Zapp

Zapp emerged as an overlooked funk ensemble from the 1980s that reshaped electro's synthetic pop through their signature vocoder talk boxes and propulsive rhythms, echoing the rawer edge of Prince and Cameo while relying on Roger Troutman’s skilled hand at refined studio craft. The Troutman brothers—Roger, Lester, Larry, and Tony—formed the core of this family outfit after growing up in Hamilton, Ohio, where they drew inspiration from local legends the Ohio Players alongside Parliament and additional funk acts. Tony launched his recording career first via an obscure 1976 Gram-O-Phon Records single titled “I Truly Love You,” which registered modestly on the R&B charts.

Once his siblings joined—Roger handling vocals and guitar, Lester on drums, Larry adding percussion, and Tony on bass—the newly named Zapp began performing across the Midwest and soon expanded with backing vocalists Bobby Glover and Jannetta Boyce, keyboardists Greg Jackson and Sherman Fleetwood, plus a horn section featuring Eddie Barber, Jerome Derrickson, and Mike Warren. The group’s rising profile attracted Bootsy Collins, who was enlisted to collaborate on their first album. Issued in 1980, Zapp reached the pop Top 20 propelled by the single “More Bounce to the Ounce.”

In 1981 Roger contributed to Funkadelic’s The Electric Spanking of War Babies and issued his own debut, The Many Facets of Roger. His vocoder-treated cover of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” helped push that solo project to gold status, mirroring Zapp’s earlier achievement. Zapp II followed in 1982 and matched the commercial success of the debut, highlighted by the group’s sole number-one R&B single, “Dance Floor.”

Zapp III entered the pop charts just outside the Top 40 upon its 1983 release, while Roger’s second solo effort, The Saga Continues, also underperformed despite featuring the Mighty Clouds of Joy on his rendition of “Midnight Hour.” The New Zapp IV U, released late in 1985, performed modestly better thanks to “Computer Love,” yet Roger’s third solo album Unlimited! yielded the collective’s strongest showing in 1987 with “I Want to Be Your Man,” which topped the R&B lists and climbed to number three on the pop side. Although Roger and Zapp continued to appear on the R&B charts through the late 1980s, the unit effectively ceased recording after the 1991 Roger album Bridging the Gap.

Roger kept producing and performing with other artists, notably supplying the talk box for Dr. Dre & 2Pac’s Top Ten 1996 single “California Love.” The 1993 Roger & Zapp anthology All the Greatest Hits moved strongly enough to become the collective’s first platinum-certified release. The story concluded in tragedy on April 25, 1999, when Roger was fatally shot by Larry, who then took his own life.