The Natural Way to Dro (Part III)

Funk art pioneer Pedro Bell got his first taste of the Black power movement during an extended visit with family in Florida.

"When I was in sixth grade I stayed with some family in St. Petersburg," he said. "They had separate schools down there, but that allowed them to do some things that you could never get away with in Chicago. They had an Afrocentric curriculum, which I had never seen before."

By the time he enrolled at Bradley University in the late '60s, the Black power movement was in full flower, even in Peoria. "I was just glad the revolution had finally arrived," he said.

On campus, Bell met people like Mark Clark, a Black Panther leader who started a free breakfast program for public school students in Peoria. "Youngblood was real cool with me," Bell said. (Clark was later tragically murdered, along with Illinois chapter president Fred Hampton, by the Chicago police in 1969).

Like many artists of the time, Bell's work began to reflect this Black Power aesthetic. His piece, "Motherhood in Red Black and Green" features a mother and son wearing thick brown Afros and defiant glares, their outlines suggestive of the African continent's shape. The piece was part of Indiana Review's Funk feature and is one of the few Bell still has from that period.

"I lent some artwork to the Black Panthers for an art show they were doing," Bell said, with a laugh. "Later I asked them when I was going to get my shit back and they told me that it "belonged to the people."

That incident, along with Bell's brief participation in a Panther protest that caused his expulsion from Bradley ("I was there holding a sign for five minutes and they got me for perpetrating some shit!"), soured Bell on the running with the Panthers, but he never soured on the Movement itself, particularly the music.

When James Brown dropped Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud) in 1968, Bell said the whole game changed. To illustrate how much, peep The Godfather's performance on Playboy After Dark.



With it's proto-funk bass line and soul-centric message (We're people/We're just like the birds and the bees/We'd rather die on our feet/Than be livin' on our knees) dropped like an atomic bomb on the consciousness of Black America.
"Some revolutions have happened to the sound of music," he said. "But with that record, James Brown helped make it cool to be Black. That was important."

Before he started working with George Clinton, Bell said his musical education was rounded out by two other legends, B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix.

"I saw Hendrix in May and B.B. in June," he said. "The first time I saw Hendrix, tears started coming down my eyes. Then I went to see B.B. and all these white kids were yelling in the crowd and I had to tell them to shut the fuck up so I could hear him play. And when you think about it, Funkadelic is just Sun Ra + Hendrix + B.B. That's it."

Judge for yourself:

Peep Hendrix on the Dick Cavett show, talking about his Electric Church (9:29 mark), which sounds like something right out of the book of P-Funk.

Here's a clip from Sun Ra's 1974 movie Space is the Place. Sun Ra is credited with his jazz innovation, but he is one of the first Funk philosophers.



And then there's B.B. Of course. This footage is taken from the 1974 concert in Zaire, during the Ali/Foreman fight. Thanks to my compatriot Vanessa, who hipped me to the fact that there's a movie coming out about the concert.

***Bonus
I wasn't sure how to work this in, but when I asked Pedro what contemporary stuff he was listening to, the surprise answer: The Stanky Legg. This was surprising because the only way I learned about the Stanky Legg was through my students, who never tired in their conversations about who did the best Stanky Legg, what personal variations they put on it, which teachers could do it (no, I will not do the Stanky Legg, even after you finish your writing prompt!), etc.
"Nice hooks, beats are okay," Pedro said, with a smile. "Lyrics could be better, but I don't expect much."
Without further ado, the soundtrack to my first year of teaching:

The Natural Way To Dro (Part II)

Verily, those soulfulifically jaded swashbucklers of agitpropitic burnbabydom --FUNKADELIC-- have descended from the Original Galaxy Ghetto to cleanse thy wayward souls THROUH MUSIC worthy of the immortals themselves. --Pedro Bell, Cosmic Slop liner notes.

Pedro "Dro" Bell isn't down with the Kindle. "It ain't there yet," he said. "It's like those first Macs that came out. I call it a Pimpscreen Mac because it talks a lot of shit, but it's not ready. It's going to be necessary because we can't keep killing all of these trees, but it won't replace the book in this generation."

Bell has a personal appreciation for computer-assisted reading because in recent years this visionary has lost most of his sight and can only read by using an electronic magnification device or audiobook.

Despite his disability, the self-confessed "techno-head" is wary of the move to "convert" an analog world into digital.

"For stuff like newspapers, that's not such a big deal because they are not as important to keep," he said. However, Bell said people underestimate the importance of preserving artificats of their culture, in multiple formats. "You better beware of that cryptogenic bomb. Everything you have will be wiped out."

The other day I posted about Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, which posits that technology and biology will become indistinguishable in the near future. "The Singularity" is the moment where the machines basically "take over". Looking at Dro's liner notes from Funkadelic's Cosmic Slop album, I'm struck at its prophetic tone. The first lines are both a warning and a call to arms for all of the world's Funkateers:

For virtual decades of alembic time parsecs, I have gazed upon the so-called highest life form on this planet with unbridled disgust! For the very source of life energies of Earth have become the castrated target of anile bamboozlery from homosapiens' rabid attempts to manipulate the omnipotent Forces of Nature!
Their directionless efforts to achieve the metaphysical state of godliness, eons premature to evolutionary destiny have, indeed, become an invitation to species extinction.

Don't say he didn't warn you. These are not merely liner notes, but testimony. The appeal is delivered with an urgency and precision that make them more than just compelling addendum to the excellent album inside, but an integral element in the art of this record.

The brilliance of the writing in the liner notes is matched by the beautiful and trippy art that accompanies it. Illustrations accompany each of the song titles listed on the inside. There are all manner of alien and familiar creatures represented, from flag waving eyeball handmonsters to Sammy Davis Jr., Richard Nixon, King Kong, and Bert from Sesame street. The funny part about it is that it all makes sense. It captures a world in the midst of great transformation (mutation?) where the techno and the bio are a funky mishmash.

Although the warnings are dire, there is a playfulness and irony to both the language and the imagery that hint at optimism. It seems to say that even if our future is uncertain, funk, in all of its forms, cannot be destroyed.

Here's a sample of the title cut, which tells a tripped out story about a wayward mother, a funkdified "Dear Mama" if you will.

By the way, I would recommend buying the Cosmic Slop album, even if you don't have a record player, for the amazing art and testimony that encases it.

Next...

The Natural Way To Dro (Part III): B.B.King, The Black Panthers, and The Stanky Leg

The Natural Way To Dro (Part I)

There only remained one piece of important business from my work at Indiana Review: Get funk art pioneer Pedro "Dro" Bell a copy of the Funk issue. We tried several times to send him his contributor's copies, but they kept coming back, so I figured the best way to get them to him would be to deliver them in hand.

After a season of cold spring Chicago days, a couple Saturdays ago the sun was finally peaking out from the clouds and it was getting warm. I decided to escape from the mountain of papers I had to grade and called Dro to see if he had time to meet up. I live on the Northwest side and Dro was over South in Hyde Park, so I had a train/bus ride ahead of me. He tried to give me directions, but I thought I was bad with my little Blackberry GPS and ended up getting lost. Anyway, I got over South finally and the cold wind off of the Lake had me shivering. I called Dro and told him to meet me in the Borders nearby because of the cold. He agreed and I went in. I'm familiar with that Borders because there are some Brothers who have chess games upstairs in the cafe. The guys talk all kinds of sheet, but they are good and quick, and although I hardly ever win, I learn stuff.

Dro said he was going to be wearing a long coat and a hat and that he shouldn't be that hard to find. He chuckled when I told him I had on a George Jackson t-shirt. "I know you cold," he said. I jogged upstairs to catch a quick game and ended up waiting for a long time. Finally, I extracated myself from a chess beatdown and called Dro to see what was up. He said that he had already been there, hadn't seen me, and went back home. He said he hadn't thought to go upstairs, but that he was almost legally blind and couldn't hardly see anyways.

He came back again and I met him at the entrance. He had a wooden artist's case, brown overcoat, and camoflage fishing hat that covered grey hair. Artists can be a strange lot, so it's hard to know how someone is going to be, especially when it's someone as influential (and cool) as Dro, but he put me at ease with a smile and a handshake. His coolness was further confirmed when we were getting ready to step back out into the cold streets and out of his bag, Dro pulled a cream-colored sports coat that fit me perfectly. "You going to need this, man."

Misstra Knowitall in coat (B-Boy stance)

Needless to say, I appreciated the gesture. We walked down to a nearby pizza joint and chopped it up for about three hours about all topics funk-related.

Pedro Bell, The Funkiest Drawer of Them All

One of the things I enjoy the most about Dro's work is the way he's able to dynamically combine words and pictures. Every illustration has some kind of textual component, either ironically commenting on the action or pushing you to look closer at the images. According to Dro, that's because he has always seen himself as a writer primarily. "I'm a writer who just happens to be an artist," he said, chomping on a burger with everything on it. "Writing was always easy for me. Drawing was work."

As a boy growing up all over Chicago, Dro learned to draw from his older brothers and learned the power of words straight from his daddy's Bible, specifically Genesis and Revelations, arguably the funkiest books in the Good Book.

"He used to read Genesis, and that turned me on to dinosaurs and Godzilla," he said. "I also got turned on to Latin, and that's where I came up with the idea of having a Rumpasaurus. Revelations was all about the future, which lead me to reading a lot of science fiction."

All of these influences are clear in Dro's work, which is at once silly, ironic, visionary, scary, and thoughtful.

When it came time to finish a Funkadelic album, George Clinton would come to Dro and pitch him a concept.

"It usually had to have a quick turnaround because the album would be so delayed and the studio wanted it," he said. Clinton would describe the album, play a few cuts, and then Dro would get to work. "Most of the time I would come from those meetings with a big picture of what I wanted to do."

Dro ended up doing work on all of the Funkadelic covers, which included graphics and liner notes. He notes that many of his creations ended up in song lyrics, like the title song for the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein album.

In Rickey Vincent's Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of The One, he describes Dro's contribution thusly:

"Bandleader George Clinton and writer-artist Pedro Bell were the primary sources of an endless flow of offbeat black philosophy that mocked the self-importance of religious and political doctrines wile subtly creating their own...Bell was also guilty of perpetrating a bizzare, Afro-centric mythology on long Funkadelic album cover essays, which complemented his felt-tip marker-drawn mutant-scapes of urban black life. Bell's visual imagery had the seamless layering of twisted symbols from the uncocnsious that Salvador Dali was known for, whil Bell's dark ghetto eroticism and hyperbolic grammar forged a new realm of black language."

If you haven't copped that book, you need to, by the way. Dro says his best cover is Electric Spanking of War Babies ("Because I had the time to work on it!"), even though it was censored by the record company after they deemed it too controversial.

This was the original:

And this was the censored version:

Despite the censorship, Dro understands the importance of the visual component to Funkadelic's success.

"If you have have group that has a concept that's visual, people will by the product," he said. Groups like Mandrill and The Undisputed Truth were impressive, but didn't have the longevity of Funkadelic because they lacked a coherent (literal) vision of themselves, and the world they were creating. "If you want to survive, you better have some visual concept, and if you really want to survive you better have more than that."

He thinks contemporary groups have learned the lesson and gives props to the Wu-Tang Clan for having "blended multimedia concepts" that will help their longevity. He also notes that this kind of production has to be collaborative. "All of that can't be done with just one dude, man."

Next...

The Natural Way To Dro (Part II): The Cosmic Slop, The Amazon Kindle, and The Cryptogenic Bomb

God Bless the Funk, the Almighty Funk (Redux)

I guess this is the season for important anniversaries. My dad's birthday is Monday. Two years ago Tuesday I did some broom jumping with Missusknowitall. And one year ago today I started this blog. Honestly, it seems like a lot longer than that.

It has been a funky year indeed. In the past 12 months I have...

• earned an MFA.
• helped put together Indiana Review's Funk Feature
  
• moved to Chicago.
  
• taught summer school in Watts.
  
• taught high school at ACT Charter school.

Along the way I've tried to keep posting on the regular, whenever I got an idea or saw something that was interesting, but it's been a struggle at times. The occasional love from people who read the blog has made it worth it though, so: Thank you.

By the way, don't be scurred, leave a comment!

And what's an anniversary post without a countdown list? Here are some of my favorites from the past year.

#5 The Negro Hulk

The Negro Hulk typifies everything Misstraknowitall aspires to be. He's big, funky, and can leap tall buildings in single bound. Plus, he's a G.

#4 George Clinton's Funky Drawers: Pedro Bell

Putting together the Funk Issue at Indiana Review was one of the most meaningful (and fun) projects I've ever been involved in. I learned a lot about the meaning (and possibilities) of funk, the way it mixes race, class, sexuality, blues, power, politics, humor, and rhythm. I also was kind of amazed at the way that visual artists, such as Pedro Bell, had such a profound influence on the way that Parliament-Funkadelic created their Cosmic Slop of Funk. I recently got to meet Pedro Bell and needless to say, dude is a genius and he laced me with some very funky game, which I will impart very soon.


#3 When 900 Years You Reach, Look as Good You Will Not

I think this was one of the first times that it really dawned on me that the game was about to change and that NeObama would be The One. Ever since I first heard about this brother with the funny name, I had been waiting for that other shoe to drop. In the back of my mind, I was thinking (and I know I wasn't alone) "These White folks is never going to let this brother in the White House. Never."
But after Neobama put Hill to bed, it became obvious that he actually had a legitimate shot to win and if They were going to take him out, They were going to have to use some real Rethuglican tactics. But after the primary was over, the sense of desperation emanating from the McCain campaign was palpable. They were weeks away from making their biggest misstep of the campaign (Palin), but McCain honestly didn't look like he knew what the heck he was going to do. Looking back, with all of the crisis we've had in the last 6 months, this country really dodged a bullet with McCain/Palin. *Can you imagine?*

#2 The Wisdom of Jericho Brown 1,2 and Tim Seibles: Ten Queries of Funk 1,2

I can't decide between the two and both of these guys are among the funkiest poets I know. They also contributed some awesome work to the Funk issue, so I got to show them love.

What's nice about their work is that it doesn't just dabble in the Funk mileu, it comes out of the Funk and it's always on The One. These Funk scholars are definitely dropping some funk knowledge.

#1 We Built It, Now We Live In It

I didn't envision this blog being explicitly confessional and, besides the occasional tidbit, I try to keep a lot of my personal stuff out, particularly about teaching. But I couldn't help but write about the experience of witnessing the next generation welcoming the age of NeObama.The ride has been a little rocky so far, but there's no taking away the sense of hope and possibility we shared that day, not only for our country, but for ourselves.

George Clinton's Funky Drawers: Pedro Bell

The new issue of Indiana Review features art from the original P-Funk cover artists, including Pedro Bell, who may be the most well-known and controversial. I'm not sure how to describe his designs, but usually they are kind of kinky and weird and grotesque and funny. Kind of like P-Funk itself.

This cover was from Funkadelic's The Electric Spanking of War Babies album (1981). Okay, so basically that looks like a space penis with a naked woman inside being spanked. I'm not sure what more I can add, except that this cover ended up getting heavily censored by Priority records.


This is from the Hardcore Jollies album (1976). This album is funky and weird and bluesy and spacey, kind of like the cover. The title track, with it's refrain, I can hear my mother call, is freaky when you take a look at what's actually going on on the cover.


This cover is from Funkadelic's , Standing on the Verge of Getting it On album (1974). According to an interview Bell did with Rocktober magazine, his designs seem to be influenced by Funkadelic, but he was never "told" what to create. Bell writes about his influences on his Myspace page:

My favorite books growing up were Genesis and Revelations, which somehow inspired me to become obsessed with science fiction. This led me to become fascinated with machinery, and subsequently, automotive technology. Though my teenage interest in sports cars may have been typical, my rabid studies of the infamous car customizer Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (who combined cartoon and horror imagery with automotive design) profoundly affected my outlook on life. When my high school art teacher told me that my painting projects followed a surrealistic theme I looked up Salvador Dali, and went on to study other artists and movements (especially Dada).

For this issue of Indiana Review, Bell contributes, Motherhood in Red, Black, and Green, that he did in his pre-P-Funk period. If you look real close, Bell uses this really cool pointillist technique in this painting that uses all kinds of little dots and circles. Now, I may be tripping, but I wonder if the Afroed woman in this picture is at all related to the ones that keeps popping up in all these covers.

So how did the art of P-funk affect hip-hop art? Well, take a look at Pedro Bell's work and compare it to art from Outkast's Stankonia, Southernplayalisticadilacmuzic, and Aquemeni albums.



FYI: If you want to get your hands on a copy of Indiana Review's funk feature, you can now order it online.

***Update: Check out Misstra Knowitall's interview with Pedro Bell