No mysteries. The legends: Sly & The Family Stone, Marley, Hendrix, The Clash, Kraftwerk, Muddy Waters, Led Zeppelin, Grace Jones, Bowie, LKJ, James Brown, The Stones, Fela Kuti, Iggy, Parliament/Funkadelic, Marvin, Miles, Gainsbourg, King Tubby, Prince... All that good timeless music and many of the things that it has inspired: Erykah Badu, Basement Jaxx, Björk, Timbaland and Missy, The White Stripes, Dungen, Jaheim, Gnarls Barkley and the young Marley's. House music from the likes of Kerri Chandler, Roy Davis Jr., Blaze and Marshall Jefferson... Legendary hip-hop from Afrika Bambataa to Common... Thank you!
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"Some bands are exactly what they say they are. The Brooklyn Funk Essentials are an 11-piece outfit who hail from Brooklyn, have the funk, and, given half a chance, will definitely make you like their music. The opening track has what it takes: dynamic, bustling drum & bass, slick horns, and an uptempo, feel-good vibe. There's a celebratory mix-up of slinky Cuban and gruff Jamaican rhythms called "Mambo Con Dancehall," but the vocal tracks are where the album really kicks off. A couple of members of the Brooklyn Funk Essentials are dub and slam poets, and "Date with My Baby" and "I Got Cash" feature what are quite possibly the best lyrics of 2000. Not only are they very pointed, wickedly funny, and deadly accurate, but they're delivered over slick, boiling-point funk with more cool, suss and style than should be scientifically possible." --Amazon.co.uk
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Brooklyn Funk Essentials were born out of New York's buzzing hip-hop-jazz and slam poetry scenes of the early nineties. Originally conceived by Arthur Baker and Lati Kronlund as a series of studio jam sessions, the group soon turned into a 12-piece live outfit consisting of some of the finest young musicians, singers, rappers, dub poets and djs the Big Apple had to offer. Original members included Lati Kronlund (bass and band leader), Hanifah Walidah (aka Sha-key), Joi Cardwell, Papa Dee and Stephanie McKay (vocals), Everton Sylvester and David Allen (dub poetry), Josh Roseman (trombone), Bob Brockmann (trumpet), Paul Shapiro (sax & flute), Yancy Drew and Tony Allen (drums), E.J. Rodriguez and Danny Sadownic (percussion), Desmond Foster (guitar), ATN Stadwijk and Yuka Honda (keys), Bill Ware (vibes) and djs Jazzy Nice and Smash on turntables.
The debut album Cool & Steady & Easy (1994/95) also featured prominent guests like Maceo Parker, The Tower Of Power Horns, Michigan & Smiley and even Dizzy Gilespie. It was first released by renown UK label Dorado in Europe, but was soon picked up by RCAs Groovetown imprint for the US and the rest of the world. The first single a funky reggae-inspired reworking of Pharoah Sanders classic The Creator Has A Master Plan became an instant hit reaching the Top 20s. The album also featured songs like Big Apple Boogaloo, Take The L Train, Dilly Dally and A Headnaddas Journey To The Planet Adidi Skizm, all of which became classics of the genre. The popular album cut 'Bop Hop' was featured in a Nike commercial.
Apart from being regulars at New Yorks buzzing club scene, BFE began touring the world marking highlights in the company of acts like Parliament Funkadelic, The Roots, James Brown, Jamiroquai, Spearhead and Ben Harper. One of these tours found the group headlining the Fuji World Music Festival in Istanbul, Turkey. The reception was so great that BFE recorded their second album there with 11 Turko-Romanian folk musicians - Laço Tayfa. The result was 1998s In The BuzzBag, which became a milestone in collaborative projects and earned BFE a Grammy nomination. It also escalated the group to a stadium capacity act in Turkey.
In 2000, BFE released their third album Make Them Like It, which concluded where the first album left off: A happy mélange of funk, latin, reggae, jazz, house, dub, electro and hip hop which featured the fan favorites I Got Cash, Mambo Con Dance Hall and Woman Thing.
After the 2001 world tour the band members took a hiatus and pursued a number of noted solo interests.
Offers of recording and touring where plentiful, and BFE songs kept being featured on compilation albums around the world, and in the summer of 2006, a core of BFE members got back together again to do a tour of three world continents as BFE Sound System (mixing classic BFE with electro and dub). By the end of 2006, the sound system model had been abandoned for a return to the group’s original all live funk line up consisting of Hanifah Walidah, Papa Dee and Everton Sylvester (vocals), Lati Kronlund (bass), Yancy Drew (drums & vocals), Desmond Foster (vocals & guitar), Iwan van Hetten (trumpet, keys & vocals) and Philippe Monrose (percussion). The group continued touring the world in 2007 and are currently working on a new album in studios in New York, Paris, Istanbul and Stockholm, scheduled for release in early 2008.
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your show last nite@halfnote jazz club in Athens was simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!i've never seen this place like this,the crowd THAT excited with a band,hope seeing you VERY soon at a bigger venue in our city,keep on! p. s:the new album is a magnificent blend of your finest styles of music,i loved it!
