Livin’ in the New Wave and Survivin’ in the 80s developed a cult following, earning retrospective recognition as statements of artistic freedom. His next evolution came through songwriting and production. Writing and producing for artists including Jody Watley, Evelyn Champagne King, Tina Turner, Adam Ant, James Ingram, and others, he found a different kind of freedom in channeling originality through others’ voices. 

Now, with The Resurrection of Funk, Cymone arrives at a moment of reckoning; personal, cultural, and musical. For the first time in his solo career, he fully embraces the sound he helped give birth to, not as revival, but as reclamation. This is the music originally forged in his mother’s basement recontextualized, reaffirmed, and delivered with intent.

At its heart, the album is conceptual in the purest sense: the concept is funk. Not as trend or revival, but as foundation. As the sound that underpins modern music while being routinely misunderstood. Cymone is explicit about his role here; not out of ego, but out of clarity. He is one of the architects of this sound, and this record is about placing that architecture back in view, in full context, where it belongs.

Photo Courtesy: Katherine Copeland Anderson