George Clinton On Landing A New Mothership At This Weekend’s Essence Fest: ‘We’re Going To Keep Funking’

“I saw it yesterday for the first time, and I got that rush again from all the enthusiastic people around it and just what it means,” says George Clinton, the inimitable Chief Architect of Funk, who is discussing the imminent arrival of the Mothership, a 1,200-pound stage prop his group Parliament created while touring in support of their 1975 album Mothership Connection. “Now it’s on a cultural mission. It’s transcended all of the commercial hype and all that. It represents the culture. We got the main one still in the Smithsonian, and this one’s getting ready to do the hard lifting now as we get ready to jump the planet in real life. We are going to let them know that the Mothership has been flying for quite a while.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Mothership and to commemorate the occasion, a third iteration of the ship has been erected, an ambitious project that only recently came to completion. Dubbed the “Landing of the Mothership,” it will be unveiled July 5 at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans as the grand finale headlining act of the ESSENCE Festival of Culture.

“We got the main one still in the Smithsonian, and this one’s getting ready to do the heavy lifting as we get ready to jump the planet in real life. We are going to let them know that the Mothership has been flying for quite a while.” This Clinton says from the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville where he’s slated to tape a live podcast.

Long gone are the rainbow-hued dreads that defined his look for decades. Instead, Clinton is rocking a slick, white fedora over his now short hair paired with a yellow Sly Stone jersey. It’s a fitting tribute to his late friend and collaborator, who contributed to Funkadelic’s 1981 album, The Electric Spanking of War Babies, Clinton’s 2008 solo album, Gangsters of Love, and Funkadelic’s 2014 release, Shake the Gate, among other projects. Though it’s been just over a year, it’s still raw.

“That was rough; I don’t even like to talk about that,” Clinton says of losing Sly in June 2025. “That was a real close friend. We had a lot of fun, did lots of crazy things, lots of musical things—just a whole lifetime of fun.”

“Fun” and “crazy” doesn’t even begin to describe Clinton’s life. Born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, but raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, Clinton’s introduction to music was largely shaped by the doo-wop sounds of the 1950s. Inspired by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, he formed his first band, the Parliaments, while making extra money straightening hair at a local barbershop. After a stint as a staff songwriter at Motown Records, he eventually swapped the doo-wop for P-Funk and never looked back.

As the founder of Parliament-Funkadelic, Clinton concocted a rich amalgamation of funk, soul, R&B, rock and experimental jazz, a mix that would later be coined Afrofuturism. Coupled with Clinton’s often extraterrestrial, intergalactic-themed lyrics and outrageously colorful clothing, P-Funk carved its own niche while laying the blueprint for numerous acts to follow. Not to mention, P-Funk’s music became the building blocks of the G-Funk of the 1990s.

Clinton’s legacy and cultural contributions are enormous and h continues touring to this day. A recent Pollstar Boxoffice Report for a George Clinton show at the Detroit Opera. House on Jan. 31 grossed an $275,625 on 2,727 tickets sold. Elsewhere, a show promoted as George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic on Sept. 21, 2025 at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown, Australia grossed $166,978 on 2,386 tickets.

Now, with advancements in technology and materials, the new Mothership is nowhere near as heavy and wasn’t quite as complicated to recreate. With the help of famed Casablanca Records executive Neil Bogart, who gave Clinton a $275,000 budget for production—the most ever for a Black act to tour—the first one, built out of aluminum in 1975 by renowned designer Jules Fisher, was originally used to deliver Clinton’s alter-ego, Dr. Funkenstein, to the stage.

It premiered on Oct. 27, 1976 at the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood as part of the P-Funk Earth Tour. There, in all his funkdafied glory, Clinton descended the stairs to “Mothership Connection (Star Child)” as the lights beamed, sparklers lit up and steam billowed beneath the enormous vessel. It was a sight to behold, especially in the mid-70s, when stage production wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as it is today. For the next three, four and sometimes up to an unfathomable eight hours, Clinton and the P-Funk collective would treat the audience to what was described as “funk operas,” making them more of a theatrical experience than a typical concert.

Of course, the music fit perfectly. For Mothership Connection, Clinton enlisted a horn section for the first time led by Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, previously of James Brown’s backing band the J.B.’s, adding another layer of funk.

“When we did it, we was Motown-induced, and then it went right into psychedelic, rock ’n roll guitars, so we had those two,” Clinton explains. “Then Sly Stone came around and James Brown came around, and they were popping horns all over the place. When Bootsy [Collins] came with us in the early ‘70s, he brought the party. All of them was with us at one point. It made us well-rounded. Now we have the doo-wop era from the ‘50s, the Motown era, the Jimi Hendrix era and the J.B.’s and Sly Stone. We called it P-Funk at that point because we had all the variations of funk you could have.”

It helped Clinton’s childhood dreams come true. A Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Songwriters Hall of Fame honoree and a Hip-Hop Grandmaster Award recipient—and that’s only scratching the surface—he never imagined funk would take him this far.

“I dreamed of doing those things watching Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, the Temptations and Motown—you watch all those different things,” he says. “Then you watch the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and you see Sly Stone and I just paid attention to all of them because I was a songwriter at first, so I appreciate all the variations of music.

“To be able to get in there and be a part of all the different styles and see them coming, especially something like hip-hop…I could see it coming a mile away, and I was able to join and be a part of that.”

Clinton will turn 85 on July 22, and with the amount of drugs and alcohol he’s seen in his lifetime, it’s justifiably mind-boggling that he’s outlived so many of his contemporaries. Much like The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, who’s 82, he partied hard and lived to tell about it. Believe it or not, the pandemic was crucial in his decision to move forward with his career. In a 2019 interview with the now-defunct website HipHopDX, Clinton vowed to retire, claiming he “funked too hard.” But once the world went into lockdown, he was able to take a well-earned rest, which only fueled the fire to get back on the road.

“It re-inspired me because we didn’t quite finish because of the pandemic,” he says. “But it gave me a chance to rest and reflect and know that the mission wasn’t finished. We’re still on the mission to get our copyright recaptures and all of that stuff, so we still got some fighting for the mothership to do, so yeah, we ain’t thinking about quitting. That just re-energizes us.”

He adds, “Plus, I got three generations of family and fans that’s still ready to funk. Our grandkids and great grandkids are out here, some of them in the band. They’re taking over and we’re actually just funking for fun.”

Clinton is referring to multiple legal battles, including one with Universal Music Group. Last month, Clinton and his production companies filed a lawsuit against UMG, alleging the label wrongfully froze more than $1.1 million in royalty payments. Attorneys for Clinton filed a 20-page complaint in May at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleging UMG is in breach of contract

Clinton’s lawyers accuse the label of using a prior legal dispute between Clinton and the estate of late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboard player Bernie Worrell as the reason for withholding all of Clinton’s royalties. In that third-party case, Worrell’s estate wanted a declaration stating Worrell was 50 percent co-owner of several Parliament-Funkadelic recordings.

Though a Detroit federal judge ruled in Clinton’s favor due to the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations last September, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the case on May 27, ruling that genuine disputes of material remain over whether the statute of limitations bars the state’s claims of co-ownership over P-Funk recordings made between 1976 and 1979.

For now, thankfully, the focus is on the upcoming “Landing of the Mothership” event, his upcoming birthday and ongoing mission to bring the funk to the world. When asked what his secret sauce is, he replied, “Having something to funk for. I found that, so we’re going to keep funking.”