[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. 

“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. 

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.

Erick Sermon is back with a new single featuring Mr. Cheeks, Method Man and Craig Mack called “Come Thru.” The song is not to be confused with “Come Thru” from his 2010 album Music. He described “Come Thru” to Rolling Stone as,

“A party record; a regular freestyle record. The mixture [of Method Man, Mr. Cheeks and Craig Mack] makes a good club record. Getting everyone to collaborate is like friends getting back together. Everyone who I’m on the record with I’m already friends with, so it’s like a normal get-together.”

Hip-hop fans are intrigued by Craig Mack’s verse because he sounds like his original flow but Sermon’s comment indicates that his contribution is new. “Come Thru” is from Sermon’s seventh album that does not have a title. He has Kickstarter campaign for the album and you can find out more about it here.

[youtube id=”_Z7YLzftVwo”] Mally G and Lil Malik were a hip-hop duo from South Carolina and Pennslyvania signed to Dallas Austin’s Rowdy Records. They considered themselves to be the hardest teenaged rappers and immediately called out Kriss Kross on their first single “Head Or Gut.”  The 14-year olds’ debut album The Untold Truth was released in the summer of ’93. “We Getz Busy” had a feature from Erick Sermon and took aim at fellow teen rappers Da Youngstas and R&B hip-hop group Another Bad Creation.  Sermon, Lord Finesse, Biz Markie, Austin, and Diamond D produced their album that had three singles. They were accepted among hardcore hip-hop fans but never achieved the mainstream popularity enjoyed by Kriss Kross despite their affiliation with Sermon’s Hit Squad collective. In 1995, they collaborated with Too Short on the song “Thangs Change” before dissolving the group.

Mally G linked with Erick Sermon to release his solo album in ’95 on Rowdy Records under his government name Jamal. Last Chance, No Breaks had two underground hits with “Fades Em All” and “Keep It Real.”

Malik recorded the single “Malik Goes On” for Rowdy in’95 but his solo album for the label was shelved.  He later worked with his cousin Snoop Dogg, Monica and Tha Dog Pound. In 2005 he released his solo album The Game Needs Me under the name Hershey Loc.