George Clinton to Get NC Music Hall of Fame Lifetime Award

Article

Funk legend George Clinton is being honoured in his home state. The founder of Parliament and Funkadelic will receive the Eddie Ray Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 North Carolina Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Thursday, October 15, in Mooresville. The ceremony runs from 5:30pm to 10:30pm at the Charles Mack Citizen Center, 215 N. Main Street. Tickets start at $80, and the event is open to the public. A homecoming for Clinton Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on July 22, 1941, 105.3 RNB reports. He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and this year's award recognises his decades of influence on American music. The Hall of Fame says that over more than five decades, Clinton developed a distinctive musical and visual style that influenced funk, hip-hop, R&B, rock and pop. "His work with Parliament-Funkadelic introduced new approaches to production, performance, and concept-driven albums, establishing him as an iconic figure in modern American music," its announcement says. 105.3 RNB adds that his influence has carried across generations, especially in hip-hop , where artists have sampled and drawn inspiration from his catalogue. About the Eddie Ray award The award is named after music industry pioneer Eddie Ray, a 2009 inductee. It honours people whose decades-long careers have had a profound and lasting impact on American music. The 2026 class of inductees Clinton is joined on the night by five new inductees, announced in June: MC Sha-Rock (Wilmington) — described by the Hall of Fame as the first female of hip-hop culture and a founding member of Funky 4 + 1, which became the first hip-hop group to appear on national television, on Saturday Night Live in 1981 Gregory "Sugar Bear" Elliott (Red Springs) — founding member of Experience Unlimited (E.U.) and a pioneer of go-go, whose "Da Butt" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Black Singles chart in 1988 Arrogance (Chapel Hill) — the rock band co-founded at the University of North Carolina by Robert Kirkland and producer Don Dixon, seen as the state's original indie rock trailblazers Barry Poss (Durham) — founder of Sugar Hill Records, which released music by Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton and Nickel Creek Billy Strayhorn (Hillsborough) — the jazz composer and arranger behind "Take the 'A' Train" and "Lush Life", best known for his long collaboration with Duke Ellington The Hall of Fame notes that E.U. also earned a Grammy nomination for "Da Butt" and a Soul Train Award for Best New Artist. Key facts Honour: Eddie Ray Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient: George Clinton (born Kannapolis, N.C., July 22, 1941) Date: Thursday, October 15, 2026, 5:30–10:30pm ET Venue: Charles Mack Citizen Center, 215 N. Main Street, Mooresville, N.C. Tickets: from $80 Presented by: Visit Mooresville About the Hall of Fame The North Carolina Music Hall of Fame is a nonprofit founded in 1994. It has inducted 143 people with strong ties to the state and at least ten years of national prominence. Its museum is at 600 Dale Earnhardt Blvd. in Kannapolis, inside the Curb Music & Motorsports Museum. It has more than 65 exhibits, including Charlie Daniels' fiddle and Arthur Smith's banjo, as well as items linked to Jermaine Dupri, Luke Combs, Tori Amos, Roberta Flack, Randy Travis and The Avett Brothers. New exhibits with memorabilia from the 2026 inductees open at the museum in October, and admission is free. More on the inductees The Hall of Fame adds that MC Sha-Rock helped set new standards for microphone technique, lyrical delivery and live performance in hip-hop's formative years in the late 1970s. E.U. recorded three Billboard-charting singles. Strayhorn's work is recognised in the Grammy Hall of Fame and by the Library of Congress. The museum offers guided tours on request and welcomes donations to support its programming. What's next The Hall of Fame says the ceremony will include appearances and live performances by inductees, with the full list of performers to be announced. For more on the sounds Clinton helped shape, see our soul and R&B hubs and the latest awards news . Sources: North Carolina Music Hall of Fame | 105.3 RNB