Aahhh, Albums like this make you proud to be black. File Funk Essentials between James Brown's Star Time set and the spot saved for the Public Enemy or Run D.M.C. box (whichever comes first) in the section labeled Black Aesthetic Definitions. Essentials stars Cameo, Kool and the Gang, the Bar-Kays, Con Funk Shun and George Clinton's Parliament. While they do it to you in your ear hole, comb out your afro, read Roots and watch Shaft, Superfly and footage of Dr. J, the Jackson 5, Richard Pryor and Muhammad Ali – and you'll get the black-'70s vibe. The Essentials trip is a seven-disc, 99-song experience of a blackness that is cool. You can get the set as a whole, but each disc, including the Parliament double-CD Tear the Roof Off, is available separately.

Back in the '70s, the shapers of modern black culture were more toddling than strutting. Now the originators of funk ask a new generation to dance and deconstruct sample-free funk. With rhythm and thumping bass, funk unleashes grooves that dare you not to go ahead and shake somethin'. But after funk frees yo ass, let your mind follow: This is a political movement, too, my brother. Parliament jams, especially, are as much essays as songs, alluring but abstract enough to make you want to stop grooving and figure out what they're talking about.

I mean, I know you don't think "Shoot them with your bop gun" is a silly joke; "Chocolate City" a fictional place; "WEFUNK" simply a radio station; and "Sir Nose D'VoidofFunk," not you, the one sitting down while everyone else is getting down just for the funk of it. Yeah, you'd better pay attention as Dr. Funkenstein advises. And Parliament ain't the only ones you could pontificate on between booty bouncin'. Cameo's sarcastic "Single Life" stars a playboy blissfully running wild under the acid-rain of AIDS. When the chorus hits, the backup sings, "I'm living the single, single, single ... life." The echoed "single" but solo "life" pushes the tension to the edge; when lead vocalist Larry Blackmon calls out, "And it feels so good!" it sounds more like a cry for help. Two songs later the celebration's end is foreshadowed in "Shake Your Pants": "Sasson, Jordache, even Gloria Vanderbilt/When I shake my pants, you know I'm dressed to kill." The next song completes the subplot like a dance command to wallflower corpses: "Rigor Mortis."

Never mind the three songs were released in '85, '80 and '77, respectively. The joy of reissues is hearing the music in a new time and new context. That's true for the groups' material as a whole as well as the genre they represent: Essentials reminds us there was a time not long ago when R&B wasn't black pop's weakest brother.

The aesthetic for Essentials is black '70s, but the music is nowhere near its expiration date. From Cameo's ominous funk to the quiet-stormy, kindler, gentler notes of Con Funk Shun to Kool and the Gang's jungle boogies to the raw grooves of the Bar-Kays, the power remains undiminished. Near-orchestra-size bands and emphasis on playing over production seem anachronistic, but the music sounds fresh because it's timeless.

Or maybe it's because it wasn't overplayed. There are classics but few hits on Essentials: Of the 25 songs on Parliament's Tear the Roof Off, only four were Top 100 hits. Of Essentials' other 74 songs, only 19 cracked the Top 100. So ignore the charts and go straight to the hearts: If you listen, funk may turn you, like the rest of the funkateers in Clinton's nation under a groove, into a funk junkie combing stores for Parliament-Funkadelic albums and following Clinton from club to club.

But don't count on Essentials seducing new recruits. Just because Dr. Dre and most good hip-hop producers sample liberally from Clinton doesn't mean Parliament or any of the other worthies on this box will boom from boxes or Jeeps. White America loves to reminisce, but when the black aesthetic script's page flips, there's no turning back: No matter how vital the music remains, the Clinton vibe is not what most Pathfinder drivers are searching for, whether they're '80s African- Americans or '90s niggas. (RS 667)

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