good right now in the frightened world: They are self-contained polities of exuberantly good times. 1974's Up for the Down Stroke reflects Sly Stone's moody sound strategies; the metamorphosis is not yet complete. By Chocolate City (1975), the band had the plot down: Bernie Worrell's space-age keyboard sounds, Bootsy Collins' watery bass lines, Clinton's mad-ringmaster raps. But Mothership Connection, from the same year, with its spacious, carnivalesque vibe and exhortations to funk ecstasy, was the masterpiece, the slang creator, the icon builder, the master narrative -- or "the bomb," as Clinton succinctly put it before anyone else.

BEN RATLIFF
(From RS 921, May 1, 2003)