The Dawn Silva book - Shadows On The Wall / The Funk Queen

As @Biminiroad mentioned a while back, Dawn Silva is working on a book as well. According to Dawn it will be finished winter 2020 and be called Shadows On The Wall - Memoirs Of A Funk Queen.

You can read a snippet from it on her fb.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2322679251186778&id=100003341769903

Thanks. The Dr’s book was really good. But, it only scratched the surface, especially during the peak commercial years. These books about the girls are gonna blow the cobwebs off our minds with the real deal and not the dildo (as the Queen used to tell me).
Speaking of which. There’s a lot of folks out here nowadays walking around talking about they are the Queen of Funk. A lot of journalists are naming them that. They may be a queen of it. But there is only one Queen Of Funk.

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That book has had some years in the making. Looking forward for it to drop.

I agree that the Queen Of Funk today is Dawn Silva no doubt, but realistically there’s only one Queen Of Funk and that’s Malliah Franklin.

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No disrespect to Dawn at all. I’m mostly concerned about all these articles u see in the press. I recall somebody calling Chaka the Queen Of Funk. She funky for sure. But the original Queen will always be Mal God rest her soul. Mallia was like a female version of George. A true visionary. Dawn got that visionary spirit too. A true funkstress. Sheroe. And they all are unsung. Muggs don’t know what time it is. When I was in radio the original “Funkentercepter” came by the station one night to do some drops. Man she started getting that spirit it was like being in presence of an angel or somn.

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Dawn posted another part of her upcoming book on fb.

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Nice thanks! She said it was coming in 2020.

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It’s finally possible to pre-order Dawn’s book over at dawnsilva.com. It’s planned to be released in late February. Seems like they changed the title to just The Funk Queen.

The price is $100. Pretty steep. But it got over 500 pages and over 300 photos. Not bad at all.

Here’s some images of the book from her site.



Check this fb video where Dawn presents the book. It’s huge!!

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Wow, not cheap but does look really good.

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I believe she will get every penny. Muggs are hungry for this one.

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Dawn and Jeanette Perkins (Washington) were on the Hartford, CT radio station WRTC last Friday to talk about the book.

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Got it yesterday. Only read a couple of chapters so far, seems to be a lot of not so flattering stuff about GC and the organisation. Interesting, sometimes hard to read, but definitely important. I hope she will release a smaller and cheaper version later down the line so more people can read it.

Here’s some images.




To get a feeling of the size of the book I put it beside GC’s book. That’s the hard cover version, although it looks like a small paperback version. :smile:


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Can’t wait to read it, those pics are outrageous.

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Got my copy,#48. I’ve only read bits and pieces of it. Lots of photos and story’s. Really big book, Ms Silva signed it. How it’s packaged is really cool too. One particular story really fucked me up. Michael Hampton stabbed her. Yeah stabbed her. A must have for all of us.

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I got #18. :stuck_out_tongue:

Haven’t gotten to that Hampton story yet. But yeah there’s a lot of stories that’s messed up. Besides racist bullshit, there’s also a lot of men in this book that are really fucked up. :angry:

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100% agree.

The book is quite simply phenomenal. I can honestly say in all my years of funkin, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like this personal testament. She should get some kind of award for best funkumentary book.
The book is a treatise on the whole music industry. How it’s run. The misogyny. Both the Brides and Parlet should have been huge. According to Dawn, both were sabotaged from within. Now I know there are 2 sides to every story. I haven’t heard the other side. One thing is for sure. Mallia may be the first we called Queen of Funk. But there is room around the throne. They are all Queens. And I will never view Parliament-Funkadelic in the same light ever again.
It’s a magnificent work. The pics, the info. Outstanding. It’s an emotional roller coaster of a read.

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Emotional rollercoaster is a good description. I find myself happy to see the band on top of the world, then in the next paragraph, I’m like damn man, how do you do people especially women like that. Junie slapping one of the girls, clip stealing panties and selling them. Sly just straight tripping altogether. You forum members need to get this.

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Some of it will sting ya good. I’m running the full gamut of emotions over here. There were parts of the Gap band stuff that actually had me in tears. So personal. Dawn has shared alot of herself with us. When they moved over to Burbank that puppy story got to me. I haven’t picked it up since. Peck lightly.

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I’m on chapter 32 “The Kid From Giza”. I try to read a little bit just before going to sleep. Yes Dawn shares a lot of herself. I wish I could tell her what a great job she did. She did a great service for the funk community

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How are y’all receiving her words on how the song Computer Love got materialized? I’ve heard different takes on it down thru the years but not this detailed. Considering what they say about him running off with the Many Facets masters I can believe it. Although I don’t blame him for that. Probably saved his career. I’d have been trying to get as far away from the PF business office as possible! She seems bitter at GC (and if things were half as bad as she is saying) for good reason. The physical and emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of Mike Hampton, what Charlie Wilson did to her. George was never physically abusive to her but got at her in plenty of other ways. The man seemed to try and snuff out any career move she tried to make after P-Funk.
Now, I know to be a leader of any band you have to play hardball. I don’t know what it takes to keep egos in a band in check for 60 years. Maybe you have to be a certain way. At the end of the day, the Funk is just what it was I guess.
Also fascinating is how Lynn Mabry comes off in the book. I had been incorrectly thinking they had a relationship prior to Sly. There are a couple of times in the book where Dawn talks about Lynn abandoning the Brides.
Although I got the impression she was much younger, Lynn seemed to be the one in charge, making the moves, the major decisions. I don’t know if this is the picture Dawn was trying to paint but it is what I got. Lynn was the one who said let’s go meet George. Let’s try some of this ‘green’ he has (which turned out to be rat tranquilizer). Almost like a bad influence. And when Bernie and Lynn went with Talking Heads, it seemed like they left her all alone.
Now, having watched the Lynn Mabry piece on funkatopia, she does not seem to harbor these same sentiments against George, etc. Although, I’ve never heard Lynn say anything negative about anyone. She always takes the high road. I don’t know what her response to this book is, if one at all.

Dawn also barely mentions Bootsy at all.

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