Funkatopia Live

Mr. Christopher sits down with Prince's sister Sharon L Nelson to discuss her childhood, the lineage, being Prince's sister, and her new book When It Rains, It's Purple.

Note: Sharon had to join via a 3rd party bluetooth connection, so her audio is hot. Apologies that we couldn't resolve her technical issues beforehand.

Mr. Christopher sits down with funk bass legend George Porter Jr., co-founder of The Meters to discuss his lifetime of work and a brand new album with his band The Running Pardners.

Mr. Christopher celebrates his birthday with a BUNCH of special guests including St. Paul Peterson, Duane Tudahl, Ashley Tamar Davis, Gilbert Davison, Atlanta Bliss, Sheila Horne, Mayte Garcia, Dawn Silva and Sheila Brody-Head Amuka (Brides of Funkenstein), Mic Murphy (The System), Mychael Gabriel (Sheila E), and Tori Ruffin (The Time, Freakjuice).

We sit down with Matt Blistan aka Atlanta Bliss where we discuss his work starting as Prince's first trumpet player and performing on Parade, Sign O' the Times, Lovesexy, and many more. Plus the release of his brand new book Mind, Body, Trumpet.

NPG drummer Michael Bland joins Mr. Christopher to break down Prince's Love Symbol album track by track. But as always, we have MANY stories and funky rabbit holes including a discussion on Questlove, Canadian funk nights, and much more.

We chat about the passing of the iconic dancer Cat Glover and her work with Prince on Sign O' the Times and Lovesexy and welcome special guest Michael Dean from Podcast Juice who extensively interviewed her twice. Then we share 7 tracks of new funk music artists that we feel should be added to your playlist.

NOTE: There is an 8 minute tribute video for Cat that has been removed from the audio version here due to the highly visual component. To view the video tribute, visit Funkatopia's Facebook, Youtube or Twitter page for the live video.

We interview Sheila Brody-Head aka Amuka and Sheila Horne from the Brides of Funkenstein, P-Funk All Stars, Public Enemy, and more. She shares deep stories of George Clinton, the Brides, Chuck D and Public Enemy, Bootsy Collins, and so much more.

Mr. Christopher breaks down the Ezra Edelman Netflix Prince documentary The Book of Prince. We discuss what we know so far about the 9 hour documentary including the content, the objections of the Prince Estate, the potential damage it could cause the Prince legacy, the stories of abuse and neglect, and so much more.

We finally do episode 2 of Soundstage where we showcase new funk music that's out now. This episode we welcome Andre Cymone who describes his new funk album and sits in while we listen to a new track called Hot Funk in the Summertime. We also take a listen to Judith Hill, St. Vincent, Nikka Costa, Electro Deluxe, The Rumble (formerly Cha Wa), and Lenny Kravitz. Tune in for new funk.

We sit down with Minneapolis legend Andre' Cymone to discuss his history, his family, a street renaming in honor of his mother, and a brand new album about to drop called The Resurrection of Funk.