Customer Reviews

Make Em Like It

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best, most engaging albums I've heard in a long time. The various styles and genres meld seamlessly here, creating an album that holds your attention without causing you to say, "Oh, look - they're playing a salsa tune now." The two highlights are "I Got Cash" and "Confirm Reservation." The latter is a unique take on (and choice of, for that matter) reggae great Gregory Isaacs' original, while the former is an ironic, venomous and darkly funny (albeit blue-streaked) tongue-lashing at the supposed liberal nouveau riche. But above it all, it'll make ya head bob. It's one of those records that makes you hit play again the moment the record's ended. Well worth buying.

This CD is pretty funny. Mamed Con Dancehall is a fun Samba and then you go into an player testimonial in a funny tune "Date With Baby". Then there's a look at rich yuppie life in "I Got Cash" and on the CD goes from Jazz to Salsa to R&B to Ska to Hip Hop and so forth. It's a fun CD but some of their older stuff was more serious.

This cd collects many of the great cuts from BFE's extended play cd Little Way Different which is the kind of cd you can put on permanent replay, in rotation with a little Etta James and some santero music from Cuba, turn up the volume and find god. The meshing of words and music problems of Cool & Steady & Easy (their first cd) are all gone; these folks sound like they merged their creative intellects for all our collective pleasure, and what a pleasure it is. Everton Sylvester's poetry is the big draw, but the vocals and music are brilliant and undeniably insinuating-into-the-brain lovely. A great example of cultural fusion for the delectation of all. Dig it or you're dead!

Normally, I am put off by modern production--that digital gum that undercuts so much of today's music, as if dynamics could be replaced by shine. But with Brooklyn Funk Essentials, they use it to make their point--and I get it.

This band is one of the most rooted in what was discribed to me a long time ago by a jazz professor as "the African American Continum" All the music that came to the America's on slave ships, started as gospel and field hollars, up through Robert Jonhson, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, and then Public Enemy and Living Color. Latin and regaee are strains, and as the greats understand, it is all of a piece.

Remeber that scene in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing? Samual L. Jackson reads off a list of jazz soul and blues artists? That is not filler from a movie. It is pages from the textbook.

Brooklyn Funk Essentials get it, too. Boy do they get it. This collective may contain the word funk in their name, but this is just a chip of the paint

A trip hop racer here has a blues hornline. Funk is matched with a deep rasta regaee rap. Latin soul is sculpted from an old Chicaho song,

This band does it all, and does it modern. This is not stylistic expermentation. They have read the book. They have memorized a text almost too massive to commit to mind. They wrap it in digital.

Everything old is new. All this music is ours. Brooklyn Funk Essentals make it new for all of us.

I got caught by the half-beats on the title track. Double time knocking my head all around. Grab this disc, play this music and feel parts of your body shake that haven't shook in far too long.

A great mix of genres, dancehall, abit of hip-hop, jazz, funk.... a wonderful album. Sense of humor is required for several songs.

This album is worth the price of admission for "I got cash" alone. So poignantly written, with such sensitivity and grace to those who are more greenback blessed. Truth never hurt more.
The album has a rare honest groove, a great variety of funkified tunes suitable for chillin' out or getting down to.
If you don't like this, go drown yourself in a lake of Diet Coke...or sit on your ski rack...I just can't say it with conviction though like BFE can!

THIS IS THE THIRD IN HOPEFULLY A LONG LINE OF GREAT CD'S FROM BFE. THEY CONTINUE TO BE ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF ACID JAZZ MUSIC, EXPANDANG THE LIMITS AS THEY GO. EACH CD HAS IT'S OWN FLAVOR, AVOIDING THE RUT SO MANY OTHER GROUPS FALL INTO. THIS CD FEATURED INTELLIGENT, HUMOROUS WRITING, AND EXCELLENT MOVING, FEELING BEATS. NOT ONE OF THE CUTS WAS A THROW-IN, MEANT TO FILL TIME. IF YOU LIKE A BIG SOUND FEATURING HORNS, PERCUSSIONS, BASE, AND VOICE, YOU'LL LOVE THIS. P.S THE GUY WHO GAVE THIS CD A 2 STAR RATING MUST BE LOST IN THE BRITTNY SPEAR CRAZE, IF HE COULDN'T FIND THE GROOVE IN THIS MUSIC.

Great record, is a compelling mix of various musical genres, especially funk.Altra demonstration of strength and pace to play music at maximum volume of this fantastic group.

This is an excellent acid jazz album! Make Them Like It, Mambo Con Dancehall, Confirm Reservatation, Vinyl Crisis, Bill's Playground - great music! I love it!