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Struttin' History
Deep or raw funk is a term used for rare 7" funk records with very heavy drum-breaks, raw bass lines and most of the time accompanied by a screaming Hammond organ, phat horns and scratching guitars.

Because of the heavy raw sound of the so-called funk45s, (hiphop) djs like Fatboy Slim, dj Shadow & Kenny Dope, use these funk45s for their remixes. Serious deep funk collectors search the whole world for a very rare 45 and pay sometimes up to $5.000 for it. They search for records of bands with names like: Larry Ellis & Black Hammer, King George & the Fabulous souls, Judge Suds & the Soul detergents and The Soul Diggers.

Those same collectors have released some of their priceless funk45s on LPs. Examples are: Sister Funk by Ian Wright and Legendary Deep Funk by Keb Darge (both BBE records). There are also some small dedicated labels which release new recorded deep funk and re-release hard to find original 45s. In London and New York, there are clubs, like the well-known Jazz Café, with regular deep funk nights and live performances.

We wanted to introduce this raw soul music to Amsterdam and the rest of Holland. So, we started the monthly clubnight Struttin' at Mazzo, April 2001. DJ's we had so far include:

• Keb Darge (BBE, UK)
• Bones (Big Daddy Magazine, UK)
• Jazzman Gerald (Jazzman records, UK)
• John Stapleton (Dope on Plastic, UK)
• Gianluca (Baby T records, UK)
• Egon (Stones Throw records, USA)

December 2001 we also presented our first Struttin' live special with the Soul Destroyers [UK] at Paradiso, Amsterdam. February 2002 we had our first HEAVY Struttin' (deep funk, hiphop & breaks) at Paradiso, Amsterdam.

Now we have a monthly Struttin' at the best club in Amsterdam, called Bitterzoet (Spuistraat 2, Amsterdam). Next to raw funk & (northern) soul originals we play a mix of quality hiphop, reggae and (60s) beat.