At the beginning of 1975, Gerald Ford was president, the United States and Soviet Union were approaching a détente in the space race, and a barber-turned-singer with a wild imagination named George Clinton was redefining the possibilities of funk music with his bands, Parliament and Funkadelic. That year, their iconic album Mothership Connection played off one of Clinton's fantasies, sending Black people to space. Clinton felt it was up to him to paint a new tableau of Afrofuturism. Many of the songs on the album were instant dance-floor anthems — and part of funk's biggest crossover moment to date. In this episode, Clinton and many of his collaborators on Mothership Connection, including bass icon Bootsy Collins and trombonist-arranger Fred Wesley, look back on the drugs, diapers, and free-form camaraderie that fueled this psychedelic masterpiece.
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