Songfacts®:

• "Renegades Of Funk" is a cover of a song by the pioneering rap group Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force, who explored new worlds on the classic tracks "Looking For The Perfect Beat" and "Planet Rock." They released "Renegades Of Funk" as a single in 1983 but it didn't chart. The group wasn't around much longer, so the song wasn't well known by the time Rage covered it in 2000.
• In the original, Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force were the renegades of funk, comparing themselves to visionaries and rabble rousers like Thomas Paine and Malcolm X. Rage Against The Machine turned it into a tribute to the architects of hip-hop, including Afrika Bambaataa, and they also used it to bring attention to the historical figures mentioned in the song, along with others they wanted to spotlight. Rage songs tend to cover broad topics but the band would use them to spotlight specific causes in the music videos or in statements. The video showcases a litany of their heroes, both musical and political.
• It's pretty impressive how Rage Against The Machine were able to translate this electo-hip-hop song into rock. Credit goes to their guitarist, Tom Morello, who has a talent for making lots of wild sounds on his instrument that can simulate the kind of grooves used as ingredients in rap music. Rage prided themselves on not using samples or interpolations, but as a nod to '80s hip-hoppers like Afrika Bambaataa that did, they threw in an interpolation of the "Scorpio" beat that shows up on thousands of songs. Listen for it at the beginning and in the breakdown at the 2:30 mark.
• "Renegades Of Funk" is part of the RATM covers album Renegades, which also includes their rendition of songs by The Stooges, The Rolling Stones, the MC5 and Devo. It was their last album, released after the group broke up. The group fractured when lead singer Zack de la Rocha found himself at odds with his bandmates. When he announced his departure, the plan was to replace him, but the guy they found was too consequential to plug into an existing band: Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. They ended up forming a new band called Audioslave that was almost as successful as Rage and eventually faced the same internal struggles. They split in 2007 after three highly rated albums, and Rage returned to action.
  
  After their reunion, Rage played a lot of shows but didn't release any more music. They split again in 2011 and reconvened in 2020, just in time for the pandemic to ruin their plans for a tour. Snakebit, when they finally hit the road in 2022, de la Rocha shredded his Achilles tendon at their second show and they had to truncate the tour.
  
  They never recovered. In 2023 they made the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame but only Tom Morello showed up. "Like most bands, we have differing perspectives on a lot of things, including being inducted into the Rock Hall," he said in his speech.
• The song was released as a single on election day: November 7, 2000. George W. Bush was the winner, giving the band even more to rage against.
• One of the foremost innovators of funk music, George Clinton, was asked during a Reddit AMA what he thought of this song. He replied: "Rage Against the Machine is definitely a rock band that can play hip-hop on instruments live. So when they are funky they sound like Super Stupid, that era of Funkadelic. They bad."
  
  Clinton is one of the many renegades celebrated in the music video.
• "Renegades Of Funk" is one of three Rage Against The Machine songs to chart in America on the Hot 100. In a rare sop to radio, they cut the single down to 3:46 from the 4:35 album version.
  
  Rage, of course, was not a singles band but they did issue singles, mostly to promote their music videos and encourage radio stations to play their songs. Their highest charting song was "Guerrilla Radio" at #69.
  
  In the UK they had more chart success and even had a #1 hit! That happened in 2009 when the Brits got really sick of X-Factor winners claiming the coveted Christmas #1 (see the movie Love Actually to understand this phenomenon). Thanks to a social media campaign, "Killing In The Name" topped the chart, keeping Joe McElderry at bay.
• The storied producer Rick Rubin helmed this track. It's fitting that Rubin would end up working with Rage Against The Machine, a group that blended hard rock and hip-hop. Rubin is the guy who brought Aerosmith and Run-DMC together for their groundbreaking collaboration on "Walk This Way."