SpearHeadNews

Read more than 4350 articles & interviews, see phantastic pictures of Live shows & other snapshots

 
 

Interviews

 
 

Taken from Newsadvance.com (July 05, 2017)

George Clinton to headline Academy concert series this weekend

by EMMA SCHKLOVEN



Credit: William Thoren

While legendary funk musician George Clinton no longer walks out onstage via the Mothership, space is still very much on his mind.


“Funk is like the fourth 'Star Wars,'” Clinton said during a phone call last month. “You let go and let it take you."


The music is taking Clinton to Lynchburg on Saturday, when he will headline the second event in the Academy Center of the Arts’ Riverfront Park Concert Series.


“There are certain artists that come around in popular music who really are originals, who reinvent how music is produced and what it sounds like,” said Geoff Kershner, executive director of the Academy. “And I think [George Clinton] is one of those artists.”


Clinton revolutionized the genre of funk in the ’70s and early ’80s with his bands Parliament and Funkadelic, which eventually merged into one entity, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic.


His role in music earned him and his bands a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Cleveland institution summarized his impact best on its website: “If James Brown is funk’s founding father, Clinton has been its chief architect and tactician.”


“It became a part of the DNA of a lot of music that followed because it was so original, and so new and also so outlandish in a really fantastic way,” said Kershner, who saw this firsthand when Clinton was part of the 1997 House of Blues Smokin' Grooves tour. “It was so much about entertaining the audience with bright colors and energy and up-tempo. It’s so much fun and has spoken to a lot of people throughout time.”


Clinton and the P-Funk sound, as it is known, continues to inspire generations of musicians — from Public Enemy, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube back in the ’90s all the way to current musical masterminds Kendrick Lamar, bassist Thundercat and producer Flying Lotus.


The formerly flamboyant icon, who has shed his multicolored locks, even appeared on Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” and collaborated with hip-hop super group WOKE (comprised of Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Shabazz Palaces) in 2015.


At 75, Clinton continues to stay active in music.


In between his current tour schedule (Clinton and his band still do about 200 shows a year, he said), the funk legend is working on a new album with Flying Lotus’ label Brainfeeder. There’s also a new Parliament album in the works.


Before his concert in Lynchburg, Clinton talked about his view on funk and its connection to other genres of music, the secret to his success and his legacy in music.


What would you say is the difference between a Parliament album and a Funkadelic album?


"Parliament is usually more sophisticated, arranged … which means sometimes you have to write the parts out or be specifically careful about the harmony. ... Whereas Funkadelic is really the rawest of it and we get away with more of the instinctive type of chance and groove. Funkadelic is usually louder with guitars and Parliament is usually dominant with horns."


Can you talk a bit about how you feel your music has evolved over the years, especially in the ’70s and ’80s?


"It evolves according to … whichever direction [the grooves] gravitate into. We pretty much go along with it, but we do our version of it. I believe, in the Motown era in the ’60s and rock 'n' roll … we got ourselves through all of the styles — our version of P-funk in the '70s to hip-hop when it came along, we did a rendition of P-funk.


“Funk is the DNA for hip-hop, so we [were] able to change our style to go along with that when we did 'Atomic Dog.' That's basically a hip-hop record without being a hip-hop record. It is also sampled by a lot of hip-hop artists. And then when they changed into the Dirty South ... all the people in Atlanta in the early '90s, we were able to [get] ourselves into what they were doing in the Atlanta scene.


“We've been able to, between hip-hop and electronic music — both of them deal with funk — we've been able to bounce back and forth all this time until Kendrick Lamar comes along. And then we worked with him, [and] Flying Lotus. We're pretty much able to stay in touch with whatever is new coming along and that keeps us fresh."


What is the groove you're gravitating toward right now?


"It has no name, but it's definitely the vibe of Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino — their version of what they think we sound like to them is what we pay attention to ourselves. How they hear us. We listen to that and do our thing from that, with that in mind."


What do you think has been the key to your continued success?


"Being able to change when I see change coming. Being able to change in a hurry. To be able to read that, just by reading the music that gets on my nerves, I pretty much know that's going to be the one I need to like."


Are there examples of this that come to mind?


"Kendrick Lamar, '[expletive], Don't Kill My Vibe.' When I first heard that, I thought, 'What the [expletive] is he saying?' ... But it ended up proving my point; it was the one I needed to listen to the most. I take it for granted now when I listen to it specifically like that, I know that's gonna be a hit ’cause it's pretty stupid. You can feel when it's gonna be the hit because they repeat it over and over again. Look at [the] Ying Yang [Twins], Lil John and all of them ... I'm like, 'How is this working?'


“They was trying to be like us. … If you pay some attention to it, whether you like it or dislike it, it still has made an imprint on you. If you don't like it, somebody somewhere is going to like it 'cause it's just that difference of opinion. I just take it for granted being my age and my style and … what I've been doing, it's probably getting on my nerves for that reason. When they was sayin’, 'That ain't the old music,' it ain't never supposed to be the old music. I remember when rock 'n' roll first came out — bop bop a doo wop da bop bam boo — my mother said, 'What the hell are y’all talkin’ about?' That was in the '50s and rock 'n' roll was just starting. After a while, it gets slick with the Motowns and the good songwriters and the lyrics on Broadway.


“It gets so slick kids would always take it back to something real basic, like, 'Forget it, spit the beat' [spits into the phone]. And you start all over again. With rock 'n' roll, you got Led Zeppelin all the way back to punk rock. Then they get real basic and you got a brand new artist or kids who like it for that reason. It normally gets on the older musicians’ nerves because they're trying to get it slick and right and the kids come along and make it real simplistic and usually they puttin' you out to pasture."


You haven’t been. I mean, it seems like you've been even busier in the last decade.


"Once I realized that's what it was, I speed it up. Because I'm working on fighting for my copyrights back, I had to make an example out of it by not letting it be the end. You hear that the drugs changed him, that it made him fall from grace and all that. I had to make another statement: ‘Hell no, [expletive] that, I'm not going out like that.’ I just put in more effort to pay more attention and find a way to get presented. I found YouTube and promote the album on the stage. We still take care of business onstage; nothing’s changed about that. I don't care how old it is."


How has your relationship with music and creativity changed since you got clean about seven years ago?


"I think I got the same inspiration. The new drug is fighting for the copyrights and stuff. I get me some weed and the joy of proving people wrong. That it ain't got nothing to do with it and you can still create [expletive]. That keeps me high now. So I just found another thing to get hooked on, and that's like what I started with, the wanting to make the music.


“That's what I was high on as a kid and that's what I'm high on now. Trying to learn what can get through, how I can get it through to the people 'cause we're gonna take care of it onstage. ... Let them see us doing it and that way it's not dictated by no charts, no radio play or any of that. It's just you turn on the Periscope, the Facebook and you can see us live doing it, playing the record. I DJ from my back porch."


Your music has taken on a new life in hip-hop. How does it feel knowing you inspired a generation of musicians?


"It feels good, jeez. And, you know, knowing Cubes and Dres, knowing them from such a long — when they were kids, now people call them 'Uncle Snoop', 'Uncle Dre,’ you know? They know what it feels like to be the unc. ... It's like two or three genres that know the funk. And it's the same thing with electronic genres. We're pretty tight with that genre too. Louie Vega did a version of 'Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You' and it's real big in South Africa."


Is there a favorite sampling that artists have done of your songs?


"A lot of Public Enemy's stuff, I liked the way [they] sampled 'cause they made arrangements out of it. It was just pieces of it to make other arrangements, so that was clever. But I like all of them, a little essence of me, myself and I."


What are your thoughts on other artists using your songs through sampling, especially given the current state of your copyright battles?


"I still love the fact that they sample the music. That's a different story between me and getting paid from the publishers and the societies and things. I love the fact that they use the songs, that's the thing that makes them so valuable and so important to me that they were able to make samples out of them. I wish they could keep doing it, but the way these people have been using them, they make it so people are scared to sample them 'cause they think they're gonna get sued. .... They've sued so many people on behalf of me."


You also have a new Parliament album in the works. What can you tell me about the upcoming album? Does it have a name?


"'Medicaid Fraud Dog.' It's gonna be interesting. We're one nation under sedation. Everything is about drugs and choice with drugs. The big man and the government, all of that is people are just now beginning to understand the difference between Medicaid and Medicaid fraud. So, I got some dogs that are gonna track that stuff down. The dope dogs, you know they have drug dogs? Well, these dogs are gonna sniff out all the truths involving Medicaid fraud and this kind of care, that kind of care and choice. That's the kind of stuff."


A recreation of the Mothership is currently part of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. What does that mean to you?


“It means a lot to me. ... It proves that the music is going to be here for a long time. That's the symbol of the music, not only the Mothership album, but everybody that sampled it. The album made babies — all the people that sampled the songs from that album. That Mothership represents all of that. Dre's whole first 'Chronic' album. All of that.”


What can fans expect at the show in Lynchburg?


"We're gonna tear the roof off that sucker!”



 
 

Interviews

 
 

Check out my latest Playlist

Get external player here

 
 

Latest News
  Last Update: 2024-03-17 21:09

 
 

News Selector