What is Parliament-Funkadelic’s ‘Bop Gun’?
Any exposure to any one of Parliament-Funkadelic’s run of LPs across their 1970s classic run was to step into a surrealist universe of Afrofuturist psychedelia where Black cultural heritage was inextricably linked to the chromatic, far-flung dimensions of outer space, an electric clash of racial liberation and cosmic beckon.
At P-Funk’s centre was the lysergic captain George Clinton, typically donned in glammed-up alien gear and dreaming up the mythology which would animate their numerous records, sleeve artwork, and elaborate live shows.
Inspired by the conceptual arcs pioneered by Tommy and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Clinton sought to expand beyond the confines of the LP format and weave an entire acid-soaked cartoon mythology for both schisms of his P-Funk nebula to swirl around.
While Funkadelic was less anchored by an explicit narrative, instead exploring America’s social ills via a heady brew of psychotropic soul-rock and reaches for cosmic enlightenment, it would be Parliament’s second album that the seeds of Clinton’s sci-fi visions would truly take shape. “Put n***** in places that you don’t usually see ’em,” he recollected in 1994’s Extended Play. “And nobody had seen ’em on no spaceships! Once you seen ’em sittin’ on spaceships like it was Cadillac then it was funny, cool”.
Following 1975’s Mothership Connection, the alien mythos began to dominate P-Funk’s work, including an impressive 10 ft high spaceship prop that would descend to the stage and unveil Clinton’s Dr Funkenstein alter-ego. Across their dazzling P-Funk Earth Tour, the mysterious Bop Gun emerged. Introduced in 1977’s Funkentelechy Vs the Placebo Syndrome as well as featured on its zingy cover and serving as fuel for the ‘Bop Gun (Endangered Species)’ lead single, a key feature of Parliament’s mythology was created.
Dreamed up as a protective measure against the pernicious Sir Nose d’Voidoffunk’s lack of virile, funk magic, the handy Bop Gun will shoot down any such threats to the ‘Starchild’ and their extraterrestrial brethren’s cosmic energy.
Funk always lacked any fixed, explicit definition, but it held essential elixir anchorage in the P-Funk universe. 1978’s ‘Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)’ gives a cryptic clue, however: “‘Funk’ is defined as ‘the P-Preparation’…the prune juice of the mind…A mental, musical bowel movement…Groove-lax…A psychological turd remover…A neurological enema”.
Funk became more than just a genre in Clinton’s world; it was a forcefield against the squares, ‘The Man’, the forces of cultural conservatism, moral puritanism, oppression, and the all-pervading threat of a stale musical sphere beloved by white, middle-America. Funk needed protecting by any measure.
The Bop Gun would appear again on the cover of 1979’s Uncle Jam Wants You, but as P-Funk’s classic era came to an end and Clinton’s 1980s Computer Games solo career began in earnest, the Bop Gun and every other relic of the Parliament alien saga was left behind as he cut a string of digital R&B dance records. An enormous influence on hip-hop, Dr Dre would dub his West Coast gangsta style as G-Funk and Ice Cube would drop ‘Bop Gun (One Nation)’ from 1994’s Lethal Injection, featuring Clinton and P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins in its effervescent video.
