{"id":2755,"date":"2014-11-11T11:20:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T16:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2014-11-11T14:56:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T19:56:26","slug":"brothas-george-clinton-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/2014\/11\/brothas-george-clinton-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"BROTHAS&#8230; George Clinton book review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/rileyclinton\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/George-Clinton.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"587\" height=\"406\" align=\"left\" border=\"2\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalmemo.com\/\">National Memo<\/a>, the new online publication from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalmemo.com\/masthead\/\">Joe Conasan<\/a>, launches its <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/rileyclinton\">book review<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>George Clinton, funk\u2019s profane God-uncle, bandleader of both Parliament and Funkadelic, producer of legions more, was born in a lavatory in Kannapolis, North Carolina, so he \u201ccame by the funk honestly.\u201d His career festoons a half-century of black pop culture. A Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Hall of Famer since 1997, with three number-one singles and as many platinum albums, he\u2019s too lowbrow for the Grammys and less a legend than either of his heroes, Sly Stone or James Brown. But his broad, visionary catalog (over 45 albums) surveys a middle ground of both popularity and greatness that makes his work both easy to underestimate and tempting to over-praise. The many fitful pranks and drug capers in his new memoir (Brothas Be, Yo Like George\u2026) cast him as black rock\u2019s Jerry Garcia: the headdressed ringmaster who oversaw an expansive tribe of loosely affiliated acts (Parliament and Funkadelic) that laced hardcore funk with crude sci-fi myth. He tosses off enough decent recordings to become one of rap\u2019s go-to sources for primo samples (and the book contains a detailed \u201csampleography\u201d). By 1981, Clinton combined both acts into the P-Funk All-Stars before going solo the next year, but only after launching solo careers for bassist Bootsy Collins and keyboardist Bernie Worrell&#8230; (<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/rileyclinton\">more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Clinton, funk\u2019s profane God-uncle, bandleader of both Parliament and Funkadelic, producer of legions more, was born in a lavatory in Kannapolis, North Carolina, so he \u201ccame by the funk honestly.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2761,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}