Black Music Month Celebrates: George Clinton

Imagine this, it’s the late 90’s and me, my mom and my older sister are watching the classic Nickelodeon movie Good Burger. Midway through the movie Kenan and Kel get trapped in a mental institution and one of the crazy people who helps them escape with a funkadelic dance routine is none other than Funk music pioneer, George Clinton. I had no idea that I was watching one of the greatest icons in the history of music.

George Edward Clinton was born July 22, 1941 in Kannapolis, Norgh Carolina and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. As a teenager George became active in music as both a writer and a performer. Inspired by “Doo-Wop” acts like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Clinton formed a doo wop band of his own called the Parliaments. The group gained local notoriety throughout the 1950’s.

By the 1960’s George Clinton was hired by Motown Records as a songwriter. It was also during this time that his former band mates from The Parliaments had formed a new band titled Parliament-Funkadelic. The group was inspired by the music of James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, crafting their own distinct style of Funk music. The band composed a trademark sound of advanced instrumentals, most notably that of synthesizers.

🎶If you hear any noise

It's just me and the boys

Hit me (groovin')

You gotta hit the band🎶

For the entirety of the 70’s and the 80’s George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic ruled the airwaves of the Black community and beyond with their upbeat Funk classics like The Mothership Connection (1975), The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (1976) and One Nation Under A Groove (1978) would not only capture the spirit of the times, but inspire the future generations of all music that would follow over the course of the next two decades.

From the late 80’s into the early 90’s the influence of George Clinton and Parliament gave birth to a new generation that furthered their legacy thanks to Rock acts like The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the entire world of Hip Hop including acts like Public Enemy, NWA, EPMD, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Redman and Tupac Shakur. George Clinton would go on to work with many of these artist who made cover versions of their own of his early hits like “Let Me Ride” from Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and “Bop Gun (One Nation)” from Ice Cube.

I can honestly say that George Clinton is one of my biggest heroes of music. All of George Clinton’s work was the soundtrack to my life growing up. Though my journey with his music started with Good Burger, it grew with my family life. As it turns out all of my family on my mother’s side in California were big fans of George Clinton and “P-Funk” as it is commonly referred to. When I would go visit my family in California over the summer my grandfather would always have songs like “Atomic Dog” and “Knee Deep (Not Just)”. To this day, every time I hear those songs I am taken on a trip through memory lane of my family reunions and summers out west.

I also love the ripple effect that George Clinton had on my favorite Hip Hop artist, especially that of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. The influence he had on these artist gave birth to a new generation of Hip Hop and music as a whole known as the G-funk era. This music is of course some of my biggest musical inspiration and none of it would exist with the Funk master George Clinton. In 1997 George Clinton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the rest of the members of Parliament-Funkadelic and it was definitely more than deserved for all the contributions he has made onto the world of music. Black Music Month celebrates George Clinton.