• View Comments
• Share with Shortlink:

(AllHipHop News) Legendary bass player Bootsy Collins has announced the founding of the first online bass guitar school, Funk University.The school is geared towards intermediate through advanced bass players. Collins will serve as the school’s head professor, and enlist guest instructors to teach students on the history of funk music and theory.Enrollees will log in through TheFunkUniversity.com to have access to a virtual campus that includes a lecture hall, multimedia library, and professor “office hours” for questions.The school is produced by SceneFour, the L.A.-based company that handled Al Gore’s Current TV, and projects from The RZA, Marilyn Manson, MTV-U, Nine Inch Nails, The Pixies, and Beck.In 1970, Collins began working with James Brown as a member of the original JBs, creating such classic staples as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “Super Bad,” “Soul Power,” and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing.” These tracks would form sampling foundations for Biz Markie (Nobody Beats the Biz”), The Geto Boys (“Talkin’ Loud Ain’t Saying Nothing”), Run-DMC (“Beats to the Rhyme”), and numerous others.Later, Collins further contributed to Hip-Hop’s sampling foundation through his work with Parliament Funkadelic and tracks such as “One Nation Under a Groove” and “Aqua Boogie.”Now, Collins is hopeful to pass on his decades of knowledge to the next generation of players.”The best day of my life was when I graduated from P.U. The next best day of my life will be to see students graduate from F.U.” he explained in a statement. “Funk don’t funk around for nobody, so get funked up while you can.”Interested players can sign up at http://thefunkuniversity.com, with admission being on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first semester begins on July 1.Bootsy Collins plans to release a new album, Boot-Z Class University, this fall.