Tales Of Dr. Funkenstein

It's good to see Shock G (Digital Underground) and Ricky Vincent (Uhuru Maggot) doing in this documentary from 2006 what they used to do on Vincent's college radio show back when I was kid, and that's discussing the funk, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Parliament, Funkadelic, James Brown, and all things in between. Ricky Vincent's show was called "The Uhuru Maggot's Wild World Of Funk", and the first time I ever heard "Underwater Rimes" was when Digital Underground were his in studio guests. That also happened to be the night that some friends and I dabbled in psychedelics at my pad in El Cerrito. While we waited for the drugs to kick in we cranked up my boom box and crossed our fingers that we hadn't been bunked by the dreadlocked hippy we scored from.

"The Uhuru Maggot's Wild World Of Funk" broadcasted out of KALX's studios in Berkeley, CA, and years later when I signed up to intern at KALX, Ricky Vincent was still there and in charge of the department I was interning for, but being the impatient person I was then, I bailed as soon as I found out I wouldn't be getting my own show any time soon.

Years later I was in Cody's on Telegraph Avenue, close to both the old and new KALX studios, when I saw Ricky Vincent's book "Funk" sitting on a shelf, and it hit me that his radio show had influenced me quite a bit, increasing my knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the funk.