Parliament-Funkadelic is a phenomenon. Founded and driven by George Clinton, the musical and artistic collective formed an original blend of funk, psychedelia and futurism that continues to influence the cultural landscape today. The influence is perhaps most pronounced in Hip Hop, where Parliament-Funkadelic’s music has been sampled for decades, including by prominent artists such as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Kendrick Lamar. Most recently, Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic were recognized for their contributions to music and culture with the 2019 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
So it was with great anticipation that I spoke with Clinton on The Hardcore Humanism Podcast about how he was able to create such a powerful and enduring cultural phenomenon that continues to resonate to this day. And during our conversation, Clinton explained the key to his ongoing artistic exploration and success: you have to become obsessed with your work.
Early in his life, Clinton recognized that he was obsessed with cultural phenomena. He was fascinated with what would capture the imagination – from The Beatles to Davey Crockett to the hula hoop. “I got obsessed with the art of singing in a singing group … I saw Frankie Lymon do ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love? And I saw the reaction that people gave … I worked at the hula hoop place. And that was like an obsession. When that thing was so big,” Clinton told me. “I always related to The Twist … The Beatles … Davy Crockett. When I was a kid, everybody had a Davy Crockett jacket, coat, backpack, whatever… I realized that if you’re going to do anything, you’ve got to focus so thoroughly on it, that you become obsessed with it.”
Eventually, Clinton found his passion in funk music. But for him, funk was not simply a musical genre. It was a way of thinking about the world – a way of being open-minded and outrageous over conventional. And by pushing the envelope as far as it could go, he created the space artistically to allow his obsession to run free. Soon, Clinton became known for both his music and his live shows that shattered conventional boundaries. And it was that freedom to be obsessed, and pour everything he had into his work that helped propel Parliament-Funkadelic to become a phenomenon of its own. “We got obsessed with being funky … we did everything we could to be super funky. From the diapers, to the Holiday Inn towels as costumes, wigs … anything we felt that could be stupid,” Clinton recalled. “And as the music talent grew slicker, we always had to play it down … being funky and loose, till we actually got to being able to make chaos work … Run across the stage and never bump into each other … playing like we in church. And we was obsessed with that groove, that phenomenon.”
What Clinton describes as “obsession” with regard to his music and live performances could be understood as “flow.” Flow is a meditative, almost trance-like state in which one is completely immersed in a given moment and task. People who experience flow describe it as being an incredibly productive state in which time and the world around us melt away as one becomes consumed by what they are doing. Flow state can be so powerful and consuming that it often feels like someone is transported into an alternative reality. “And after a while you just disappear. And you’re just floating, like, transcendental. We was obsessed with that — with that being on the one with each other — and dancing underwater and not getting wet…,” Clinton said. “So, we was obsessed with giving ourselves an excuse to do what we were doing. We justify our obsession, even though it was ridiculous. We were still on the mothership traveling into outer space and we was obsessed with being there. And it became part of our reality.”
Underlying his ability to become obsessed is an open-mindedness that alternative senses of reality and understanding of the world were not only OK, but encouraged. Rather than trying to fit into more static conceptualization, Clinton embraced more outside-the-box thinking as part of the natural evolution of an artist. “I recognize that 21st century I’ve been waiting on all this time, is actually here. We get ready to do a quantum leap into another whole set of realities … Interpretations we used to deal with aren’t the same anymore. I gave up on reasoning along time ago. So that I realized what goes up don’t have to come down. So, that makes a lot of reality and logic suspect to me when you talk about a phenomenon,” he explained. “It’s just beyond that place where you can reason it out. But it still makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but it works and it wasn’t supposed to. Nobody never thought of it.”
One could argue that the enduring success of Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic’s music is that it tapped into a natural human drive to continuously change and evolve. Clinton’s obsession with phenomenon and his need to continuously grow and explore new approaches to art and music matches our own natural drive to evolve. “I think that’s human nature to evolve. It’s got us seeking … We’re growing. We get into trouble. We do things wrong. But that’s part of evolution,” Clinton described. “And then … it works before we even know what it’s supposed to work for.”
While for many people, the concept of starting their own phenomenon might feel overwhelming and out of reach, Clinton was inspired by bands like The Beatles to try to create something unique and special. Soon he realized that he had achieved the level of phenomena when Parliament-Funkadelic played at Madison Square Garden. “When Beatles came out, and they were able to transcend all of pop – whatever the charts was talking about – and go where they went, I knew that, oh, we can do that, too…,” Clinton recalled. “When we landed in Madison Square Garden … And when we did ‘Atomic Dog’ … I knew then that the whole thing was a phenomenon that was even different than anything we had ever done. From Mothership to “Atomic Dog,” we knew we made a footprint then.”
Clinton sees the enduring influence of his work on music today, particularly in Hip Hop. The phenomenon was gestating into different forms of music, beyond what Clinton himself had ever envisioned. “Between those times, between the Mothership and ‘Atomic Dog,’ you had Hip Hop, emerge, right in the midst of that, that we have realized the music was just beginning again,” he described. “It let me know. The music was making babies now.”
And for Clinton, creating a world renown phenomenon is just a step along the way of his artistic exploration. Parliament-Funkadelic continues to play live shows. And Clinton finds artistic expression in his visual art, much of which began as he was conceptualizing album covers and live show posters for Parliament Funkadelic. And as he explains it, he continues to live by the open-minded attitude of funk. “Funk is attitude that you take to save your life. After you do the best you can, you say ‘funk it.’ To me … that attitude applies in a lot of situations, you’d like to just do the best you can and leave it alone … Don’t trip out, don’t beat yourself up. But once you know that you’ve done the best you can, you can literally be alright with yourself.”
Photo credit: William Thoren
