I’m trying (with little luck and ever-dwindling hope) to gather information about the kind of drum equipment used by P-Funk drummers Tiki Fulwood, Tyrone Lampkin and Jerome Brailey. Anything I can get: live or studio kits, makes, sizes, photos, interviews… hope someone can help!
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Hi, and welcome!
There’s this article about Tiki with a reference to Fibes drums (and not too much more about equipment but a great read anyway):
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/soulmakossa/the-tiki-fulwood-story-1944-1979-from-tha-foot-up/
Also, Jerome Brailey is active on Facebook and of course could probably provide a ton of info about his equipment and others.
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Hey! Found these articles about Tiki and Jerome from the magazine Modern Drummer. Not much about Tiki’s setup, but there’s some stuff about Jerome’s.
Modern Drummer - 1997 March
Modern Drummer - 2020 June
Also found one about Benzel, so I’ll add it as well. 
Modern Drummer - 2019 August
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Thanks so much! These are all amazingly helpful!
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The secret weapon to Tiki was the Ghost Pedal. It’s the precursor to the Speed King, which was what Jerome used. Tiki is more camouflaged in terms of his playing, and usually creates an overall vibe with a groove that incorporates tons of variations (especially weird foot fills). It’s all foot up with Tiki. A great show to carefully and repeatedly listen to is Sugar Shack 1974 with Tiki on drums. Tiki used a 24" bass drum in the studio, and used 15" hi hats.
Jerome is pretty much the same as Tiki, but “turned up a notch” (which is a quote from the Jerome interview quoted in Modern Drummer on this thread). Jerome closely watched Tiki during the early years (1968-1971), and just added more flashy fills, uses the psst lick a lot more, and uses the money beat a lot more (but with lots of doubles). Listen to Mutiny on the Mamaship, Funk Plus the One, and a Night Out with the Boys. The Newburgh session will give you a great idea of his sound. His drum dimensions are listed in the Modern Drummer interview with him.
Ty Lampkin dances around with the backbeat a lot more than Tiki and Jerome do. Listen to songs like “Lickety Split” and “Say Blow by Blow Backwards” by the Horny Horns. These songs demonstrate Ty Lampkin making the conversation more between his left hand (the backbeat) and his right hand (what is played on the hi hat/ride cymbal), instead of a conversation between the left hand (the backbeat) and the right foot (the bass drum).
Frankie “Kash” Waddy is the master of the four-on-the-floor type drumming, and he uses a lot of chordal playing. He is a very solid player, and almost is like the chameleon in P-Funk, since his involvement spans all the way back to 1972.
I’ve been writing a book on P-Funk drums for a bit, and have taken lessons from Benzel Baltimore.
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Thanks for the rundown! And for a non-drummer like myself it was awesome with the track examples. Welcome to the forum! 
Seconded. The drumming on lickety split is fantastic. Thank you for pointing it out. Not really given much time to Final Blow. Any other Tyrone classics from you - or anyone - would be appreciated.
Here is the Dennis Chamber’s kit from 1994 with an extensive interview, also published via Modern Drummer… 
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A song that I think best represents Tiki’s style is “Nappy Dugout.” The drum intro alone has been sampled numerous times (example- Ice Cube’s “U Ain’t Gonna Take My Life”–a side note is Tiki is the P-Funk drummer with the most samples–“Good Old Music” alone has been sampled 266 known and documented times). “Nappy Dugout” is a song that features Tiki just laying down a general vibe with a groove, and this groove in particular, would be classified (especially by Zoro) as a halftime shuffle (just like “Loose Booty” by Funkadelic which is also Tiki on drums and is generally seen as the first Go Go beat). Make sure to listen carefully to the end of “Nappy Dugout” when Tiki kicks the groove into double time and gets a little funky with his right foot. Remember, Tiki is the theory behind P-Funk drums.
Ty Lampkin helped to round out the characters being sung about in the early days and was capable of playing grooves with a heavy foot (“Trash A-Go-Go”), and is responsible for the first signature P-Funk drum lick (the intro to “Cosmic Slop”). Ty was great with laying down basic shuffles (“Jimmy’s Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him” and “No Compute”), and he often has drum pickups (or what drummers call “drum intros”) that are snare builds with swung 16ths (listen to the drum pickups Ty plays for “Jimmy’s”, “No Compute” and “You Can’t Miss What You Can’t Measure”). Ty and Tiki both really helped to cement the tribal aspect to P-Funk drumming.
As mentioned in my last post, Frankie Kash is the chameleon of the core 5 P-Funk drummers (Tiki, Ty, Kash, Jerome, and Dennis). Checkout Frankie’s playing on “When In Doubt: Vamp” by Horny Horns. It sounds just like Jerome. I was blown away when I foundout it was Frankie! Frankie’s speciality is the four-on-the-floor playing (and Tyrone also excelled with playing four-on-the-floor, just listen to P-Funk at the Capitol Theater 1978). One of the biggest aspects to four-on-the-floor playing is getting the snare drum and bass drum sound the same. It takes a bit to figure that out (think of all the different ways the snare drum can be tuned and hit). In my opinion, Frankie’s playing is best represented on Bootsy’s Rubber Band Live in Louisville 1978 (especially “Stretchin’ Out [In a Rubber Band]”) and Brides of Funkenstein live at the Howard Theater 1978 (especially “Birdie”). Both of these songs can be heard on YouTube. The Brides album is more rare and “Birdie” is the only track from the album found online (to my knowledge). Frankie is such a solid player, and probably is the best drummer for creating the P-Funk Party vibe.
Jerome has lot of signature offbeat grooves that the other P-Funk drummers look to and many musicians (Fred Wesley, George, Bernie) even request the offbeat grooves from him. A good starting place is the studio version of “Do That Stuff” by Parliament. Then expand to the live versions of the tunes, and listen to all the different drum pick ups and fills he uses). After, listen to “Take Your Dead Ass Home” (Funkadelic), “A Blow for Me, A Toot to You” (Horny Horns), and “Half a Man” (Horny Horns). Combine all the lessons you learn from those songs, and continue to develop a strong sense of pocket with playing the money beat with lots of doubles (and also be able to displace the backbeat from 2 and 4 to 1 and 3–Jerome does this on “Anti-Disco” at ~3:53 with only 40 seconds left). Jerome has a very pronounced, enunciated and well-defined pocket. With Jerome, I use a felt beater to create his bass drum sound (with someone like Tiki I use a bomber beater).
Dennis Chambers is the drummer who tied all the concepts together. He had a heavy right foot, and married it with playing complex phrasings with his hands. Dennis was so proficient that he could play percussion parts with his left hand, and be able to play the regular drum groove with his right hand and foot. Other drummers got scared. Obviously, listen to P-Funk All Stars Live at the Beverley Theater 1983. It’s from 1983 - 1985 where Dennis really defined his stamp on P-Funk. Fun Fact: the drums to “Atomic Dog” are taken from various takes done by Dennis Chambers, Mudbone (whose first drum performance is on “Handcuffs” by Parliament), and an electronic percussion by Ron Wright.
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Wonderful stuff. Thank you 
Learning that Muddy played drums on “Handcuffs” just made my day. That’s one of my favorite Parliament tracks.
Thanks for the info.
-Doc Spanky
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Blow by blow is Frank Waddy on drums. He did a lotbof the horny horns stuff. Lickety split is Ty though
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The drums on Atomic Dog are Dennis Chambers, Mudbone snd Zachary Frazier btw
Half a man is Tyrone. Its from an older session from before Jerome’s tenure with Pfunk
Also Jimmys got a little bit,… is Tiki according to George. The pickup is similar to people Tiki emulated like George McGregor
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Uncle Jam is one of my favorite Ty performances, specifically the “I’m a soldier…” and 2nd “on to the left, right” sections
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Billy used the same baseline he used on Shakey ground
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