Review: Parisian disco-funkateers The Big Hustle made his debut in 2016, self-releasing a double album's worth of instrumental hip-hop and jazz-funk workouts. Here the band pops up on Betino's Records with a fine EP full of ear-pleasing organic instrumentation and tasty, floor-friendly grooves. African vocalist Cheick Tidane Seck guests in "Afrorever", a jaunty chunk of jazz-funk/Afro-disco fusion blessed with killer keys solos and rising horn lines. The Sunas Up remix of the same cut drags the track further towards deep house-meets-Afro-house territory, with warm chords, keys and live bass clustering round a pleasingly groovy rhythm track. Elsewhere, "Faure is the Magic Number" is a seductive, string-laden chunk of hip-hop/jazz-funk fusion, while closer "1,2,1,2" is a straight-up live hip-hop jam complete with tight raps from Raashan Ahmad.
Review: A couple of years back, Rafael Top Secret - a selector known for digging deep for inspiration - delivered a tidy re-edit of "Sekele I Like It", a previously little-known Afro-boogie cut by French artist Robert "Bobby" Helms. Copies of the 1980 album it came from, Lay Down, Girl, now go for serious money, prompting this licensed reissue. Helms' brilliant, horn-totin' original is accompanied by another cut from that album, "Feet On The Ground" - a straight-up disco affair - and two new remixes. Baptman and Betino's "Philly Vibe" mix of "Sekele I Like" is a largely instrumental interpretation that includes some killer electric piano solos, with Vas Moody's "Feet On The Ground" remix taking that track in a tightly-wound dub disco direction.
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