The National Museum of African American History and Culture is about to get a little more funky. Parliament Funkadelic's famous funk mothership has just been acquired and is headed toward the Smithsonian museum to be forever immortalized as an icon in African-American history. You can see the ship in action below:
The video above is from 1976 when the mothership made its stage debut, but sadly, according to the Washington Post, the mothership is making its way to DC isn't the same one, but rather a replica made for more recent performances.
The original ended up in a scrap heap in the 1982 because, well, funk don't pay the bills. The WaPo goes on to say the original scrapped ship has actually never been found - once it hit the Prince George County scrap yard, it mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps it flew back up to funk-heaven?
The ship will sit along side stage costumes by James Brown, Lena Horne’s evening gowns, and Louis Armstrong's trumpet in an exhibit dedicated to music history set to open in 2015.