Songfacts®:

• Hey, isn't "Renegades Of Funk" a Rage Against The Machine song?
  
  Nope. Rage covered it in 2000 and released it as a single, and that's the version many people know, but it was originally released in 1983 by the electro-funk pioneers Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force, known for their hip-hop classics "Planet Rock" and "Looking For The Perfect Beat."
  
  The song stakes their claim as musical renegades, pushing the boundaries of their form the same way leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Sitting Bull advanced their causes. The Rage Against The Machine version transforms it into a political song with a focus on activist movements in the tradition of those leaders.
• The opening line, "No matter how hard you try, you can't stop this now," was cribbed from a 1969 song called "Message From a Black Man" by The Temptations. The "weya weya weya" chant was lifted from the 1973 song "Weya" by Manu Dibango.
• Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force had a visionary producer named Arthur Baker who blended jazz and electronic elements to create their signature sound. The group also had a striking visual look - they would have fit in just fine at a Mardi Gras parade, with outlandish costumes that made them larger-than-life. They didn't have much impact after the mid-'80s but were highly influential.
• "Renegades Of Funk" shows up in the 1985 Miami Vice episode "The Maze," part of the show's first season. Miami Vice was very ambitious musically, using many contemporary tunes in their episodes. The instrumental theme song was a #1 hit that year.
• Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force were one of the first groups on the Tommy Boy label, which became the home to De La Soul and Digital Underground. Their chairman, Tom Silverman, told Sounds in 1984, "I was looking into the reasons for my early attempts at rap records failing. When I met Bambaataa and the people from the uptown scene, I discovered that rapping isn't about rhyming words, it's about a spirit. A feeling."