Mothership Connection
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Afrofuturist ideas were taken up in 1975 by George Clinton and his bands Parliament and Funkadelic with his magnum opus Mothership Connection and the subsequent The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, P-Funk Earth Tour, Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome, and Motor Booty Affair. In the thematic underpinnings to P-Funk mythology ("pure cloned funk"), Clinton in his alter ego Starchild spoke of "certified Afronauts, capable of funkitizing galaxies." --Sholem Stein |
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Mothership Connection is an album by the funk band Parliament, released in 1975. This concept album of P Funk mythology is usually rated as one of Parliament's best. Mothership Connection was the first P-funk album to feature Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, who had left The J.B.'s, James Brown's backing band.
History
Describing the album, George Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang."
Dr. Dre prominently sampled the songs "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" and "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" on his album The Chronic.
Reception
In 2003 the TV network VH1 named Mothership Connection the 55th greatest album of all time.
