That Drug Thang,That Drug Thang,That Drug Thang,That Drug Thang,That Drug Thang,

You posted the following in response to the question "What’s A Funkateer

(Drugs helped but wasn’t mandatory. the music helped but READ the Funkadelic lp covers and if you can understand them and follow from one lp to the next you were definitely there. (with the help of some serious smoke i followed all the way through all the covers)

I wanted to comment on this in light of several situations…….that I have recently become aware of where "funkateers" have recently gotten themselves in to "drug related" trouble.

In both cases these were people who had quit for quite some time and had decided to start up again for various reasons. In one case the person is now in jail & in the other the person seems headed down the road of self destruction.

We have discussed this topic quite a bit here on the board and in my mind we can’t discuss it enough. One of the common stereotypes applied to funkateers is that they are ‘high’ all of the time or that you have to be ‘high in order to groove to the music.

I would hate for younger people reading this to think that FUNK music in and of itself is promoting the use of drugs. Now I won’t deny that it is something that was there, however it was something that was common across all demographic sectors and not unique to funkateers in the 1970’s. The United States was then & still is today a drug culture

The kind of drug use that is often associated with the fans and that you are referring to specifically is associated with both the album covers and song lyrics of P-Funk.

20 years ago I thought that those song lyrics & album covers were very creative. Today I look back on them with a bit of nostalgia. I will always feel that they were the …..pinnacle of a form of creativity that isn’t seen very often on today’s music scene.

However when I get the opportunity to discuss P-Funk with younger people they often will focus on drugs and feel that this is what the band and it’s music were all about.

Nothing could be further from the truth, sure there were drug messages and such in the lyrics and on the album covers but, that’s not what the band was all about.

My greatest disappointment in George Clinton has to do with the fact that he did not take things to the next level. He had created the foundation for a cultural movement ……….that could easily have been the most powerful force in this country. He could have molded that into something great.

Instead he kinda winked about the drug messages and made as much money as he could off of it. He is still doing that today.

This band had a powerful message and had created something that was truly great. Instead of having a legacy which is one that we could say was the "beginning of something", it has a legacy that is closer to the "end of something".

Part of what ended this cultural movement (and the band itself) was in fact drugs. I have never forgotten that, it’s painful…for me to think about it. Lives, careers and families have been destroyed because of it. One of the reasons why I rarely discuss P-Funk here is because it’s actually painful for me to think about and I get mad when I do. They sold us all out for "short term profits".

Sorry for being so long winded but I guess to sum it up:

"I disagree with your definition of a funkateer"

I’m drug free & staying that way !!