Time Out New York: You've had some troubles lately. What keeps you going?

James Brown: God keeps me going. It's like what the late Johnny [President Kennedy] said: "It's not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." I feel the same way. I am just trying to send out good clean positive vibes!

TONY:What keeps you so upbeat?

JB: I don't read the Bible as much as I should, but I try to think of what I can do to help. That's how I always think. I can't always do it, but I always thinkit.

TONY:How would you describe your current health?

JB: [Laughs] I have the mind that I had when I was 30, and I have the body that I had when I was 40!

TONY:How do you keep in shape?

JB: Well, I work hard; I move a lot, and I don't eat a lot--plus I take a lot of laxatives, and I drink a lot of water. At my age, you got to do that kind of thing. I try to eat food that doesn't have a lot of grease in it. I put grease in chicken but not all the time, so it balances itself out. One thing about me is that I'm very immaculate with my hair. I wash it and balsam it and condition it and try to keep it very clean. When you have as much hair as I do, you've got to keep your hair clean!

TONY: You dohave great hair.

JB: Thank you very much.

TONY: Do you still consider yourself the hardest-working man in show business?

JB: No doubt!

TONY:How often do you perform these days?

JB: About 150 days a year.

TONY:Everyone knows you're the "Godfather of Soul." How did you get the name?

JB: I got the name after I released the Black Caesaralbum. You see, I was singing soul music before it became popular. My music started disco.

TONY:How do you define soul?

JB: Soul is a deep feeling and a committed feeling. Soul is something that stays with you despite the obstacles that are put in front of you. Soul is the real you. Soul is when you feel that God is watching over you, and if you make a mistake or do something willfully against somebody else, soul will make you realize that you've done something wrong. It makes you fear God more.

TONY:Does everybody have soul?

JB: Everybody's got soul! Everybody doesn't have the same culture to draw from, but everybody's got soul.

TONY: What's your opinion of rap?

JB: I'm 90 percent behind rap, but I'm not 90 percent behind the vulgarity. The vulgarity isn't needed, but the message is. When I use vulgarity, I control it. I don't say things in public that would give you a bad image of me.

TONY:Despite your great success, white Americans have never fully embraced your music.

JB: That's right!

TONY:Why do you think that is?

JB: Because there has always been that race thing there. You know, white America is as far from black America as we are from the sun. Because we are not together, we have special rules that apply to African-Americans that shouldn't be. People should be treated equal and fair. Let your fate be determined by God, not by man.

TONY:Care to comment on O.J. Simpson and the treatment he's received from society since he walked on a murder rap?

JB: I'll just say one thing: I'm glad the O.J. Simpson trial is out of our system and out of our atmosphere. I pray for all three families, and hopefully people will not be so quick to judge.

TONY:I take it you're one of the few people who believe O.J. is innocent?

JB: I just don't believe that O.J. is sophisticated enough to commit a crime of that magnitude and have so little time to clean up, wash up and have no blood showing in just five or ten minutes. Besides, I knew O.J. wouldn't go to prison.

TONY:How?

JB: If he didn't walk, we would have had riots that made the other riots look like nothing.

TONY:What do you mean?

JB: There's a lot of anger out there. The same thing happened to me.

TONY:What happened to you?

JB: I've been arrested two or three times! In Chicago, [the police] had me tied up with wire and cut off all the circulation to the point where I almost died. So I threw myself at the mercy of the county and just gave my statement of what I did, which was nothing. But I didn't play my arrest up; I played it down, because it's harder to stop a riot than it is to start one. So I didn't go that way.

TONY:So you're saying you were innocent each time you were arrested?

JB: I was always innocent. My crime was that I was James Brown.

TONY:Are you frustrated with the judicial system in this country?

JB: It's frustrating when a teacher wants to teach a child who keeps doing wrong and she's not even allowed to punish that child. It's frustrating to you when you write a nice story and your editor takes your story and puts it on the back page. That's frustrating. Frustration is a part of life. Who said life was going to be easy?

TONY:Most people don't know that the famed Apollo Theatre in New York City is still there because of the money you donated to the historic structure.

JB: They are having a very bad time. I spent $293,000 for the making of Live at the Apollo,whose proceeds I donated, as well as another $140,000 from the ticket sales from when I played there. That's the kind of things that you have to do. Do you realize that the Apollo Theatre worldwide is more popular than Madison Square Garden? It's a mecca! It's bigger than Carnegie Hall! Carnegie Hall is for the elite. The Apollo is for everybody: black, white, Chinese, Italian or Jew. It doesn't make a difference. It's for us as people!

TONY:How would you want to be remembered in the rock & roll books?

JB: I want to be the one who took the low side and made it the high side.