Bootsy Collins Announces New Album, “The Power of the One”
Attention funkateers! Bootsy Collins has announced a new album, The Power of the One, which will be released on October 23rd. The star-studded album was halfway finished before the pandemic shut the world down in March and left Collins to finish it remotely. Even so, he enlisted the help of Snoop Dogg, Brandon “Taz” Niderauer, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Dr. Cornel West, Brandford Marsalis, and more. It will also include three bassists alongside the funk legend: Christian McBride, Larry Graham, and Victor Wooten.
The Power of the One is inspired by the concept of “the one” that James Brown taught to a young Collins during his tenure in the J.B.’s. It involves everyone in the band accenting beat one to deepen the groove, but nowadays it means more to the bass superstar.
“I’ve started to realize ‘the one’ is bigger than musical terms,” he told Rolling Stone. “It means all of us collectively together, we’re equal. We are the one. We’re the ones that take care of this planet. We’re the ones that make the music and invent stuff. And regardless of our differences, we all are still on this mothership, which is the Earth. It’s one planet, and we’re all on it. There’s millions of us on the planet, but we’re all one people. If we go at it that way, we can do anything. That’s the power of the one.”
Get a taste of the new music with this video for the title track. (You should also check out Bootsy’s Funk Formula.)
Collins will be celebrating the album release and his birthday with a live stream on October 23rd. Tickets to the stream are included with pre-orders of the album through his website.
