George Clinton has seen it all and done it all.
The futuristic pioneer is the second most sampled artist in Hip-Hop – hands down – and has a tenured space in the culture. Before rap, the 80-year old transformed the landscape of music with P-Funk, but his roots run far deeper. “We came through the psychedelic era, the Motown [era] was straight, clean cut, then psychedelic era, everybody went wild, Woodstock, the acid, the drugs,” he says. “I mean, that was it.” And we were forever changed by the likes of “Flash Light,” “Aqua Boogie,” “One Nation Under a Groove,” “Atomic Dog” and numerous groundbreaking albums.
He put the stank on the wax along with his bands Parliament-Funkadelic. It was only destiny that the sounds seep into the culture of Hip-Hop. Artists like Dr. Dre, Outkast, Warren G, Redman, Snoop Dogg, EPMD, Digital Underground and many others were influenced profoundly by King Clinton. While in Detroit, he was a part of Motown, but decades later witnessed a young, pre-Dr. Dre Eminem rise in Detroit. You can see Brother George Clinton in everything from Redman’s Dare Iz A Darkside to Slim Shady’s Purple Hills to Humpty Hump’s nose.
In this conversation, he talks his legacy, his honors as well as the moves he is making with the latest interation of Parliament-Funkadelic. He may be an elderstatesman, but he’s got plenty of creativity left. He even chats with Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur between painting in his Florida home.