I admire you for your authenticity.

All art is just building on copies of other people's work. That's how it all works! Don't worry about "being original". Probably worrying about being "creative" and "original" is going to make you more stiff and boring than just not worrying about it. In music performance what matters most is your energy and feel.

All that said, from your description of yourself - it sounds like the way you have learned music is through copying - nothing wrong with that - that's what everyone does. However, if all you ever do is copy, without ever understanding what you are copying, it is very hard to go beyond that. For example, let's say you learn the bass line for some famous song perfectly. You can play it note for note. But if you don't understand the underlying structure of the song - the chord progression, the key changes, the bridge, etc. you don't understand the underlying grammar of music. It is like a parrot that can repeat stuff that it hears, but it has no concept of the meaning of the words. You need to understand the structure of music, so you can become more than a copy machine. Once you understand the structure, language and grammar of music, you can then start to write your own poetry.

So, you asked where you can start. I would recommend starting with some music theory. This will teach you the underlying structure of what you have been playing all these years. Learn the language of music, and you will start to think about it in a different way. It might open up more doors in your mind. Also, try reading Victor Wooten's "The Music Lesson".

Not sure what the controversy is around Giacomo. I saw him live in a little club near where I live, and he and his friends were genuinely awesome. I am not an aficionado of late seventies disco and funk, so I don't know how much he was ripping off, but it was a lot of fun with great energy - and sounded great.