...I've seen those covers and if you read the inner-sleeve (? I'm referring to the sleeve holding the vinyl, don't know the english term) on Rick's "Fire it up"-album, he pretty much asks for it by "inventing" a funk-language that's so derivative of P-funk, it's not even funny. Still, I don't hear it *that* much musically. Then again, Norman Whitfield was supposedly making tapes of Funkadelic concerts in the 60's in order to find new ideas so George may be right-everyone was ripping him off. Still, I think a case could be made of the opposite being true as well-Parliament seemed to take ideas (or at least "general" concepts) from Ohio Players and EWF and other bands like that when George wanted to go more commercial and less psychedelic with the Casablanca-albums and many of Funkadelic's early albums sound partially derivative of Sly and Jimi IMO. Whatever, it doesn't matter; dude was a genius but I just don't hear *that* much P-funk in Rick or other acts from that era-I just think P-funk were so idiosyncratic that it's just pointless to say people were ripping them off because it came out so different (watered down? I don't want to go there!)...

George Duke definitely bit a bit too much though