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TREVOR & LISA: Clap N Hustle (2013)

[RATING: 5] Trevor & Lisa might sound like some sort of boy/girl next door pop pairing but they’re nothing of the sort. For a start there’s three of them and second, they’re all blokes. So that’s pissed on the bonfire of your expectations hasn’t it? Secondly, Clap N Hustle is probably the most together contemporary funk/ hip-hop LP I’ve heard in some time and a more successful evocation of seventies funk and the first wave of hip hop than pretty much anything since seventies funk and the first wave of hip hop.

The inclusion of a number of covers (or tracks that lift samples) from the eras of seventies funk and the first wave of hip-hop has done nothing to harm the album’s evocation of those eras, of course. On the funk side of things, expect a space-boogie cover of Al Foster piccolo/ bongo funk classic Night Of The Wolf a theme continued in the form of Soundshake and the Theme Of Trevor & Lisa as well as the latin-disco vibe of Tango Hustle and Until Vibes. The hip-hop cuts are even better though. Dance To The Drummer’s Beat features vocals from The Real Fake MC – Clyde Klingrap and bears much the same relationship to Herman Kelly’s original as Sugarhill’s Rapper’s Delight to Chic’s Good Times while Soulclap (featuring Klingrap again as well as Rita J) is even more in the Sugarhill Gang line – watch the ladies lap those two nuggets up on the dancefloor. The other big hip-hop number is bongo-fired b-boy number Dope On Plastic featuring none other than Crown City Rockers’ rapper Raashan Ahmad. Fly and supertight? Don’t doubt it when T & L have brought along The Funk League’s Dj Suspect on the ones and twos.

The only real misstep here is My Friend, an acoustic soul vehicle for Jehro, which is too oily for words. That aside, this has more clap than a STI clinic in South Africa and more hustle than Vegas on pay day and deserving of considerably more attention than it seems to be getting. Don’t sleep.
(Out now on Favorite Recordings)

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