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George "Funk Master" Clinton is still making music. In the very near future, expect to see the recording artist back on the musical charts.
Clinton was very open about the fact that he is perhaps one of the most "sampled" songwriters in the history of the music industry, when he visited Philadelphia on Saturday. In fact, the songwriter, producer, musician, and singer, who created one of the most popular sounds of the late 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s, is still trying to get his slice of the $100 million pie from many of his songs being sampled by hip-hop artists, as cell phone ringers, on iPods and downloaded from the Internet.
Clinton was the first guest on "Up Close and Personal," a new one-hour television series hosted by music personality Gary Shepherd. The filming of the pilot episode took place at the Philadelphia Clef Club, Broad and Fitzwater streets in South Philadelphia, on Saturday. The multi-generational audience ranged from adolescents interested in the music industry, young adults who were familiar with funk music by way of sampling and those mid-life and older adults who grew up listening to Clinton's groups - primarily Parliament and the Funkadelic.
"I would be the first to say that hip hop is music," said the nearly 65-year-old Clinton during a press interview prior to the taping of "Up Close and Personal." "These guys didn't have access to instruments like we had, so they took...