The Godfather of Funk was honored at ceremonies in Newark and Plainfield before taking the stage with his seminal funk outfit Friday night. He was joined by special guests Questlove, Nona Hendryx, Ice-T and more!
“I ain’t never been nervous in my life,” George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk, told the crowd of students and faculty at Avon Avenue Elementary School in Newark, NJ Thursday morning. “But looking at you guys … I realize how small I must’ve been when we started Parliament-Funkadelic. I didn’t realize we were this young, but this is where we started.”
Clinton, who founded the Parliaments on Avon Avenue Elementary’s playground when he was a student there in the 1950’s, was honored by the school for his contributions to the world of music and art. Jennifer Tsukayama, vice president of Arts Education for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, David Rodriguez, executive vice president at NJPAC, and Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, took to the stage to say a few words about the Newark native who brought funk to the forefront of contemporary music in the 70’s and 80’s.
“Today we are all funkateers,” Tsukayama proclaimed.
Students took to the stage to pay tribute to Clinton, performing P-Funk staples “Flashlight” and “Give Up the Funk” alongside funk group Fast Food. During “Give Up the Funk,” Clinton treated the audience to an impromptu performance, joining the group of students and leading the audience in dance. I’ve seen Clinton on stage many times; this was indubitably one of his finest performances. At 80, Clinton’s energy is unmatched by his peers, mirroring the youthful glow that pervades the student body at the elementary school.
A sense of unity seems to follow Clinton wherever he goes. The funk is universal. Wherever there is George Clinton, there is a nation not far behind him, grooving.
The students participated in a brief Q&A session led by Vivian Scott Chew, president and founder of Power 2 Inspire. During the session, a student said that their grandmother and Clinton were childhood friends who shared a birthday, so they would often celebrate together. The student’s grandmother emerged from the audience and embraced Clinton, who looked happy to see his old friend. It was surreal and grounding to see a man who had accomplished so much, who seemed so out of this world, come back to his old stomping grounds in North Jersey.
Two floors below the auditorium, the school’s administration unveiled a mural of Clinton in the institution’s music room, now named in honor of the funkateer. There he reminisced about his time in Brick City.
“Up and down Avon Ave., Seymour Ave., Chadwick Ave., all the way down to Hunterdon Street, we were singing in the evening under streetlights just to hear the harmony ring out through different places,” Clinton recalled to a room full of reporters. “When I look at the streets I remember rehearsing here, or singing there. I remember walking through the alleyways … and we would be singing all the time. It was that doo-wop era, right when rock and roll was just getting started.”
A few miles away and a couple of hours later, the city of Plainfield held a ceremony at the Plainfield Youth Center in Clinton’s honor where they unveiled Parliament-Funkadelic Way, a street named in recognition of the group that cut its teeth at the Silk Palace, a barber shop that Clinton owned and operated at 216 Plainfield Ave.
Clinton was joined at the ceremony by many of his bandmates, including longtime P-Funk mainstays Michael Hampton and Lige Curry, 3rd Generation Parliament members Tonysha Nelson, Scottie Clinton and Garrett Shider, and Clinton’s family including his wife, Carlon Clinton.
It was an eventful day for the progenitor of funk, but as the old saying goes, “There ain’t no party like a P-Funk party cos’ a P-Funk party don’t stop!”
On Friday night and in celebration of his 80th birthday, George Clinton performed for two hours with Parliament-Funkadelic at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, NJ. Guests were treated to performances of P-Funk classics like “Atomic Dog,” more recent material that highlights contributions from the group’s youngest members including “Pole Power,” and fan favorites like “Red Hot Mama,” “Make My Funk the P-Funk” and “Mothership Connection.”
The group was joined by special guests at various points throughout the night including Questlove, Ice-T and Nona Hendryx.
A P-Funk setlist encompasses a myriad of musical styles across the funk spectrum including soul, rock, pop and hip-hop, and this night was no different.
At one point most of the band left the stage, leaving only keyboardist Danny Bedrosian and guitarists Michael Hampton and Gods Weapon alongside Clinton. The Godfather of Funk proceeded to drop slices of uncanny wisdom and key lines from Funkadelic’s early days on the nearly sold-out audience at NJPAC.
“If you will suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotion,” Clinton proclaimed. “Free your mind and your ass will follow!”
“Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y’all have knocked her up.” Clinton said, the words ringing as true today as they did 50 years ago. “I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe. I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit.”
The audience’s spirits (and probably a good deal of the audience members themselves) were high, often abandoning their seats to dance, an unavoidable side effect of funk. For a few hours, it was as if all was right in the world.
If you take a moment to look back at Clinton’s career, you’ll find a fruitful and influential body of work that crosses lines and removes boundaries. When Clinton broke down barriers between musical genres, he broke down the barriers that separated people within those communities, and this was more apparent than ever Friday night, as a wildly diverse crowd took in the sounds of Parliament-Funkadelic. Under George Clinton, we are One Nation, Under a Groove.
One can only wonder what’s next for the Godfather of Funk.
“I’m just getting started,” he told a room full of reporters in the music room of Avon Avenue Elementary.
A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 International Issue of The New School Free Press. Read more stories from the print issue here.
I play, I write, I play, I write...
