ROCK HILL, S.C. — Who needs pomp and circumstance when you can give up the funk, instead?

The Mothership arrived in Rock Hill on Friday afternoon, as music icon George Clinton accepted an honorary doctorate degree from the college named for his great-great-grandfather, Bishop Isom Caleb Clinton.

"Today in Rock Hill, South Carolina," Clinton College president Lester McCorn said during Friday's commencement ceremony, "Dr. Funkenstein officially becomes Dr. Clinton."

Clinton, 82, began his music career six decades ago. He influenced generations with a new genre of soul and R&B while popularizing Afrofuturism and synthesizing new sounds, McCorn said. A long reel of popular songs include the "unofficial anthem of the culture," he said, "One Nation Under a Groove."

"Your music became the summons to the dance floor for every event that allowed Black folk to be free to express themselves," McCorn said.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic in 1997. Prince gave the induction speech.

The Hall of Fame describes P-Funk online as the "mind-blowing, soul-expanding musical equivalent of an acid trip." Clinton and P-Funk received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.

Connection to the Carolinas

Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He moved north a year later, but learned about his mother's side of the family in the Charlotte area during his music tours.

Clinton didn't know as much about his South Carolina connection until a few years ago when his wife, Carlon, dug into genealogy research.

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