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Who is that Funkyflyy?

Moreover, who cares?
Well, because of the many E-mails I've received, asking just that question, some of you obviously do.
I admit feeling flattered, but also a little silly writing all this stuff about myself. To be honest, I've always disliked Home Pages, at least the kind that contains nothing but pictures of people's cats and family members.

Miss Funkyflyy is a nickname I've had since I was about fifteen years old. I used it as a pseudonym during the mid-eighties, when I was broadcasting a one-hour heavy-duty Funk show on various local community radio stations and the name has stayed with me. I didn't invent it, though. Well, kind of. I altered it. It comes from an absolutely horrid and equally obscure 12" on T.K. Records from 1980 called "the Crazy Mule Saloon" by a Madam Funkyfly, who tried to pose as a female version of the X-rated rapper/comic Blowfly. The fly (in the banner at the top of this page) is designed by my talented friend Maryam.

My "real" name is Maria Granditsky and I live in Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden. I was born in 1966 and have been listening to Soul and Funk music for almost 20 years. It all began in grade school, with Disco like Donna Summer and Boney M (even Amanda Lear, yikes!), after which I discovered the T.K. "Sound of Sunshine" (Gwen McCrae, Benny Latimore, etc), the bluesy R&B of Ann Peebles and in the early eighties, serious Funk, via artists and bands like Rick James (I loved his thigh-high red boots), the Bar-Kays, Slave, Cameo, Con Funk Shun, Bootsy, Chocolate Milk, Isley Brothers, Ohio Players, George Clinton, The Time, André Cymone, Aurra, Prince, Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio, One Way, Brick, Rose Royce and many, many others. I also enjoyed a good deal of American Disco-Soul such as Skyy and pure Soul, from Johnnie Taylor, Denise LaSalle, etc.

I spent all my pocket money on LP's, which I guess, made me a bore since I never could afford to go to the movies or grab a burger with my friends. There were no Black music magazines, no TV shows, so how I got into many artists was purely by chance. I actually bought a numerous amount of records, simply because they had African-American faces on the cover. I was racially biased you could say, but in a good way. I didn't know anyone who liked the same music as I did. Well, my best friend Helene could handle Ray Parker Jr.'s "A Woman Needs Love" and my "Secret Combination" LP by Randy Crawford, but that was about it. I remember one particular day in high-school when we were all supposed to bring a tape of our favorite music to the gym, for the class to work-out to. My cassette, with the slamming 12" inch version of the Bar-Kays' "She Talks To Me With Her Body", Bootsy's "Body Slam" and André Cymone's "Surviving in the 80's", didn't go down too well. In one voice, the entire class screamed "shut that crap off already!". I feel that to be able to communicate with other music lovers, which has been made possible via the Internet, is just fantastic and I can only imagine how great it would have been if I had had the same possibility to do so back in the day.

The records of my desire were nine out of ten times not issued here, so I had to go to the few shops in the city that imported LP's directly from the States. I've often wondered if those stores would have survived if it hadn't been for the fact that they had very little competition in the field. Providing customers with the slightest amount of service was the last thing on their agenda. The clerks were DJ's and took more interest in spinning the latest jams to impress their friends who hung around the counter all day, than to let anyone pay for a record. You would just stand there, LP and wallet in hand, and wait for twenty minutes or more, before they showed some mercy and allowed you to pay. It was degrading, sure, but anything for the Funk, right? There were also several shops that specialized in so called cut-outs. Those LP's could easily be distinguished by the sleeve. They either had a corner cut off or, a saw mark. Let me tell you, cut-outs were extremely cheap! In 1982, nobody had to, or were willing to, pay more than 50 cents for Funkadelic's "One Nation Under A Groove" or a dollar each for any Bootsy's Rubberband LP, for example. Yeah, those were the days!

I now work mainly as a web designer/consultant and only occasionally work as freelance R&B journalist.
Some of my interviews have ended up on these Web Pages and I have many waiting to be published. It's all about having the time to put it all together.
I'd like to update the Pages more often and that is one of my goals for the future. Finally, my sincerest thanks to everyone out there who has sent me such nice, uplifting and encouraging E-mails. I really appreciate it.

© Maria Granditsky 1999.
All rights reserved.
No part of these pages may be reproduced or published without the prior written permission of the author. Do not save, link to, or in any way use the images on Miss Funkyflyy's Web Pages, without first obtaining a written consent from the Webmistress, Maria Granditsky.

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