NY production team Freqnik & WDRE’s debut Favela B-Boy Funk is nothing less than a tribute to the sizeable but largely unsung latin contingent of early hip-hop. And like previous tributes (e.g. Bronx Dogs’ Mambo Roc) to the sizeable but largely unsung latin contingent of early hip-hop it’s rather good. It’s the break you see. Fat syncopated drums, resonant with latin percussion, laced with stabs of tropical horns and irresistible to b-boys and girls everywhere. Which brings me to the video. Or three and a half minutes of Long Island b-boys and girls enslaved by the beat intercut with footage of Freqnik & WDRE thumbing through vinyl in a secret Long Island record store and a naked lapdancer gyrating on a podium. Alright, the lapdancer bit isn’t true.
(Out now)