Players that performed with the likes of Prince, Chaka Khan, Eric Clapton, Sheila E., Stevie Wonder, Billy Idol, and many more gathered together for a few days to create a full album of funk lovingly called Rock Candy Funk Party.

Tal Bergman who has drummed for everyone from Rod Stewart to LL Cool J put together a collection of artists to create an album that would show homage to the funk of the 70′s and 80′s. He pulled in guitarist Ron DeJesus who has played with The Emotions and Tito Puente. Then he added keyboardist Renato Neto who most know from Prince’s NPG, but who has also played with Sheila E., Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera. Next up was classic rock God Joe Bonamassa who has shared the stage with Eric Clapton, Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Company) and even B.B. King. Then on bass guitar he brought in the venerable Mike Merritt who most know as Conan O’Brien‘s bass player from the Max Weinberg 7, but who has also been with Stevie Ray Vaughn, Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen just to name a few.

The result is a 10 track album called We Want Groove that is filled with funk jams hearkening back to the 1970′s and 1980′s class of funk. The era that began to heavily blur the lines between jazz and funk forever distorting and scattering the genre into obscurity. Their job was to revive and redefine that funk era and they did so very well.

From the driving force of the opening Octopus-E (which you can get for free by the way), to the fast rolling Living Color‘esque Spaztastic, to the title track We Want Groove with its stabs that are eerily reminiscent of Prince’s Sexy MF, this completely instrumental album is filed with instant sing along funk classics.

While most of the album’s tracks are hard hitting funktastic grooves, the collective also included a couple of slow jams to bring the energy flow in line with a full on joyride. Funk junkies who love to sing along to verse-less grooves will be in fatback heaven here as most of the jams lack solos that muddy up the mix if they feel that the groove is moving right even though at some moments is its detriment.

Case in point, Renato Neto who is a truly one extraordinary player, doesn’t have nearly enough solo on this album to showcase his capabilities. Even drummer Tal Bergman got in a Madhouse style drum solo on the album’s track entitled Animal. But for Renato, a tickle here and quick tickle there isn’t anywhere near as much as most people familiar with his work to scratch the itch. We can only hope that there is more to come that will put Renato in his rightful glorified spot of righteousness. A second volume, maybe?

After multiple listens, it’s only 1/2 of an afro short of a perfect score. The missing half afro is for the two slow jams that go on a tad longer than may be necessary including the aptly titled The Best Ten Minutes Of Your Life that is a great song, but with not nearly enough variation to carry it beyond the 5 minute mark. The closing slow jam New York Song suffers the same fate although it is redeemed by a hidden track called Mr. Clean that kicks everything back into gear again,…at the ten minute mark.

All in all, this is a great funk escape that snags a very honorable 4-1/2 out of 5 afros. While most people will tune in for a variety of reasons, this album is a “must buy”. It’s a culmination of 5 of the best musicians at their craft bonding for a common purpose and that purpose is funk. We can’t think of a better reason to get together than that. Until Volume 2 of the Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown hits, this collective is the best thing going right now for funk fans. Run, don’t walk to the Rock Candy Funk Party. Great name by the way.

Review of Justin Timberlake’s first installment of the 20/20 Experience. Yes, there will be two of them.

Justin Timberlake is all over the map including singer, actor, sponsor, producer, guest vocalist and he’s pretty amazing at all of them. However, his prowess as a vocalist takes precedence over all of his abilities and he showcases just how bad-ass he is on his new album The 20/20 Experience. The biggest mistake is to think the album is compete since Justin Timberlake just confirmed today that this is only Part 1 with a 2nd installation coming out in November.

Fans of his last two albums who are expecting a continuation of sorts from Futuresex/Lovesounds or Justified will be screaming foul. Those fans may also forget that it’s been 7 years since his last album and much has changed as is immediately relevant with the opening Pusher Love Girl which starts with a string section and eventually ends with a more sporadic breakdown over 7 minutes later.

Speaking of which, every song on the 10 song album clocks in at over 7 minutes with the remaining two clocking in around 5 minutes which puts the album length at over an hour. Most all of the album are mid-tempo grooves that are designed for laid back listening but just sharpened enough to be dance-able. This is his romantic sex album.

The first released track Suit & Tie (featuring Jay Z) has already seen more airplay on the radio in the past month than Prince has had in the last decade for all of his songs combined. Technically, only the song Spaceship Coupe is the slow jam of the album complete with lustful female moaning that’s immediately washed away with the tune That Girl with its Motown Temptations feel.

The only songs on the album that could even qualify as a dance song that would even have a shot to survive for any length of time in a club is the Miami meets Rio flowing sounds of Let The Groove In where you can practically picture the shaking feathers, short skirts, flamboyant stilt walkers and a lot of drifting confetti.

Justin’s vocals are in peak performance and the production value is on high. The marketing is his true brain child as he announced the albums release a mere 2 months in advance while the world suckled on Suit & Tie while they waited. Followed by a week long appearance on Jimmy Fallon (complete with a History of Rap Part 4) and then topped off with a release on the streaming services like Mog and Spotify on the same day it physically hit the shelves which is highly unusual.

None of the songs jump off of the album…yet. This album is filled with songs that you know are going to grow on you and become a part of the pop thread of radio for the next year or more to come, so you might as well get ready for the ride. And truly there is joy in repetition here that is begging to be overplayed.

As mentioned, most of the album is a medium laid back groove that follows cadence with what Suit & Tie started. The aspect of this album that most people miss is that it’s this way by design. It’s not supposed to be a club romp like his previous efforts. This is a grown folks album and a damn good one. But guaranteed it’s not what most people were expecting and even if you thought you had a good idea when he introduced his orchestra that he calls The Tennessee Kids.

The primary standouts on this album are Suit & Tie which you’ve already heard a few hundred times, the aforementioned Let The Groove In and the closing Blue Ocean Floor which is a truly beautiful ambient track that is dreadfully easy to get sucked into and lost in.

If you’re a funk fan with your toes dipped in the jazz future soul sound pool, then take off your clothes and hop in because the water is amazingly fine. While we reserve the 5 afro ratings for amazing funk classics (with some exceptions), this album gets about the highest rating we can give it without sacrificing our funk cred.

Likewise, if you like pop grooves with jazz inflections, this is the album you’ve wanted. Just get it and stop acting like you don’t like it.

And remember, this is only the first half of the album so there’s a second coming before 2013 is even out which Justin revealed to Ryan Seacrest on E!.

We’re giving it 4 out of 5 afros.

Andy Allo is an amazing musician with a very distinct sounding voice who had already gained some traction with her album Unfresh released in 2009 which was slowly putting her in the same class as Jill Jones and the neo-soul community relatively quickly considering how long it normally takes to break through to that crowd. She had created a unique sound that she called “Alter.Hip.Soul“. She had also gained some notoriety as a face on G4′s Attack of the Show along with campaigns for Kohl’s and others. Then along came Prince.

Prince and Andy Allo connected almost immediately and thus began a relationship that put her onboard as singer and guitarist for NPG and shortly afterwards released the newest album Superconductor just launched late 2012. The album was executive produced by Prince and he co-wrote 3 songs on the album including the title track Superconductor, The Calm and Long Gone. All 3 of which have his very distinctive fingerprints with the poppy chord jumps ala Diamonds and Pearls. Essentially, they sound just like a Prince song would.  Even though he’s only noted on those three songs, there are many touches and chord progressions throughout the entire album that are very distinctively Prince sounding such as the album’s first single People Pleaser.

People Pleaser is an incredibly funky track that should have no problem finding some filler time on the dance floors complete with touches from masterful musicians. The album is loaded with amazing talent including saxophonist Maceo Parker, New Orleans superstar Trombone Shorty, drummer John Blackwell, Morris Hayes on keys, Hornheadz, Ida Neilsen on bass guitar and even background vocals by Shelby J, Elisa Fiorillo, and Liv Warfield.

Of the most shockingly beautiful tracks on the album would include the tracks Long Gone, Nothing More, and Story of You & I. All of them hearken to a Sheryl Crow level of songwriting prowess with seductive melodies and tasty grooves. While slower songs normally take the longest time to grow after a first listen, these immediately attach themselves to your psyche with sweet flows and subtle changes.

Andy Allo noted that “the compositions for Superconductor incorporates a variety of layers and a whole lot of Funk.”, but with exception to a few songs (People Pleaser, Yellow Gold and When Stars Collide), the funk is very subtle, but there nonetheless. All being said, we’ll grace this album with a 4 out 5 afros because this time Prince has produced another nice groovy flowing piece of artistry and at the helm is a beautiful and very talented young lady which I’m sure we won’t see the last of any time soon.

Bruno Mars career goes back many, many years all the way into his childhood as a kid performer doing Elvis impersonations in Hawaii for big tourist audiences. After high school, he headed to Los Angeles to start his musical endeavors which proved to be a rocky road. He landed a record deal with Motown, who then dropped him. Refusing to go back to Hawaii as a perceived failure, he went back at it and landed another deal with Atlantic in 2009 which struck gold with him and continues to do so with multiple chart toppers. Not to mention a string of production hits such as B.O.B.‘s Nothing On You, Billionaire with Travie McCoy among others.

Bruno Mars’ new album Unorthodox Jukebox is packed full of potential hits. The unusual opener Young Girls builds the listener into the feel for album’s upcoming out of the box classics. Bruno Mars states, “We took some master chefs into the kitchen with no master plan,” says Bruno Mars. “It was either going to be a disaster, or we were going to come out with something incredible. It turned into this soulful, experimental, electronic, hard-to-explain thing,..That’s the reason behind the album title.”

The second song on the album, Locked Out Of Heaven has already found a place on the charts and rightfully so with a mix of funky riffs, ambient bridges, and Jackson-esque ‘Ungh’s.

Romantic lingo and making girls swoon is what Bruno Mars does best and even though he states that he wouldn’t do any more ballads, he does bring out some horny, sex drenched tunes like Gorilla (“You and me baby, making love like gorillas” along with “give it to me mother f***er” – which is edited by the way). The closest song to a ballad on this album is a piano based song called When I Was Your Man which is a heartfelt song of lament for an ex-girlfriend that features lyrics that every woman wants to hear a man say after a relationship has ended badly (“all the things I should have done, when I was your man“).

The next hit of of this album will be Treasure which features disco thumping bass, NKOTB style background vocals, and even added early Prince sounding synthesizer riffs. This song has top 40 written all over it, so expect to hear it a million times on the airwaves in the coming months. You’ve been warned.

The rest of the album is built out with the various musical whims of Bruno Mars including the reggae Caribbean tune Show Me, the power pop song Natalie, the club thumper Money Make Her Smile, and the Motown sounding mid-tempo groove of If I Knew.

The album is littered with talent including production from Mark Ronson (Macy Gray, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse), Jeff Bhasker (Fun.,Kanye West, Beyonce) , Emile Haynie (Eminem, Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Fun.), Diplo (MIA, Beyonce and solo work) and Bruno Mars’ own production company The Smeezington’s.

Needless to say, this album is an amazing collective of brave risks that all pay off in a symbiotic orgasm of pop and funk. Our only complaint is the shortness of the album at only 10 tracks, but it’s a great 10 tracks and we give it a 4 out of 5 afros.

For those of us up in years, Steely Dan has graced our past days with amazing songs that have owned the radio for decades. Peg, Do It Again, Aja, Deacon Blues, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, Reelin’ In The Years, Dirty Work, Bodhisattva, Black Friday, Josie, and the lists go on forever. And even among those multitude of hits, the two founding members, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker continued to write solo albums in between their Steely Dan sessions.

Donald Fagen‘s solo albums have also created their own collection of hits such as IGY – What A Wonderful World and New Frontier from The NightFly and Tomorrow’s Girls from Kamakiriad.  His newest album Sunken Condos could easily be positioned to recreate that hit-making machine if only the music world was designed for it anymore. His first three albums compiled what he refers to as “The Nightfly Trilogy” and include his first solo work The NightFly, Kamakiriad and Morph The Cat.

Fagen was relieved that the trilogy was now completed. “I’m glad to be done with it, too. It got to be a little oppressive, psychologically speaking,” he says in a Spinner interview. “It imposed certain strictures on what I could write about, what I could do. I felt that I had to do that because I felt I was compelled to finish that cycle. This kind of freed me up to write about different things, although in a way, writing without Walter Becker, I tend to write about my own journey anyway.”

Sunken Condos is the first album outside of the trilogy and a hint of what we can expect from him moving forward as he has insisted that any future albums have to be funky. And that’s completely fine with us. Sunken Condos is a 9 song collection of those amazingly jazzy funky songs with that laid back Steely Dan feel that only Donald Fagen can conjure. The recipe that has built many platinum albums is in full effect here and Funkatopians who fell in love with Steely Dan will find the exact same formula to fall in love with all over again.

Among the funkiest songs you’ll find the opening track Slinky Thing, Good Stuff and the only remake on the album, Isaac Hayes’, Out Of The Ghetto. Although Fagen’s ghetto is a tad different re-visioning than Mr. Hayes intended.

“I was interested in the word ‘ghetto,’ because it had been used so long to connect with the inner city, and I guess I wanted to recapture it for the Jews,” Fagen says. “I thought it would be funny, be humorous, although it’s kind of ambiguous until the later part of the record, because you don’t really get the kind of klezmer aspect of it until late in the record. It’s supposed to dawn on you as the track goes on that this isn’t about the Bronx.”

These funky songs stand alone as great slap bass funk grooves, but still maintaining that head bobbing shoulder shift beats that stick in your head hours after you’ve heard them. When the songs aren’t slapped with blatant funky grooves, they are glazed with nice bouncing bump and sways like the poppy songs Memorabilia and The New Breed, which showcase Fagen’s obsession with off-kilter chord shifts that magically seduce your eardrums with buzzy goodness.

The slouched puff and swing chills are there also like Weather In My Head, Miss Marlene, and the closing track Planet D’rhonda which features some amazing guitar work and his standard fare of intricate chord progressions. But now his sense of musical freedom is more palpable than it’s ever been and we’re very interested to see how this expands into this new universe he’s creating.

In short, we give Sunken Condos a 4 out of 5 afros. Older funkatopians born in the 60′s and 70′s will feel immediately at home with this newest offering and we’re still trying to find something better to put into the CD player. The only thing that makes us angry is that current radio isn’t designed to appreciate any music encapsulated in this genre since radio nowadays is focused on temporary garbage with no focus on finding the new generation of classic songs.   And that’s a shame. For now, file Sunken Condos under “Badass”.

The first brand new album from the baritone bass monster Larry Graham in well over a decade (almost 14 years) is full of his meatiest bass licks, a couple dashes of Prince and a splash of Raphael Saadiq. The end result is one of the newest funkiest albums in a very long time.

The 13 track funk opus brings Graham Central Station fans a whole new collection of songs and a couple of great reworks of Stevie Wonder‘s Higher Ground featuring great vocal arrangements and Al Green‘s It Ain’t No Fun To Me. The recording and mixing was split between Prince’s Paisley Park Studio in Minnesota, Studio de l’Hacienda in France and another mystery location identified as “It’s a Secret” located in Minneapolis. Hmmm.

According to Mr. Larry Graham, the purpose of the album was to compile the songs that got the best reactions from his audiences during his touring. Not to mention that fans of the bass master have been pining for an album for years and we’re pleased to say that this will bring those cries to a silence.

Graham recently told Bass Magazine that most of the album was recorded in the Summer of 2011 in France. “We’d been touring for the last couple years before I made my final selection of songs and put this record together. So I got a chance to see what works with live audiences. I got a chance to see what they like and what they want and what they react to. So this CD is a reflection of that – what the people want when we play our live show.”

Larry shares some great new songs with his fans here that are compiled with a lot of thought in structure and delivery starting with the marching band drum laden GCS Drumline and then blow after blow of deep funk tunes that seem to really feel like a tip of the hat to the funk bands he’s served during his lifetime. From the upbeat and very Sly and The Family Stone-ish It’s Alright, the 80′s funk feeling Throw-N-Down The Funk, and the funk vocoder Zapp type styling of Now Do You Wanta Dance, you can’t help but notice the homage.

Prince contributes a lot to this album and even though Larry Graham shows as the producer of the 3 songs Prince appears on, his fingerprints feel very evident on those selections. Prince‘s background vocals are out front during the chorus of Raise Up and his new distorted guitar styling that he used heavily on LotusFlow3r are all over Shoulda Coulda Woulda, which is one of two slow jams offered on the album where Larry swoons the ladies with his deep baritone delivery. Then Prince shares his background and solo guitar work on the upbeat song Movin’ which again feels strangely like a heavy Prince production job although his name isn’t present in that capacity.

Raphael Saadiq (of Tony Toni Tone fame and his solo work obviously) lends his guitar and vocals to the albums closing track One Day. The song starts off at a medium paced delivery which diverts into a firm build up of “time to go to church” and also features Larry Graham‘s wife who lends her beautiful voice to the track as well.

The album also features nice segues such as the a capella Welcome 2 Our World and the aforementioned opening GCS Drumline which sounds just as you’d expect. The messages throughout the album are pretty clear and speak of living your life to the fullest and rising up against adversity before problems weigh you down. Most of the upbeat deliveries of the album morph into the party sound that brought The Family Stone to life back in the 60′s and 70′s. Of course, you can’t expect much less from the man that originated that thumping and plucking sound behind the bass during Dance To The Music, Everyday People and many other powerful funk classics.

In closing, we’re going to give this album a 4.5 out of 5 stars. The album officially hits the streets on September 25th and can be pre-ordered via the Larry Graham website here or on Amazon here. Song clips aren’t on the Amazon page yet, although the individual songs have clips that we’ve linked to throughout this review.

Most all of the songs clock in around 5 minutes or more, which means a lot of listening pleasure. Easily one of the best funk albums in a while from Graham Central Station that pays a perfect tribute to the various eras of funk music that Larry himself was the master of. This album proves yet again why Larry Graham is one of the best bassists of all time and firmly roots him into the psyche of bass players around the world. His influence on funk music and bass is forever known as the “thump heard round the world”.

For those that are infatuated with old school funk and have been aching for something to come along that would scratch your itch, look no further than The Music City Sessions, Volume 1, 2 and 3. This collection is packed with dozens of funk jazz songs recorded back in the 70′s from various artists and now un-earthed.

The story begins back in the 1950′s when Ray Dobard was the owner and operator of the Music City Label and Music City Record Shops in Berkeley and Oakland, California. His presence in San Francisco was well known as someone who really had their ear to the streets. So much so that groups like James Brown and even Motown paid close attention to what he was up to and many independent black labels came to him with their wares for his help in promotion in the Bay area.

Fast forward to the early 1970′s as Dobard then opened a recording studio in Oakland, California called Ray Dobard’s Music City Recording Studio which continued to pride itself in supporting “black popular music style” back from the early to mid 1970′s with their slant being primarily Soul, R&B and “hard driving funk”. While it seemed like an amazing breeding ground for some incredible music (which it most certainly was), it was also well-known that Ray Dobard always had a profit motive and that he took advantage of the musicians that recorded within his walls.  Most performers looked past it simply because of the influence and power that he had, but his heavy-handedness and the raw sound he pushed out couldn’t compete with the polished soul market that was ruling the radio. Unfortunately, his refusal to conform led to the lack of full potential for the bands and artists that recorded there.

The laundry list of names that participated in the recordings would be a Who’s Who in regional acts although some names like Victor Green have worked with national acts like Fats Domino, Lloyd Price and others. Others include bands that came into the studio from other places far and wide like The Houston Outlaws, The Soul Sensations, Music City‘s most prolific act The Two Things In One, and even the legendary funkster Darondo (who performed the classic “Didn’t I“) among many others.

If anyone remembers the soundtrack to Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz The Cat, this collection of songs is like a continuation of that sound and feel, but with more variation and more funk jazz swings. The quick tempoed funky clean guitar struts, mostly instrumental, are captured here and most of which are in their rare and raw form with all its blemishes and brilliance in tact.

Each volume features liner notes that are fulfilling to read as if you’re privy to the mysterious happenings at Music City and the stories that accompany each tune on the volumes. Stand out tracks like Super Strut, Disco Man, Giant Hamburger Part 2, Gumbo, Backyard and City Country City, all lend themselves to this incredible library of vast historical value.

Of all three volumes, Volume 1 is the most cohesive of the volumes showcasing some of the most polished of the works available. The second volume showcases the more raw, funky and unfinished jams which many funksters are drawn to.  The third is primarily more of the same, but this time it features excerpts from the radio show announcements and lends more focus on the soulful slow jams such as Silly Song and the unusual Gimme Some where vocals swing back and forth from a Prince-ly falsetto into a Cameo-like delivery.

All 3 volumes collectively feature over 30 songs and most of which have never been heard before and performed by a hodge podge of musicians too varied to break down here. These songs are like the missing links of the funk world that have been discovered, remastered, and released in their rarest and purist form. This is a relic of funk history so important that it’s an equivalent to an archaeological find. Do nothing else, but head to http://omnivorerecordings.com/artists/the-music-city-sessions/ and get copies of these classic albums right now. As of this writing, Volume 1 is available and the other 2 will follow shortly.

We have no choice but to ordain this collection with 5 out of 5 afros. This is of historical signifigance and a must for any funk and funk jazz collectors. Get it right now.

Frank Ocean has released his first full debut album and it has an amazing amount of genius and easily a contender for album of the year.

Frank’s career started as a ghostwriter for big name artists like Beyonce, Kanye West and Jay Z, but he eventually decided to break out on his own. That desire landed him a position with the hip hop collective OFWGKTA (aka Odd Future) where his friendship with Tyler, The Creator would jumpstart his notoriety as one to watch. And boy were they right.

While we didn’t have much love for his Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape due to a wealth of too much sleepy R&B for our taste, we still went in to Channel Orange wth an open mind. The result was a very lengthy and very well structured album complete with beautfiul lyrics, unique sound effects, stoney buzzing segues, and enough variation to stranglehold anyone willing to listen (which you can below, by the way).

The album is filled with catchy and fulfilling audio gems like the jazzy bounce of one of the album’s standout singles called Sweet Life. The keyboards tickle through a breezy, uplifting melody setting the perfect cruising along the coast mood.

Other songs shine bright like the Bennie and The Jets bump of Super Rich Kids, the tongue in cheek but still sad Crack Rock, the appearance of Andre 3000 on the track Pink Matter which changes its structure about a half dozen times, and even the risky lyrical content of Bad Religion which he performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

The album has a plethora of segues like the opening Start, the maternal speech of Not Just Money, the super “high” chatter of Pilot Jones, the boom boom sweet jazzed instrumental of White to the closing End along with a bunch of tidbits all throughout.

This album has broken a lot of rules and in the same way that Van Hunt did with What Were You Hoping For?. The effort sounds like the result of a master artists grand masterpiece, but considering that this effort is Frank Ocean‘s debut, it’s truly shocking. It takes its time and doesn’t feel rushed, but still with enough of acid jazz elements to keep it from being too sleepy.

Borrowing from the sporadic composition approach of Bilal complete with shouts, subliminal messages, background chatter and effects, it’s a very suprising work of art and the most solid collection of a whopping 17 tracks we’ve heard from any artist in a very long time.

It’s very important to soak in the album in its entirety, so check out the full stream of the album below and then head to Amazon and get it right right now. And as of this writing, the album is only a mere $4.99 for the entire album. Best $5 you’ll spend today.

It may seem unusual to attempt to lump a band like Black Eyed Peas into a funk genre. They’re certainly more funk than most bands out there in the pop world. But what would would happen if the Peas were stripped of their Top 40 personas and allowed only to do funk music? What would the result be? The answer is Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket.

Not to be confused with the Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown or Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band, Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket (BODB) took all of the fundamentals of what worked for the Black Eyed Peas and applied it to their own sound. Strong lead female vocalist? Check. Rapper who has good flows and humorous rhyming sensibilities? Check. Good beats with thumping dance hall bass booms? Check. About the only thing they don’t have is the promotional power which is a crying shame.

The album opens with Photonic Amplifier People which rings in introducing you to their strong female lead Sarah Seminski aka Lil’ Shrimp. Her vocals and strong and clear and an important part of what makes Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket marketable to most jazz funk audiences. Photonic is a classic upbeat funk shoutback that other acts like Brand New Heavies mastered so well and BODB seems to have pefected the formula.

What draws the Black Eyed Peas comparisons are songs like Mic Smoke that features in-house lyricist Big Daddy Disco who’s rhymes are accentuated by Lil’ Shrimp laid over simplified Top 40′ish keyboard riffs. And then the reverse on songs like Blue Dream where the focus is Lil’ Shrimp and then added rhymes are brought in from Big Daddy Disco. It’s as if Big Ol’ Dirty Bucket stole the Peas playbook and then perfected it.

The typical instrumentals and slow jams are notably absent which strays from the normal successful formula of their predecessors, but it doesn’t detract from the strength of the album collection. Every song has its strength and very few have weaknesses.

The main strengths of the album are the vocal efforts delivered by Sarah Seminski. Her style will draw comparisons to a young Teena Marie and that comparison will be very evident to critics in songs like You Make Me Feel and Sin Lamento. Her vibrato is smooth and tasteful without the need to scream or draw attention to itself. She does what she’s supposed to do and does it well.

The band makes no qualms about being pot-friendly with songs like Chuck Norris that speaks about packing bongs and Lite That Spliff that sings about legalizing it. And there are more mentions where those came from.

The most humorous track definitely goes to Emotional Rollercoaster that is the album’s only slow song, but almost doesn’t qualify because it’s a very tongue and cheek back and forth booty call sung conversation that ofers up some of the most ridiculous pick up lines you’ll ever hear.

The band itself is very tight and strong. The horns are polished and prominent. The drums are clean and in the pocket and the keyboards are perfectly infused. It’s rare to hear a band this size work so well together short of the famed Parliament.

All of the album’s tracks are strong and filled with funk front to back. Fans of the Brand New Heavies, Teena Marie, and even Black Eyed Peas will certainly appreciate this offering. Check out the tracks below for a small taste of what they offer and then head to their website to snag a copy for yourself at http://www.bigoldirtybucket.com.

Visit the full CDBaby site page here or check out the clips below.

De La Soul’s Plug 1 and Plug 2 joined forces with French turntablists Chocolate and DJ Khalid to create a thematic album of some of the funkiest grooves this side of the pond in what could be considered their first album since 2004′s Grind Date (not including the “Nike” album).

True De La Soul fans will cry foul since the album does not have Plug 3, but the full De La Soul team is rumored to be joining forces with Prince Paul for their official eighth album tentatively entitled You’re Welcome. But we’re here to talk about First Serve which is out now!

De La Soul’s Plug 1 and Plug 2 present First Serve is an amazingly funky album with great riffs and smooth flowing lyricism with unusually polished shiny edges. De La Soul fans should be exceptionally excited because the end result is a perfect funky slice of heaven laced with great lyrics and storyline.

Their ever present incomparable rhyming skills are still here and the rhymes mix a laid back old school feel sweetened with a storyline of the journey of two friends by the name of Deen Whitter and Jacob ‘Pop Life’ Barrow in a pursuit to land a record deal.

The story follows the duo from creating songs in a Mrs. Whitter’s basement all the way through to their final attainment of success and touches everything in between in the form of 16 very funky tracks. From the struggle for notoriety, getting signed with Goon Time Records, feuds to french hoes, reconciliation and more, it’s all here and woven into a narrated tapestry and capped on both ends with intro and ending credits.

It’s incredibly difficult to pick out any specific stand-out song since all of the tracks are radio-worthy (with some language editing of course), but they all have a solid feel. Chocolate and DJ Khalid have done an exceptional job spending time with the instrumentation to give them a “live and in person” sound. The bass riffs are thick, the drums are snappy, and the overall aura of the album is very East Coast, but many times dabbles in that West Coast top-down cruising summertime groove.

The flow of the songs do an exceptional job of not only leading the story along, but also maintaining the emotions of the storyline. Starting off with a light “no care in the world” of our two dreamers with Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along which we debuted here along with the celebratory We Made It after the team gets signed with Goon Time Records.  Each song lends itself near flawlessly to the emotion of what’s going on.

Only two songs stray from that light funky sway and come off darker than the rest and that’s the “internal beef” section of the storyline that brings out the Chronic-like stabbing piano chords and gruffer lyricism. Those songs are Clash Symphony and Tennis (although the latter is post-beef) and they’re split down the middle with a very breezy cruising tune called Pop Life set in the backdrop of France.

The storyline is narrated from front to back to maintain the continuity and is interwoven with a lot of humorous dialogue between the characters. There’s nothing too “eye rolling” here, but once you’ve absorbed the story, it may be a hard re-listen. The songs could easily stand on their own, but the story is so finely ingrained into the flow of the album, it may be difficult to break singles out of it.

Overall the album is filled with some great funk grooves, head bopping bass line and riffs and essentially the perfect soundtrack for a road trip. We’ve been excited to listen to the finished product ever since we received the first hint of its existence and we were not at all disappointed with the end product

We hope that the marketing really makes sure that De La Soul‘s involvement is out front a tad more forcefully than it has been, because this is a REALLY good effort and it would be a shame for it to get buried because of a lack of notoriety. Although we have a feeling that De La Soul fans will not let that happen anytime soon.

Get the word out. The boys from De La Soul have a new album out now called First Serve and it’s a great adventure. We give it 4 out of 5 afros!

http://wearefirstserve.tumblr.com/
http://www.twitter.com/poplivin

Part 1 – Mrs. Whitter Video

Part 2 – We Made It

Song – Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along

Mixtape – The Goon Time Mixtape
This is NOT on the First Serve album. This was created to simply lend itself to the storyline.