George Clinton

George Clinton, from Kannapolis, born in 1941, spent the 1970s running the Parliament-Funkadelic circus, a sprawling collective that recorded as both Parliament and Funkadelic and built a whole new strain of funk out of Afrofuturism, outrageous costumes, psychedelia and a surreal, cartoonish sense of humor. By the time he stepped out under his own name he was already one of the architects of funk, mentioned in the same breath as James Brown and Sly Stone.

Computer Games, in 1982, was his solo launch, and "Atomic Dog" is the track that made it: a slinky, synth-driven groove that struts and slithers its way across the floor, keyboards bubbling and voices piling up in every corner. It sounds like the future of funk, and in a way it was: Clinton's work went on to shape 1990s hip-hop and G-funk.

The honors followed in time. He went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 along with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic, and in 2019 he and the collective received Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.