Slap-Bass R&B

Funk-soul where the slapped electric bass is the lead voice: thumb-thumped low strings emulating a kick drum, popped high strings snapping like a snare, driving percolating sixteenth-note lines under soul vocals. Built around the bass hook, it makes the rhythm section the melody and the body of the song.

Larry Graham invented the thumb-and-pluck technique in Sly & the Family Stone, then led Graham Central Station. Louis 'Thunder Thumbs' Johnson of the Brothers Johnson and, later, Marcus Miller carried it forward, turning slap into a defining R&B sound across the '70s and early '80s and a foundation for funk bass technique.