Blueprint vs. Funkadelic EP: Download For Free

MP3: Blueprint vs. Funkadelic EP

Blueprint is giving away his new EP, Blueprint vs. Funkadelic, for free on this and a selected few sites. The cd is a limited run of 500. It can be purchased on Weightless.net and a couple stores around the country. I chopped it up with Print a couple nights ago as he prepared for his Wednesday release party at Cafe Bourbon Street in Columbus. We talked P-Funk, Aliens, the future of Weightless, and the Sean Bell Verdict.

I used to hate on the West Coast for using so much Funkadelic in the Early 90’s. Its kinda died down now. What made you gravitate towards devoting a whole project to it?

I felt it was kind of played as well, but what I think the difference is that a lot of what they sampled was actually Parliament, and not Funkadelic. Granted, they’re both groups that George Clinton started and lead, but the Funkadelic catalog wasn’t pillaged as much as the Parliament catalog because Parliament was more successful than Funkadelic.

Until recently I personally didn’t really know the difference because people always referred to them as P-Funk as if they were the same, but as I started to listen to Funkadelic’s catalog i realized it’s a lot different than Parliament’s catalog, and it also sounds different. Truthfully, I didn’t even put much thought into the creation of it. One day I was listening to an album of theirs and I heard all types of good breaks that hadn’t been used. That by itself changed my opinion about Funkadelic and made me really see how different the two groups were.

Whats the difference between Blueprint vs. Funkadelic and a Mash-up?

Well i think the standard “mash-up” is basically about taking vocals or lyrics that aren’t really new, and are fairly popular mixed with instrumentals that are already sort of popular and bringing the two worlds together. The stuff I’ve done with the Greenhouse vs Radiohead and now with the Blueprint vs Funkadelic project is more from a fan and producer’s perspective. I sit around listening to these records and I do them as a fan first. I just start making beats out of everything that i think is usable then i start putting rhymes to it. Sometimes the rhymes are songs that I’ve had lying around for a while, and other times they’re things i write to the beats. Sometimes there may be something that I start on a record like this and eventually flesh out and take a little bit further on another project I’m working on. It’s something that only takes me about a week or so to do because I try to really be in the moment with it, but sometimes the looseness of it is what really helps it comes together. I don’t want it to sound like i really thought it out. I want it to sound really fun and as lo-fi as possible. The only thing that prevented this project from coming out sooner was that I couldn’t find any audio interviews of the members of the bad talking for a while, but after I found that it really helped bring it together.

Who Flipped P-Funk The Best?

I’d say the D.O.C “Diggy Diggy Doc.

Your last solo album, 1988 sold like 15,000 copies. What did you decide to do a run of cd’s limited to 500 and give it away as a free download?

Truthfully it’s kind of an experiment. When I first started doing records i had this tendency to hold back for a special situation or time before I put things out, but I dont think that’s really necessary anymore because the model for getting music to people has changed so much.

Personally, I’m not into holding things back anymore. I love doing music too much. As an artist or label, you can determine the scope of a release much easier now than you could before and that’s kind of what I’m doing this for. It’s primarily for people who last heard me on 1988 and have been waiting on something new from me. Right now, I look at it as just one release of many that will start seeing the daylight. I want to see how people respond to this and hopefully people download it and share it with their friends if they like it.

I always heard that Funkadelic, James Brown and Marvin Gaye was sex music. But my experience has been that girls like to hump to depressing shit. Is Funkadelic sex music?

I think girls in general wanna hump to slow, darker music. Even what we might consider depressing is sexy to them so throw on something like that. A lot of Funkadelic’s music is really sexy music, with extended metaphors about the music and sex. Although I’ve never humped to James Brown or Marvin Gaye myself it’s only because I wasn’t humpin when those records came out. I was always more into Keith Sweat, Luther Vandross, or Jodeci. But really that was back when I didn’t realize the beauty of no soundtrack humpin. I’m all about no soundtrack right about now. That’s that grown man shit.

Whats your earliest Funkadelic memory as a kid?

Although it’s not Funkadelic per se, it would have to be “Flashlight” by Parliament. My parents had the 45 and I used to sneak into their room and play it when they weren’t home. I didn’t understand what they were talking about at all back then, and to this day I still don’t understand but I still love that song

Funkadelic’s Alien and Spaceship themes always confused me. Then the sames Sci-Fi steez that shows up in everyone from Sun-Ra, Rammel-zee all the way up to the Rza, and Andre 3000 art. Whats with the tradition of Black Outerspacemen?

Honestly, I have no idea what’s up with Black artists and aliens, but the themes are definitely there. My guess is that it has something to do with a sense of escapism that we either feel we want or can’t have or maybe we fuck with Aliens because we feel like aliens in America to some extent.

That Sean Bell verdict is fuck up.

That verdict is truly fucked up. It makes you really understand why groups like the Black Panthers and Weather Underground were necessary. I think we’re gonna get back to that kind of thing real soon.

After Blueprint vs. Funkdelic, whats up in 2008 with Weightless and yourself?

In the summer we will be releasing the Envelope “Shark Bolt” album, which i produced entirely. Then this fall we will be releasing Illogic’s fourth album “Diabolical Fun”. My next solo record should be out this fall as well, although i don’t have an exact date for it as of yet. More music, less bullshit.