George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk, is back, back after a 38-year-old break between Parliament albums and, damn, it’s been worth the wait. With Prince’s tragic and untimely passing having left an irreplaceable gap in Afrofuturism’s all too narrow field of Psychedelic-R&B-Soul-Rock-Space-Funk, the torch has been passed back up as it were, back to the man who started it all well over 60 years ago as a teenager in the backroom of his Plainfield, New Jersey barbershop singing with doo-wop quintet The Parliaments in the late 50s. A decade later would see the release the first three P-Funk albums (Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic music collective) Funkadelic (February 1970) Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow (July 1970) and the first Parliament album Osmium (September 1970) and the rest, as they say, is history.
With his legendary 1,200-pound Mothership now part of the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection, Clinton, 77, admits he is headed towards retirement saying recently, “I thought I had vertigo but it was my body saying, ‘You go. You go sit your ass down’. A valve, not in my heart itself, the electrical wires, I had shook them loose. I was funkin’ too hard.” He is on record as saying that Medicaid Fraud Dogg will not only be his final album but also his final tour and that he himself will be passing the torch down to the more youthful members of the P-Funk collective who he wants to continue on well after he has gone. Clinton has already prepared for the inevitable by shooting live performance footage of himself in action so that future generations will have the opportunity to enjoy the experience of Clinton “live” with P-Funk via hologram.
As the title suggests Medicaid Fraud Dogg, Parliament’s 10th album in 48 years, is preoccupied with health care (“Medicated Creep”, “Psychotropic”, “I’m Gon Make U Sick O’ Me”, “Pain Management”, “Medicaid Fraud Dogg”, “Insurance Man”) giving us perhaps the world’s first ever septuagenarian funk opus for the elderly. Clocking in at 1 hour and 46 minutes this double album of 23 tracks is the absolute full meal deal providing the listener with both food for thought and funk for daze. A fitting farewell for a man nearing his 80s who has served and continues to serve, shedding light on ageism as well as helping remove the stigma of age related illness and physical decline by having the courage and strength to talk about it openly with class and dignity. And, as always, with the funk!
Rating: 8.5/10
Star Rating: 4/5
2018 Song Of The Day Club Album Review 26/52