After 20 Years, P-Funk’s Just Gettin’ in da Groove

George Clinton is a musician with an imagination that’s as colorful as his wardrobe.

The North Carolina native’s genre-bending music, which has been described as “intergalactic,” is the hard-core, heavy Parliament-Funkadelic sound.

Clinton’s music is not only the cornerstone of the West Coast rap sound, influencing everyone from Ice Cube to Dr. Dre, but it can also be felt in the work of such major figures as Prince and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Clinton, 56, is appearing with his P-Funk All Stars on the Smokin’ Grooves tour, which stops Wednesday and Thursday at the Universal Amphitheatre.

Question: Everyone knows your influence on pop music, but who were the artists who helped shape your musical style?

Answer: Everyone from Louis Jordan and Jimi Hendrix to Sly Stone and the Beatles. Once I saw what happened with psychedelic music, I realized that I had to get something new [for myself], . . . some form of mid-tempo blues or a mix of soul and rock ‘n’ roll.

Q: Are you surprised that people have followed your music for as long as they have?

A: Not really. I did my music in such an exaggerated way that I always said, even in old interviews in Crawdaddy and Creem, that it would take 25 years or so for people to really catch on. And with the concepts of our records and great musicians--like Bootsy [Collins], Maceo [Parker], Fred Wesley and the rest--there was no way an audience could get away from us.

Q: What’s your opinion of hip-hop?

A: I love it. The fact that [the artists] sample the funk helped me forge my relationship with this musical generation. I didn’t take the route that most [veteran musicians] took, dissing today’s rappers for sampling, because I looked at it as a new way of making music.

Q: What’s Smokin’ Grooves been like this summer?

A: Same as all the other tours, like Lollapalooza [which Clinton appeared on in 1994]. It took us a few minutes to relate to the new audience. The tour reminds me of the days, back in the ‘60s, when we used to play the high-school hops as the Parliaments. We’ve cut our four-hour show down to an hour ‘cause it’s mainly kids there, and their attention span isn’t as long as our core audience.

Q: Your live show is so outrageous that you guys seem like you’re brothers from another planet. Do you think that by landing the Mothership onstage that you ever actually attract aliens to your concerts?

A: Definitely. I’ve known about Roswell for a long time and when we landed the Mothership in Central Park on the Fourth of July last year, I remember looking in the sky and something was buzzing above the stage. Everybody swears to God they saw a UFO, and I saw the same thing. But part of me still doesn’t want to believe that it was anything but someone flying a kite.

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* The Smokin’ Grooves tour featuring George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, Cypress Hill, Erykah Badu, the Roots, the Brand New Heavies and the Cru. Wednesday and Thursday at the Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, 7:15 p.m. $42.50. (818) 622-4440.