Brooklyn Fun Essentials - Watcha Playin'

Following an 8 year hiatus, the acclaimed collective Brooklyn Funk Essentials triumphantly return with a new studio album Watcha Playin'. Immaculately produced by founder Lati Kronlund, the blistering set marks the legendary multicultural collective's 15th anniversary and is their first new studio offering since 2000's Make 'Em Like It.

Released Spring 2008 (on Black Plastic Magick/Comet Records), Watcha Playin' reunites the classic line-up of Kronlund (bass, beats, guitar, keyboards and turntables), vocalists Hanifah Walidah, Papa Dee and Everton Sylvester, and Yancy Drew (drums & vocals) alongside Desmond Foster (vocals & guitar), Iwan van Hetten (trumpet, keys & vocals), Philippe Monrose (percussion) and an impressive cast of notable guest contributors including Turkish super-star clarinet player Hüsnü Senlendirici and Tunisian Raï Diva Amina Annabi (lead vocals). Awa Manneh and Stephanie McKay (background vocals) and from Bebel Gilberto's band Masa Shimizu (guitars). The album is the forth studio release from the group who was born out of New York's buzzing hip-hop-jazz and slam poetry scenes in the early 90s.

Watcha Playin' finds the enduring outfit dispensing radiant sonic nirvana with masterful arrangements, eloquent lyrical narratives and exhilarating melodies. Written and road-tested during the band's 2007 reunion tour, the explosive set was recorded in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Istanbul and Stockholm injecting a distinctive cosmopolitan flair vividly constructed around smooth textures and jubilant rhythms, which have become the band's signature (along with their impeccable live performances).

Throughout the 12-track opus, BFE brilliantly showcase their dexterity mining an eclectic musical terrain anchored in full-bodied urban dance grooves, stylized pop, sweltering 70s funk, irrepressible disco nostalgia, dance-hall-infected reggae/hip-hop jams, and flavourful poly-ethnic dub. Taking cues from contemporaries like Stephen and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Gnarls Barkley, M.I.A., N.E.R.D., Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai and Mr. Scruff, BFE weave a cohesive widescreen collection where the energy is infectious, the instrumentation superlative and the songs dynamic - carefully balancing political fire and ruminative societal critiques with transcendent elegies and euphoric party jams.

Watcha Playin' is a tour-de-force that harkens back to the spicy swagger of their landmark 1994 debut Cool and Steady and Easy (which featured their funky reggae-inspired reworking of Pharoah Sanders' classic "The Creator Has A Master Plan"), the vibrant traditional Turkish folk mosaics of 1998's Grammy-nominated In The Buzz Bag and the refined pop mélange of 2000's Make 'Em Like It.

Tracks like the magnetic Gypsy-Skamitzva bounce "Dibby Dibby Sound", "For A Few Dollars More / Faya" (a poignant political meditation railing against the fractured state of the world's money hungry democracies featuring Papa Dee and Everton), the slinky jazz-house scorcher "S-Curved" and the atomic maelstrom "My Jamaican Girl" (featuring Hanifah Walidah) are poised to propel the acclaimed act further into the pop consciousness without sacrificing their underground roots.

01. Need 12:40
02. Dance - Free Night 4:46
03. Bellybuttons T&a 5:00
04. Rude Boy Shuffle 6:38
05. The Park 4:11
06. Wendell Wedding 5:32
07. For A Few Dollars More 8:09
08. Work It Out 6:10
09. My Jamaican Girl 5:19
10. Dibby Dibby Sound 2:31
11. S-curved 7:46
12. The Day Before Adidi 6:12

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Brooklyn Funk Essentials - In the Buzz Bag

Acid-jazz collective Brooklyn Funk Essentials was first conceived in 1993 by producer Arthur Baker and bassist/musical director Lati Kronlund; by the following year, the group was a staple of the New York City club scene, with early lineups also including singers Joi Cardwell, Sha-Key, and Papa Dee, poets Everton Sylvester and David Allen, DJ Jazzy Nice, keyboardist Yuka Honda, (soon to co-found Cibo Matto), trumpeter Bob Brachmann, trombonist Joshua Roseman, saxophonist Paul Shapiro, drummer Yancy Drew, and percussionist E.J. Rodriguez. Brooklyn Funk Essentials' debut album Cool and Steady and Easy followed in the summer of 1994, scoring an underground hit with its rendition of Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan"; when Caldwell exited to mount a solo career, she was replaced by vocalist Stephanie McKay. In the Buzz Bag followed in 1998, and two years later, the group returned with Make 'Em Like It.

This is an unusual offering for the New York funk/jazz/hip hop outfit, recorded in Istanbul in consortium with local combo Laco Tayfa. Already adept at fusing funk, reggae, Latin, and jazz in their mix, Funk Essentials here add Turkish rhythms and instruments like the kanun, oud, zuma, and clarinet, usually just for color in the dance groove. When things work, as on the title track, it's a highly successful marriage, but at times it is a little forced. The material strays to a couple of sappy "urban contemporary" ballads, but luckily Buzz Bag is generally upbeat, and the band's inherent musicality, humor, and intelligence keep things afloat. The most interesting tracks are the ones that carry the most Turkish influence, but generally this is less a World Summit than a Nu Kultural Flava.

01. By And Bye
02. Istanbul Twilight
03. Magick Karpet Ride
04. In The BuzzBag
05. Keep It Together
06. Selling Out
07. Ska Ka-Bop
08. You Don't Know Nothing
09. Freeway To Uskudar
10. Zuma Preserve

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