Incredibly, it was thirty-five years ago that an uncleared sample of Grant Green’s Sookie Sookie in The Band Played The Boogie by NW1 (a.k.a. Geoff Wilkinson, Mel Simpson and rapper Born 2 B) caught the attention of the massive Blue Note jazz label, resulting not in a lawsuit but unfettered access to the Blue Note vaults. NW1 of course, shortly afterwards became Us3 (ironically after the departure of Born 2 B) and global success awaited in the form of one of the jazz-rap genre’s biggest ever hits, the Herbie Hancock-sampling Cantaloop. Now Us3 is back, still doing it (even if Wilkinson is the only original member left) with twelve-tracker Snap, Crackle & Bop featuring Akil Dasan (who first worked with Wilkinson on 2006 LP Schizophrenic) on the mic.
First single Cool Cat provides the opener, rolling back the years to the early 90s when jazz-funky music underpinning laid-back bars defined cool – in this case an organ-led groove. Step Ahead is equally evocative though here it’s a horns-led beat beneath reflective lyrics from Dasan. Lest you think Snap, Crackle & Bop is a purely jazz-funk-powered affair though, note that Wilkinson has cast about more widely for his musical inspirations. Second single Have A Great Day nods in a Latin direction (as well as providing yet another outing for the ubiquitous Funky Drummer break) while the synth and staccato-drum powered Stand Up and the Afro and Amapiano-tinged I Like To Party provide the most fully modern-sounding cuts, though Catch A Vibe also draws on Amapiano and reggateon besides the jazz, the superb You Got Me Open goes big on the steel pans and trap-style drums and closer The Garden Of Forking Paths sounds positively (jazz)house-y.
Like the title suggests, there’s plenty of energy here on a set which successfully channels the past while optimistically looking to the future in a way fully reflected in Dasan’s rhyming.
(Out now HERE)