With the "Parliafunkadelicment thang," leader George Clinton has succeeded in creating two distinct identities for one band—the mystical voodoo of the Funkadelics and the stabbing, humorous funk of Parliament. While Funkadelic has no discernible influence, Parliament is more closely attuned to the post-Sly wave. But unlike the Ohio Players or Commodores, the group refuses to play it straight. Instead, Clinton spews his jive, conceived from some cosmic funk vision, under titles like "Super-groovalisticprosifunkstication," "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" and "Mothership Connection (Star-Child)."
success,
Chocolate City. With little regard for theme or lyric development, Clinton weaves a nonstop rap of nonsensical street jargon ("Somebody said, 'Is there funk after death'/I said is seven up") like a freaked out James Brown. And oddly enough, former Brown sidemen, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, make up Parliament's horn section, along with Joe Farrell and the Brecker Brothers. But this album refuses to be taken seriously, except as Clinton's parody of modern funk. After all, it was George Clinton who renamed James Brown the "Grandfather of Soul." (RS 209)
JOE MCEWEN
After George Clinton's Funkadelic crashed and burned -- taking the whole era of psychedelic funk-rock with it -- up sprouted Parliament, an astonishing new group building wonderlands of fun and sass and ass and horns and keyboards. Whereas the old, guitar-centered band glowered at the straight world from its freak-trench, Parliament found a way to party with it -- and still bring their own Babel of stoned jokes, invented alter egos and dirty, funny innuendo. These records, full of tracks that stuff a couple of minisongs into one megasong, sound good right now in the frightened world: They are self-contained polities of exuberantly good times. 1974's
Up for the Down Stroke reflects Sly Stone's moody sound strategies; the metamorphosis is not yet complete. By
Chocolate City (1975), the band had the plot down: Bernie Worrell's space-age keyboard sounds, Bootsy Collins' watery bass lines, Clinton's mad-ringmaster raps. But
Mothership Connection, from the same year, with its spacious, carnivalesque vibe and exhortations to funk ecstasy, was the masterpiece, the slang creator, the icon builder, the master narrative -- or "the bomb," as Clinton succinctly put it before anyone else.
BEN RATLIFF
(From RS 921, May 1, 2003)
