Bootsy on ignoring the naysayers and maintaining his loyalty to James Brown when others thought he shouldn’t have:
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Another thought to leave you with, when I say embrace it, the good stuff, when people tell me about what James did to me, why I didn’t get paid for “Sex Machine” when I came up with the bassline – “you should be getting this and you should be getting that” – the way I look at it is I should be paying him for being in the presence of his greatness. To tell somebody that today, they don’t understand that. So I don’t waste time saying that ’cause it’s useless for someone who hasn’t come up in that time. So the punishment that he gave out, when people say, “Was he strict, was he demanding?” – of course, he was strict and demanding. And he better have been, ’cause we would have run over him.

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Bootsy on how he and his music friends were street kids with excellent work ethic (another necessary attribute that seems to be significantly lacking in many new mainstream artists).
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We were young raw kids from off the street. You better have some balls about yourself ‘cause we’re gonna come in and dominate. And he knew. But his whole thing was, “It’s gotta be like this.” But he left room for us in the whole street arena ’cause he knew we had the fresh street thing. He wasn’t stupid, that’s why he got to where he got. Just know that even the boss person, the one who gets on your last freaking nerve, that could be the very mug that helps push you to be the greatest that you could possibly me. Keep that in mind as opposed to, “Oh, I’m so sick and tired of him.” I wasn’t sick and tired of James Brown ’cause I knew I was getting something, I might not have been able to call it out, but I knew, with the rehearsals and all that.

Today, it’s in me, that’s what I do. I don’t even think about it, I can go on forever with that. We were recording last night and they were [like]: “You want to sit down?” [I said] “Nah, let’s roll, let’s roll.”

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Bootsy’s advice to today’s new artists:
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Once that’s inbred in you, that stays with you, and that’s what I want you [today’s artists] to try to embrace because when you’re not used to doing it the hard way, you’ll always take the easy way out. But if you build your muscle and continue to build it you’ll get stronger and stronger and stronger and wiser and wiser. And that’s what you want to be – you don’t wanna be a stupid musician out there playing music. Of course, that would be great. I was a stupid musician out there having a good time, it was great. But I looked at a lot of my friends and they’re not here any more. [Ask yourself] ‘What can I do? I’ve gotta get smart, I’ve gotta get something.’ If this is your living then you’ve got to get it together. It’s practicing, studying, all the things you don’t really… all of that. I hate to bore you with that kind of rap. That’s the real deal and not the deal dough.

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Somebody please give Bootsy Collins some government grant money so he can start up his own artist development school to help all of these mediocre artists out here right now, and show those youngins how it’s really done!

We want to help to push these new artists and the best way to do that is with a little tough love. So we want you to sound off ILOSM fam’:

Which new artist(s) do you think needs to go to our fictional “Bootsy Collins School Of How To Learn How To Become A REAL Artist?”