HERU

Though struggles remained, in the 1970s, when EWF first had hits, the Black middle class was growing, and as a result, Afrocentric sounds and styles worked their way into mainstream culture. EWF were no exception, as the 2014 BBC documentary “The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove” (posted on Youtube) explains. Playing upbeat and accessible disco, soul music, r&b, and funk, EWF appealed to those increasingly affluent Black audiences as well as to white audiences as social and cultural segregation became less distinct in some cases.

All that combined to help the six-time Grammy Award-winning group, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, become one of Colombia Records’ best selling groups of all time, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website. With six consecutive double-platinum albums, Maurice White’s band symbolized confidence and positivity for Black people at a time when segments of Black America finally experienced some level of upward mobility. The hope for the future was reflected in the music of EWF, according to African-American music cultural critic Greg Tate, speaking in the 2016 “Story of Funk” documentary.