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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
As author, DJ and music historian Rickey Vincent -- who (literally) wrote the book on funk when he penned "Funk: The Music, the People and the Rhythm of the One" -- explains, it was Dre's sampling of "Mothership" that gave his seminal release, "The Chronic," its sonic identity, even down to the "Mothership" title track's melody in the Grammy-winning hit, "Let Me Ride."
"'Mothership Connection' is probably the most important funk album there is for West coast hip-hop," says Vincent. "Dr. Dre recognized that on 'The Chronic,' which itself is probably the most important West Coast hip-hop album there is. See, East Coast hip-hop really developed around the beat -- the turntable, the scratch, the breakbeat. But West coast hip-hop has always been more oriented towards the funk bass. And 'Mothership Connection' is scripture for people who want to know the roots of all funky things. If you're going to study jazz, then you're going to make your way to John Coltrane and 'A Love Supreme.' And if you study funk, you're going to make your way to P-Funk and 'Mothership Connection.' End of story."
When "The Chronic" won a Grammy, the mainstream music industry's doors blew open to hardcore rap, after several years of exclusion. Only a few years earlier, Public Enemy's brilliant but controversial "Fear of a Black Planet" had lost out to the lightweight Young MC, just as Spike Lee's film, "Do the Right Thing" (built primarily around P.E.'s rallying cry, "Fight the Power") had been passed over for an Oscar in favor of "Driving Miss Daisy." But it is now no secret that "The Chronic" was a watershed moment for hip-hop, and gangsta rap in general. After all, the television and music industry is currently saturated to excess with black and white Dre and Snoop wannabes. But without George Clinton and his seminal Parliament releases, "The Chronic" would be nothing more than, if you'll pardon the phrase, a pipe dream.
"Four or five years ago, when Vibe did their top 100 albums of all time, they left 'Mothership Connection' out entirely," says Vincent. "Meanwhile, 'The Chronic' is somewhere high up on the list. And 'The Chronic' wouldn't be there if it wasn't for 'Mothership Connection.' I think people need to know this. Cornel West actually wrote about 'Mothership Connection' during the early '80s. He compared P-Funk to bebop, and said both forms were grand creative breakthroughs that brought a different sensibility to a whole new generation. And when that hip-hop generation got to the sampling stage, they went straight for the funk. Once samplers hit, it was James Brown and P-Funk."
But P-Funk's sample library doesn't begin or end with Dre and "The Chronic"; that album was simply the apotheosis of years of P-Funk musical tradition. Before Dre, or Ice Cube for that matter, had ever left N.W.A., hip-hop standouts like De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, Digital Underground, Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, Kool Moe Dee, A Tribe Called Quest and countless others were mining Dr. Funkenstein's coffers for addictive beats, maddening bass hooks (courtesy of the legendary Collins), dirty keyboard riffs (courtesy of the equally legendary Worrell) and more for albums on end. A single immortal Parliament track, "Flash Light" (from "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome"), was sampled by everyone from Ice T and Ice Cube to Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Run DMC. As Vincent writes in "Funk," Digital Underground "went literally overboard with their allegiance to P-Funk," doing everything from citing Parliament's "Aqua Boogie" on "Underwater Rimes" to naming their album "Sons of the P" in honor of the P-Funk aesthetic.
What was it about P-Funk's music that dug so deeply into the minds of music fans, two to three generations removed from Clinton and company's reign in the '70s? It's that potent combination of intimidating talent and perfect timing.
"First of all, you have one of the greatest ensembles ever," explains Vincent. "You've got Bootsy Collins on bass, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Jerome Brailey, who's very underrated; he's one of the greatest drummers of all time. You've got Eddie Hazel on some tracks, and then Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker, who were the glue for all of James Brown's '70s funk. You have musical mastery and George Clinton at his creative high point. You have this creative peak from a collection of musicians who were untouchable, plus great timing. They were able to fuse the raw street sound with the latest technology and get as futuristic as they wanted. And people are still trying to figure that out.
"There are those who come from music school and are slick and try to get funky, and then there are those who are raw, self-taught talents who have a hard time getting sophisticated. P-Funk could outdo either extreme, and 'Mothership Connection' is one of the best examples of that. So hip-hop artists can find samples that are as raw as they need them to be, as well as samples that are chilly, creepy and can get you what you need."
But it seems that few of Funkenstein's current monsters have imbued their take on the P-Funk tradition with George Clinton's optimistic and inclusive worldview. Where Parliament talked about "One Nation Under a Groove," 50 Cent's Escalade-frenzy video for "Wanksta" seems to be interested in separation and difference. Where Parliament was interested in gathering the people of the universe (literally -- Clinton and Bootsy came up with "Mothership Connection" after claiming to see a UFO following them from Toronto to Detroit) together under a single funky umbrella, the bling-bling set seem more possessed with initiating beefs or smacking down all comers. Why the conceptual shift?
