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Grammy award-winner George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic team are set to perform here for the first time ever, filling the stage at Blue Note Hawaii for a three-night gig starting April 11. Read more

Honolulu, prepare to shake: The P-Funk Mothership is arriving.

Grammy award-winner George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic team, which scored more than 40 R&B hit singles and three platinum albums in the 1970s, are set to perform here for the first time ever, filling the stage at Blue Note Hawaii for a four-night gig starting April 11.

Clinton, 77, is on his international farewell tour, named “One Nation Under a Groove” after his 1978 album that’s being re-released this year.

The Newark, N.J. native had his first big hit in 1967 with “I Wanna Testify,” as the leader of doo-wop foursome The Parliaments that he formed in the late 1950s, but as the music scene morphed, blending blues and soul with British pop and psychedelic rock, he found his trademark sound.

In the ’70s he founded sibling groups Funkadelic (rock) and Parliament (R&B), producing spectacular onstage parties in which he and his musicians strutted, shimmied and shook in big hair and flamboyant costumes — caps, sombreros, capes, uniforms from Army Navy stores, feathers and fur and a loincloth resembling a diaper — outdoing contemporaries such as the Rolling Stones and Sly and the Family Stone with props such as the Mothership, an enormous, hovering spacecraft.

GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUKADELIC FAREWELL TOUR

Presented by Blue Note Hawaii >> Where: Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort

>> When: 8 p.m. April 11 to 14

>> Cost: $95 GA; $150 VIP

>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com

>> Note: As of press time, Saturday’s show was nearly sold out

The master of funk and progenitor of hip-hop melded his Motown roots and love for the music of heroes such as James Brown and Smokey Robinson with the acid rock and incendiary musicianship of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Sly Stone into his own revolutionary blend.

Following “One Nation,” Clinton plans to retire from touring but keep producing music, he said, taking a call from Houston. The creator of “Maggot Brain,” “Atomic Dog,” “Dr. Funkenstein” and the spin-off singing duo “Brides of Funkenstein” is also planning Broadway musicals and a film.

Recognized for lifetime achievement by the Motown Alumni Association, Clinton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2017, he released his memoir ”Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?”

In the interview, Clinton said he’s been to the islands “lotsa times,” dating back to the mid-1970s and wrote several songs for bassist Bootsy Collins as well as his own Parliament Mothership Connection in Honolulu and Maui. He remembers hanging out with colorful characters like talent agent Shep Gordon, fellow musician Steven Tyler and chef Wolfgang Puck.

He also discussed the inspiration and motivation behind his music, some of the musicians he played with, and some of the changes in music and his own life that he’s experienced during his career.

QUESTION: With Parliament Funkadelic, was it your intent to counter the grimness of a U.S. reeling from the Vietnam War?

ANSWER: Yes. The idea was to party your way out of all the bullsh— that was going on and at the same time acknowledge it was going on — but there was other ways than just cracking up and going crazy. A lot of social commentary was needed and I always wanted to do that with humor.

Q: How did you get together with Bernie Worrell, the Moog synth genius who played with Parliament-Funkadelic then went on to Talking Heads?

A: We met when Bernie was about 15 years old and a classical pianist, coming in to get his hair done at the barbershop (where Clinton worked in the 1950s and 1960s). Our doo wop singing group, we’d play at the community center — and Bernie would play piano, then he went off to college. We got a hit record, “I Wanna Testify,” and he got out of college and met us on the road.

Q: And Bootsy Collins, the master of slap-bass playing?

A: We met Bootsy later on in ‘71, he had come to play with us. Our album “Chocolate City,” he helped with that, then I helped him get together his Rubber Band and his first album, “Stretch it Out.” Then (he played on) our second album, “Mothership Connection.”

Q: Why are you touring “One Nation Under a Groove”?

A: Got the copyright recaptured. I own those masters again. So that’s what we celebrating on this tour. Some $5 million later and almost a quarter billion in royalties. (I’m working on) a movie, it’s a hell of a story because just about everybody in past hip-hop years sampled the music. I’m friends with them, but those people took the money.

Q: You’ve said you haven’t done meds, legal or illegal, for about 7 years.

A: Yes, I stopped doing street drugs — but didn’t realize how serious it was that I had finally gotten off legal meds until my doctor, joking, said, ‘I ain’t goin’ make no money offa you.’ Diabetes scared me so bad. I was never into the needles. I just never took the medicine.

Q: Which inspired the title of your new album, “Medicaid Fraud Dog.”

A: Everybody’s strung out, I mean regular people look like the same people I used to see in the streets buying or dealing drugs. Pretty much everybody is hooked, and it’s hard to get off that stuff, especially now food is part of it. And if Big Pharma’s buying up the government, ain’t gonna take it long to be one nation under sedation. You gotta dance yourself out of that stuff.

Q: You write that music is healing: “Arthritis, rheumatism or migraines… funk not only moves, it removes.”

A: Yeah, that’s in “Make my Funk the P-Funk,” about funk and all its properties that’s good for the mind.

Q: What inspired your Titanic song, “Get Yo A— in the Water and Swim like Me?”

A: (Laughs) That’s one of the jokes that people in the barbershop used to tell, an old black folk tale.

Q: P- Funk features strong women, as in “Can You Get to That.” How did that inclusiveness happen?

A: Soon as we got out there with “I Wanna Testify”, the hippie movement moved in. The Beatles, Small Faces, Led Zeppelin. We grew up in Motown and all of a sudden Motown was old: We was old doo woppers at 22 and 23.

That whole era of peace and love changed us. I always tried to keep that in the songs after. I loved the Beatles’ writing. (But) even when I write a love-sounding song, I make it silly and clowning — people like to hear you beef with each other. And sure enough hip-hop came along and they did it straight the way you do in school, talking about each other’s mama, we called it dissin’ each other and they put a beat to it. It’s still the number-one music, but funk is the DNA in hip hop. When I hear Cardi B., I think she’s so funk.

Q: Do you feel you’re surrounded with your children when you hear music today?

A: I’m actually surrounded with kids, (including) my kids and grandkids I’m working with, making the new show really relevant.

Q: Any message for fans before your Blue Note shows?

A: Tell ‘em to bring two booties.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic team would be performing three nights. They will be performing four nights.