16 June 2013

JUNGLE BROTHERS // FREESTYLERS

New York's JUNGLE BROTHERS and England's FREESTYLERS, both snagged off of BBC radio in 1998. JUNGLE BROTHERS pioneered the marriage of rap with house music in the late '80s and their set features music, interviews and tracks like "I'm Gonna Do You" that will remind you how to have fun. The last half of their airtime gets a little more rowdy and a lot faster (naturally this stuff is more to my liking). While JUNGLE BROTHERS were veterans when these broadcasts were made, FREESTYLERS were in their infancy - the internet tells me that their sound is called breakbeat, whatever the fuck that means, but I hear retro '80s freestyle (a style of dance music I can only identify in the most amateurish manner and even that is only because of B and Boo Boo) meshed with whatever kind of music URBAN DANCE SQUAD played in 1988. I'm pretty sure I've driven away anyone who comes here looking for punk, so I'll take this moment to add that FREESTYLERS version of "Breakers Revenge" is an absolute dancefloor crusher. 17 minutes from FREESTYLERS, 27 from JUNGLE BROTHERS, all offered in authentic moderate fidelity recorded on a teenager's boombox-in-the-bedroom-late-at-night-while-parents-are-sleeping sound.



1 comment:

Jimmy said...

The JB's first record, "Straight Out Of The Jungle" is a classic. Will check this out , thanks!