Chords for 5 George Clinton Samples You Should Know

[D#m] When hip-hop had its renaissance in the 90s, rappers were sampling a lot of records from [B] their youth.
During rap's formative years in the [D#m] 70s, funk was a huge [C] influence on [E] the genre.
And from funk, you had P-Funk, whose godfather is a prolific and eccentric dude by the name
of George Clinton.
Remember that name.
P-Funk Collective became the foundation of the West [Bm] Coast G-Funk.
Folks like Dr.
Dre, Ice Cube, and Snoop Dogg not only sampled a whole [E] heap of P-Funk music,
[Bm] they collaborated with its founder, George Clinton.
Hey, you remember him?
Even most recently, Clinton made an appearance on the opening track of Kendrick Lamar's
To Pimp [F#] a Butterfly.
[F#m] _
_ _ [G] [D] But this man's influence [F#m] goes way [A] beyond the city of Compton, [Bm] because East Coasters like
De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, and Mad Villain among many have all sampled George Clinton's work too.
All we're saying is, if you love [F#m] hip-hop, you oughta know the [Bm] name George Clinton.
So today, we're gonna [E] briefly list for you 5 George Clinton samples you should know.
_ Shit!
Goddamn!
Get off!
Get off your ass and Jam is a track from George Clinton's band Funkadelic.
The intro should stand out to you.
It's the same riff that you hear throughout Public Enemy's Bring the Noise.
How low can you go?
Death Row?
It also makes an appearance on NWA's 100 Miles and [C#] Runnin', albeit subtly.
In fact, the [N] usage here was the crux in a landmark court case in 2004 that resulted
in the ruling that every music sample [F] must be paid for, regardless [G#] of how small or noticeable
the usage [A] is. _
[Em] _ _ [G] Another Funkadelic [Am] track from the same album in 1975 [A] found [Em] new life via Childish [F#m] Gambino.
_ [E] _ _ [B] _
[C] Yeah, taking a side step from hip-hop to highlight this [E] one, because Donald Glover, on his recent
outing as [A] Childish Gambino, dropped the rap and took up the funk on Awaken My Love.
[E] Clinton himself has showered praise on Glover for bringing [N] back the funk, and Glover hasn't
shied [E] away from saying how much [Bm] Funkadelic has inspired his latest [A] work.
In fact, you could argue that there are [N] slight similarities between the composition of his
_ and Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, which Glover has [E] said is one of his [Bm] favorite albums of all time.
_ [Gm] _ _ Atomic [N] Dog!
Back into hip-hop sampling we go, here we have George Clinton's unmistakable [D] Atomic Dog.
[Cm] _ [D] Even if you're not familiar with this one entirely, you'd most definitely be familiar
with one of its [Dm] hooks.
How low can you go?
Death Row?
It also makes an appearance on NWA's 100 Miles and Runnin', albeit subtly.
Yep, you've heard this one pop up many times, so here's a rapid fire of a [G] few of them.
There's Snoop Dogg.
[A#m] _ [Bm] _ _ [A] Snoop again.
[Bm] [C#m] Another one by Snoop.
_ _ [Dm] Oh, and one by Snoop's protege Lil Bow Wow.
Yeah, there's a [G] trend here for sure, however Snoop [Dm] Dogg's love for George Clinton's work
goes beyond the Atomic Dog.
He's been given [Gm] Clinton's blessing, has sampled a whole bunch of [Dm] Clinton's work, and has also
worked alongside Clinton himself on numerous occasions. _ _
[Fm] _ _ [Em] Knee Deep has been sampled many a time.
It's appeared [N] on cuts by Dr.
Dre, Tupac, LL Cool J, and most notably, Della Soul.
[Em] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ [Em] _
[G#] [G] Della Soul also [Am] has the distinction of being the first artist to actually reach out [Fm] to
George Clinton and seek permission [F#] to use a sample of his work.
[E] Or as Clinton likes to tell it,
[N] When they tell me I'm paying me a hundred thousand dollars, I say fine. _
I [G#] should do it again.
[N] By 1993, Clinton was well aware that folks had been sampling his work.
So, in response, he released a full album of snippets from his VASA recorded catalog
purely for the samplers.
It was a spirited idea, even though it had its drawbacks, but hey, it spawned a couple
of distinguished releases.
The solo drum track, I Didn't Come Rhythm, was sampled by Nas,
Represent, [D#] represent!
_ Represent, represent!
Crooklyn Dodgers [Fm] 95,
The little [G#] kids are go train,
The metaphors enter [Am] my brain from
and Snoop Dogg.
Again, if you comb through Snoop's 90s catalog, you'll find a buttload of George Clinton samples.
_ [E] One of the awesome things about George Clinton is that he didn't hate [C] on the hip-hop community
when he [Bm] found out that they had been sampling his music extensively.
Quite the opposite.
He embraced hip-hop and its artists, choosing to work alongside them,
[E] nurturing and encouraging them.
And there's nothing quite as motivating as when the old school champions the new school.
And those were five George [Bm] Clinton samples you should know.
[E] [Bm] Did we miss any of your funky [D] favorites?
Feel free to comment below and we might cover them [E] in a future list.
You can also catch the godfather of funk in action
when he and Parliament [C#m] Funkadelic roll into Melbourne [Em] on the [Bm] 27th of September
and Sydney on the [E] 28th.
So yeah, [Bm] until next time, I've been Michael for The Culture Kids on Tone Deaf.
[C#m] Bye!
[D] _ _ [N] _