[youtube id=”3rutWVNjSuk”]George Clinton’s T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M linked him back with Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, Junie Morrison and Fred Wesley after years of them not working together. The 1996 album was a lot of jamming in the vein of all three of his groups including Funkadelic and the P-Funk All-Stars. The Parliament presence brought up past themes with “Summer Swim” which could have been the sequel to “Aqua Boogie” but without the group’s horn section.Â
“If Anybody Gets Funked Up (It’s Gonna Be You)” was another one of Clinton’s collaborations with rappers this time it was MC Breed and Erick Sermon. Clinton wrote the song with Belita Woods and Gary “Mudbone” Cooper both longtime members of his funk clan. The slinky bass-lead track opened the album with Clinton’s seamless mastery of hip-hop and funk. West Coast G-Funk influenced the song’s fat basslines and added to its ability to magnetically pull bodies to the dancefloor.
It wasn’t Clinton’s first time working with MC Breed because he was one of many rappers to participate on the politically-minded “Paint The White House Black” from Hey Man Smell My Finger three years earlier. He had already made the connection between the genres back on The Cinderella Theory in 1989 when he recorded the quirky “Tweakin'” with Chuck D and Flavor Flav. Clinton understood earlier than most artists the importance of working with hip-hop artists from Generation X most who grew up listening to him and started sampling his music for their records. “If Anybody Gets Funked Up (It’s Gonna Be You)” was one part of the charm of T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. that reignited the band and set off the Mothership Reconnection Tour with Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and the P-Funk All-Stars. The Japanese version of the album contains “Secret Love” co-written by Clinton and his son Trey Lewd. T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. was considered a comeback for Clinton and it would be his last solo album until How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent? was released on his The C Kunspyruhzy label in 2005 and had appearances from Prince and Jazza Pha.Â
Parliament’s Medicaid Fraud Dogg was released in 2018 after a 28-year break. In 2019, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and have continued their final tour.
