Bootsy Collins on the ‘Oneness’ of Black History Month, His New Video ‘Hip Hop Lollipop’
Bootsy Collins presides over a kaleidoscopic funktopia in the video for his new song “Hip Hop Lollipop,” a remake of “Club Funkateers” from his recent album, The Power of the One. The clip features Hamburg artist Fantaazma rapping and dancing around clips of Collins singing the “Funkateers” chorus — “How much you got, how much you gon’ get?” The song features a virtuosic bass solo break by Victor Wooten that’s so hot sparks come flying off his instrument in the clip, as well as impressive saxophone licks by Branford Marsalis.
The video opens with Collins welcoming Fantaazma to his club, giving her the titular hip-hop lollipop, and before long she has transformed, wearing a club-ready sparkly blue jumpsuit and starts rapping about funk, fusion, and music evolution. Patti Collins, Bootsy’s wife and collaborator, also sings the catchy “messin’ with my mind” refrain from the original, while Bootsy vibes in the club.
“I was just strutting down the street when the Mothership descended on me,” Fantaazma says. “I was touched by Bootzilla’s synergy and became a part of the trilogy. He gave me that ‘hip hop lollipop’ and it flipped my script, now I’m flying on the lollipop ship! I haven’t been the same since. You should try one, it’s so funkin’ fun!”
“It’s kinda like the music evolution of Miles Davis, but with bubblegum hip-hop rap on top, for the youngin’ to really get a lick at her talent,” Collins says. “This remake includes the phenom bassist Victor Wooten. Hope you dig it!”
Collins wanted to release the track, which shouts out Sly Stone and Victor Wooten, during February’s Black History Month. “Black History Month gives us a chance to express our oneness as a unified team, to embrace our blackness, and stay in ‘good trouble’ like our hero, Dr. King,” he says via email. “We stand on the backs of others, in everything we do. You are the Power of the One, to thine self be true. You Dig?!” He signed his missive, “Bootsy baby!!!✌🎸👍”
Collins recently reflected on his own history for Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums podcast in which he discussed the making of Parliament’s Mothership Connection LP. In the episode, which also features interviews with George Clinton, Fred Wesley, and many others, Collins unpacks the stories behind “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),” “Mothership Connection (Star Child),” and the group’s first gold single, “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker).” “I would say everybody was so ‘on the one’ that we never even thought about it,” Collins said in the podcast. “We were just having a good time. To me, one song didn’t overcome another. So it was all to me like one big jam. Like one big jam party.”
