Bootsy Collins — Play With Bootsy - A Tribute To The Funk

Prepare for a lot of bold words in this review because Bootsy’s new CD features a lot of guests. Like the title indicates, Bootsy invited lots of artists to play with him.

The names that were mentioned prior to this release worried me a bit: Macy Gray, Fatboy Slim, Mousse T and Fat Joe aren't names that make my mouth water. Luckily most people kept their input in favour of the ‘Bootsy sound’ (or Bootsy himself has been rather strict, of course). Needless to say, I was rather sceptical when I put this disc on.

Inner-Planetary-Funkmanship is the intro in which Bootsy introduces the guests (a lot more than are actually on it, I couldn’t find Tweet and Chuck D. on the record nor in the credits for instance). He also explains that this Tribute To The Funk is a tip to the hat from Bootsy to the younger artists who kept the funk alive all these years. The first song, Play With Bootsy has the highest 'hitpotential' and is the first single. It obviously aims for the fans of dance and techno although the bassplaying provides the funk which is sorely missed in most contemporary dance music in my eyes. The commercial potential might scare some oldschool P-funkateers, but give this song a chance, I like it a lot now. ‘Nephew’ Snoop Dogg has been working with Bootsy before for the Undercover Brother soundtrack. This reworking of the P-Funk classic Give Up The Funk was not very exciting but luckily Love Gangsta is much better. Former gangsta rapper Snoop even seems to change his message to a more peaceful and friendlier one since he got to know ‘uncle’ Bootsy. The chorus quotes Boops (Here To Go) by Sly & Robby, but that famous Jamaican rhythm section stars in the next song: Soul Sista along with Fat Joe.

The next song, Don’t Let ’Em stars Rosie Gaines from Prince’ New Power Generation and Snoop Dogg again. It’s a mellow funk-song with some classical piano-parts. A Life For Da Sweet Ting is sung by Eased from from Seeed of whom I never heard before. Eased is a ragga singer and it gives a nice twist on the typical Bootsy track. It’s one of my favourites on the disc. The next Prince reference is in Groove Eternal. The joint venture with Bobby Womack (& Womack) has some keyboardparts which remind me of the first 2 albums by ‘His Royal Badness’. The falsetto voice of somebody named ‘One’ adds to that. One returns in the disco-ish Dance To The Music. Again it reminds of Prince a bit.

Some people from the old P-funk roster pop up in Funky And You Know It. Garry Shider, George Clinton, Fred Wesley and Cordell ‘Boogie’ Mosson are well-known from the Parliament/Funkadelic/P-Funk All Stars activities and Macy Gray fits well in this sound (and she doesn’t sing leadvocals so I can stomach it). Deee-lite re-introduced Bootsy to a young audience 12 years ago and their vocalist, currently DJ, Lady Miss Kier sings the next two tracks: I’m Tired Of Good, I’m Trying Bad and All Star Funk. The first is a great laidback funk track and the second also features Bootsy’s son: Oui-wey Collins (btw: Bootsy’s brother Catfish also plays on a lot of tracks).

The weakest track is from Norman Cook a.k.a. Fatboy Slim. Bootsy did some vocals on Weapon Of Choice and the video was (as usual) much better than the actual track. The collaboration called The Bomb sounds rather boring to me and I’m glad when the last song, Funkship, starts. The pure P-funk is a revelation, but very short and cut off rather bluntly. I don’t see the point of that actually... oh well.

All in all I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with Play With Bootsy. Bootsy has a ‘commercial’ side with records like this its predecessor Fresh Outta ‘P’-University (1997) and an experimental side with projects like Praxis, Zillatron and other collaborations with Bill Laswell and Buckethead. Another funny thing is he works a lot in Germany these days. Smudo from Die Fantastischen Vier even did a rap in German on the previous record and large part of this one is recorded in Hannover. Seems like he found his second home in Germany.

The CD also has an enhanced part with the video for the titletrack.