Wild Cherry was an American funk rock band formed in Mingo Junction, Ohio, in 1970 that was best known for its song "Play That Funky Music".

Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, the Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat, with a biographer stating that their music "spark[ed] the musical transition from fifties rock and roll to sixties funk".