MOTHERSHIP CONNECTED

An oral history of the unsung women in the P-Funk universe.

Neblett is personally invested in this story: His mother, Mallia Franklin, was a backup singer with George Clinton’s pioneering acts Parliament and Funkadelic and was later a member of the spinoff women-led group Parlet. But the family connection doesn’t incline him to soften a story that, especially by the end of the ’70s, was consumed by infighting, power plays, and epic levels of drug abuse. Before that drama, though, P-Funk was a vibrant and pathbreaking commune, and women played a substantial part in it. Franklin introduced Clinton to bassist William “Bootsy” Collins, who deeply influenced the P-Funk sound; Lynn Mabry and Dawn Silva were veterans of Sly and the Family Stone and would later front the Brides of Funkenstein, Clinton’s most successful and critically admired offshoot. Neblett worked on this project for years, and he spoke to seemingly every relevant person in the P-Funk universe, from Clinton and Sly Stone and Collins to hangers-on and businesspeople. The book may be too bulky and filled with insider chatter for a casual reader, and the oral history structure restricts Neblett’s ability to put the P-Funk story in the context of larger trends in pop and R&B at the time. But the book is entertaining in itself, mainly on the strength of everybody’s candor. Misogyny was rampant, which was clear to anybody looking at Parlet and Brides record covers. (In theory, the visuals were meant to support Clinton’s Afrofuturist vision, but Franklin mocks the imagery as “space hoes.”) The disposability of the women extended to the groups’ ever-shifting lineups, in which they functioned mostly as backup singers, which is unfortunate; Neblett’s book suggests that a saner, more sober environment could have made the women stars. As Clinton succumbed to ever-deeper cocaine abuse, the women jumped (Mother)ship.

A brash and thorough accounting of a crucial element of the funk firmament.