George Clinton on Tavis Smiley

white_tea

George Clinton was the Tavis Smiley Show last night on P.B.S.It was a pretty unbearable interview, but amusing nonetheless. Tavis and Clinton talked funk and about Clinton's upcoming release; there was no mention of rock, crack or otherwise, when Tavis asked George why he hasn't put out any records for more than 10 years.Here's a small sample from the interview. The whole thing is available at http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200508/20050829_transcript.html#2Tavis: I haven't done any independent research on this yet, but I can't imagine that there is any artist who has been more sampled by this hip-hop generation than you.Clinton: Oh, that was the plan. That was the plan. You know, they get???they could only have little bits of funk. They didn't want to identify it, they didn't want to recognize it. Just enough to, you know, keep them dancing and, (unintelligible) wait a minute, that's the same??????Me, Myself and I???, that's the same song. Oh, you know, just kept them on the dance floor. We didn't go nowhere, I went to the bathroom.Tavis: Yeah. (laughs)Clinton: And???we put out records here and there. We was on other people's records. Snoop, and Dre, and Ice Cube, and???you know, I'm still under cover, but I'm still around.Tavis: Yeah. What do you make of the fact that you are the most sampled artist by this generation of hip-hop stars?Clinton: Well, I made it easy for them. I put out a sample record. As soon as I saw them sampling...Tavis: You sample the record, I'll make... (laugh)Clinton: I put out a couple of???records, CDs, move the voices out the way, move the guitars out of the way, and put it out all kind of ways so they could become easy. I realized, any time, I look for music that--parents hate. I look for music that old musicians hate. That's gonna be the next music. So when I saw them put that music out and everybody was talking about oh, that ain't music, I hurried up and jumped on.