dj.WYSIWYG

Jungle Love, in other words Uptown Funk original, is a classic by itself. It’s timeless, and don’t think classics should be messed with generally speaking. But if done well, I’m fine with them. IMHO, I’m okay with a few remakes or songs that sample classics.

Some Wikipedia Notes on Jungle Love

“Jungle Love” is a song from The Time’s third album, Ice Cream Castle. The track was one of the first songs recorded for the album, being cut in late March 1983 during Prince’s 1999 tour. “Jungle Love” was also one of the first Time tracks to involve other members of the band in the creation of the song. Morris Day and Jesse Johnson both contributed to writing the song. Day provided lead vocals and Johnson played guitar on the recording, whilst Prince played all the other instruments.

“Jungle Love” is a funk-pop offering relying mainly on bass, analog synthesizer and drum machines, although there are elements of new wave keyboards and a rock guitar solo, allowing the song to cross musical boundaries. Added to this are animalistic sound effects by Day and sexual lyrics. All this, combined with the Purple Rain momentum, propelled the song to The Time’s second-highest position thus far on the pop charts peaking at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their highest-charting song was “Jerk Out” which peaked at #9.

Uptown Funk

Radio stations play Uptown Funk all the time, and think the hit topped the charts for good reason. You could hear its catchy old school feel, and a coworker of mine had pointed out its similarities to Jungle Love by Morris Day & The Time (Shout out, Cherry).

It dawned on me. I found a few attempts of a mashup online, and all of them were more raw than fully developed. That was very surprising, especially in the age of the internet, and figured I should give it a try. When I adjusted BPMs to blend, the keys to both Jungle Love and Uptown Funk matched. That was the beginning of making it happen. I had never done a mashup, and wasn’t interested in doing one until exploring the music.

After some arranging of both tracks, I found some interesting combinations and blends. This is the result. I’m calling this Jungle Funk.

Enjoy!