i don't see why so much time is spent on the naming debate. it doesn't bother me either way what people call stuff. the stuff to be taken from those articles seems to me to be the fact that a) people think 'proper' funky is on the way out, which i think is probably bs, but i live in vancouver where it doesn't exist to begin with (and probably never will), so what would i know about it... but really that conclusion makes it hard to take the article seriously
and b) that some iterations of the music are killing that ever elusive 'feminine pressure'... even tho, as i mentioned already, it may never effect me in any real life kind of way, the idea that some of the more interesting instrumental productions from Scratcha DVA, et. al. are maybe (maybe) driving ladies back out of the scene again (maybe simply even by virtue of the males that they are driving into it) does disturb me a bit.
a propos of the netherground, i've been really digging the Headhunter spots in mixes recently. nice one in the Jackmaster mix up right now, but there've been some other ones on funky shows on Rinse too.