As the header states on the liner notes "THIS IS NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER'S NEW ORLEANS RECORD." This really captures the attitude of New Orlean's own bounce-style band(the term for the New Orleans hip-hop sound) Galactic on their new album ya-ka-may. Knowing a little about ya-ka-may will help though a little.
As so much of New Orleans culture is based around food, ya-ka-may (a bastardization of Ya Ka Mein) is a loose set of ingredients used in an Asian soup done New Orleans style. For this album it just means a mixture of all kinds of fun stuff musically. Funk, jazz, blues, R & B, rap/hip-hop are just the starting point for this terrific album. We got some heavy hitters too. If there is a single on this album it would have to be Irma Thomas singing the song Heart Of Steel. She belts this out in her great New Orleans funky style. Boe Money features the standard New Orleans brass style of The Rebirth Jazz band. Legendary New Orleans bandleader and producer Allen Toussaint appears on the song Bacchus.
This album sounds so new stylistically, but it is firmly rooted in New Orleans. Hip-hop in general owes much to New Orleans. A lot of hip-hop out there samples New Orleans beats (especially The Meters, who are one of the most sampled bands in hip-hop besides James Brown!)
I give this album two funky-butts up!
No comments:
Post a Comment