When you listen to the original “Funky Drummer,” you’re witnessing a performance. You’re free to dance, but there’s not much space in the musical conversation for you. The Bonus Beat Reprise, on the other hand, is an invitation to perform. All that open musical space is like a bare stage, all lit up for you.
You can think of the Bonus Beat Reprise as a game with a few simple, inflexible rules. You can add your own sounds on top, but they have to be in slightly swung 4/4 time at ninety-nine beats per minute. Your phrases have to fit in repetitive sequences of four, with phrases beginning and ending predictably every sixteen bars. The intermittent guitar stab weakly establishes the key of A, but you’re free to use whatever pitches you want otherwise, or none at all.
The Funky Drummer game is a very inclusive one. As long as your ideas are repetitive and to the beat, you can’t really do anything wrong. You can play on top of the Funky Drummer Bonus Beat Reprise out loud or in your head, in front of an audience, with a few friends or by yourself. You can rap, or sing, or improvise jazz solos, or lay down electronic squiggles and samples, or just chant, as James Brown’s sampled voice does: