Some musicians can be considered architects. Architects of sound, of genre and culture. George Clinton is one of those musicians. The globally lauded forefather of funk is set to bring his infectious grooves to Australia, celebrating 50 years of his first hit single (I Wanna) Testify and the legacy of tunes that followed in the decades after.
“That was back in the day when Motown was hot. The Temptations were on a roll,” recalls Clinton. “I was writing songs and also starting [Clinton’s band] Parliament. All that was going on at that time, and all our records came out at the same time. Motown was the world – it was the hottest stuff around. Testify was our attempt to be like the Four Tops. It still feels good.”
Throughout his illustrious career, George Clinton’s music has undertaken numerous guises. His boundary-pushing approach to R&B flourished in the ‘70s by merging the worlds of soul and funk with the acid-laced haze of Hendrix, Zappa and Sly Stone. Moving forward, Clinton also bridged the gap between funk and hip hop, collaborating with rappers including Kendrick Lamar and Q-Tip. He’s become one of the most sampled artists of all time, with greats including Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Outkast, Wu-Tang and more repurposing his grooves. In any case, the prolific artist is always looking for new creative avenues to tap into.
“I usually look to the very young champions of music that get on my nerves,” says Clinton on his never-ending quest for inspiration. “That’s usually the next music. Intentionally you look for the ones that make you say, ‘How could you possibly do this?’
“I remember when I first heard, ‘Wop bop a loo bop, a wap bam boo’. I thought, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ It’s got to be the type of music that makes you say, ‘Damn.’ When you find those types of characters you think, ‘This is the new music.’”
Clinton stops mid-sentence and starts singing Kendrick Lamar’s Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe down the crackling phone line to illustrate his point. He’s right. Damn indeed. He goes on to list the artists he thinks are changing the game right now; Thundercat, Flying Lotus and Lamar all cop a mention.
Continuing his legacy of working with hip hop acts, Clinton lends his signature squelchy funk sounds to Lamar’s universally lauded record To Pimp a Butterfly, featuring on the album highlight Wesley’s Theory.
“He pays attention like a college kid,” recounts Clinton of his time in the studio with Lamar. “Usually I end up doing all the talking. Say with Prince; he would always be quizzing me about things. Kendrick? I could quiz him. He has the answers.”
Now 76 years old, George Clinton has seen genres fade in and out of popularity. But there’s a reason he’s stuck around for so long and why the music he makes still resonates today. It all comes down to a groove. Many forces – political, personal, or otherwise – can divide us in our day-to-day life. Sometimes, music that can be enjoyed purely on a level that makes you move is all that’s needed to forget about all of that. Albeit, if only for a few blissful hours.
“You get a feeling,” he says. “You fall in that zone. For years, we’ve enjoyed everybody coming together to be with the party and be wild. People will be moving and laughing.”
As for the future of funk? Clinton believes it’s in safe hands.
“Funk is the DNA for hip hop and electronic music. Funk is in all of that music. So as long as any of that’s around, funk is doing its job. Funk is going to make babies. When somebody samples it, that’s a baby made.”
