“The funkiest UFO in the galaxy is about to land in Chocolate City.”
News vis M. S. le Despencer, thanks!
Best lead to a new article EVER, right?
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which will open its doors at in 2015, has acquired Parliament’s Funkadelic Mothership (the second incarnation, that is — the first having long-since departed for other galaxies).
The legendary stage prop will serve as a crucial building block of the museum’s permanent display permanent music exhibition. Via Funk Music News:
When the band lowered the Mothership from the rafters of the Capital Centre in Landover in 1977, the response was rapturous. Not only was it instantly stunning — it felt like a cosmic metaphor for the sense of possibility that followed the civil rights movement.
That symbolism isn’t lost on the Smithsonian.
“With large iconic objects like this, we can tap into . . . themes of movement and liberation that are a constant in African-American culture,” says Dwandalyn R. Reece, curator of music and performing arts for the museum. “The Mothership as this mode of transport really fits into this musical trope in African American culture about travel and transit.”
It will be exhibited alongside other artifacts from American music history — Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, James Brown’s stage costumes, Lena Horne’s evening gowns. But it will be the only spaceship.
YES!! “Free your mind and come fly with me… it’s hip! On the Mothership. Swing down, sweet chariot, stop, and let me ride…”
May 22nd, 2011 at 5:07 pm
The person in charge of collections there clearly has excellent taste.
May 23rd, 2011 at 10:03 am
I love that I can now say “The Smithsonian just made their funk the P-Funk” and be stating an actual fact.
May 25th, 2011 at 5:03 am
Hopefully coming soon: The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein at the Natural History Museum.
May 25th, 2011 at 5:05 am
Actually no, that should be the science museum. Durr.