The badest space-bass player on (and off) the planet has jumped back in the saddle, taken control of the mothership and, sigh of relief, produced an album of fresh tracks that funk.
The last time the star-eyed P Funk artist was sounding this good in a contemporary climate was in the early Nineties, when Bootsy teamed up with Deee-Lite for 'Groove Is In The Heart'.
R&B and hip hop are currently moving through a period that suits Bootsy's style. And while it's true he has more or less dug the same groove for the past thirty years, Bootsy does his thing so much better than anyone else it's still exciting to hear.
Naturally the album is littered with a cast of real and fictional characters, as well as the requisite p-funk astral babble.
"Spontaneous-busta-bility", delivers the bass-master in a howled whisper, "and you won't have to pay a lot for this muffler baby…" a robo rap helpfully points out to no-one in particular. "Boot-rapper-fella here for Double U Eee Beee News," continues Bootsy, "and I'm trying to clarify my homegirls interpretation of being bad - and by the way she's pretty good at being bad"…"in funk we thrust" the rambling continues.
You'll note that a lot of this is sex obsessed and Collins was always more single minded on this than George Clinton (whose musical ideas were barely a paragon of feminist virtue). None-the-less social messages still creep into the text - not least on 'Love Gangsta', featuring Snoop Dogg, with its "I'm a Love Gangsta, put your guns away" refrain and Rosie Gaines': "whenever I see colours they only see white and black".
Although this is largely an R&B album, the P-Funk is of course never far away - popping out for a brief but full on moment on 'Funk Ship', directed by old sparing partner George Clinton.
High points in the set include 'Funky And You Know It' and 'All Star Funk', featuring old-Deee-Lite collaborator Lady Miss Kier and the first horn of funk, his highness Fred Wesley, while Till Bronner's brass arrangements add new jazz angles on the Rosie Gaines sung 'Don't Let 'Em'.
Elsewhere things don't flow as smoothly - or perhaps that should be they work too smoothly. One and Bobby Womack's 'Groove Eternal', for example, converts the space bass into a vehicle for sacharin Eighties soul.
More adventurous is the ragga flavoured riff of 'A Life For The Sweet Ting', featuring Eased from Seeed, where Bootsy locks into Caribbean rhythms, while still managing to squeeze in the trademark trills and querks of the Bootsy bass-line.
