Six studio albums and many years of grooves.

STay Good (2019)

Release date: 26 September 2019
Label: Dorado Records under license from Black Plastic Magick

Track Listing

1. Stay Good (6:49)
2. Ain’t Nothing (5:06)
3. No Strings (5:40)
4. Watcha Want From Me (7:06)
5. Miss Mess (5:32)
6. Keep The Love (6:41)
7. Funk Ain’t Ova (3:51)
8. Breeze On Me (6:30)
9. Bakabana (3:12)
10. Y Todavìa La Quiero (7:19)
11. Steps (5:23)
12. Where Love Lives (6:40)

Track listing refers to CD version of album, where all songs are full length.

Produced by Lati Kronlund for Black Plastic Magick, except
‘Ain’t Nothing’ and ‘Bakabana’ produced by Iwan VanHetten for VanHetten Productions.

Anna Brooks - Bari and tenor saxes and backing vocals
Desmond Foster - Guitar, lead and backing vocals
Lati Kronlund - Bass, guitar and keyboards
Alison Limerick - Lead and backing vocals
Hux Nettermalm - Drums and percussion
Iwan VanHetten - Trumpet, keyboards and backing vocals

Roy Ayers - Vibraphone on Breeze On Me
Leena Conquest - Backing vocals on Breeze On Me

Recorded at Atlantis Studio, Stockholm by Janne Hansson, at Black Plastic Magick, Stockholm by Lati Kronlund and at VanHetten Productions, Birmingham by Iwan VanHetten.
Mastered by Hoffe Stannow at Cosmos Mastering, Stockholm.

‘Stay Good’ was Brooklyn Funk Essentials’ sixth studio album - but it was their first with Alison Limerick as lead singer. BFE founder and bass player, Lati Kronlund, was the writer and producer behind Limerick’s seminal house anthem ‘Where Love Lives’, so the connection was already there. It was also that single that first brought Kronlund together with Arthur Baker, who was the other original Funk Essential, as well as with Frankie Knuckles, whose remix of ‘Where Love Lives’ is legendary.

Frankie’s spirit is highly present on the ‘Stay Good’ album, which includes a remake of the song ‘Whadda U Want (From Me)’ - originally a single from Knuckles’ 1995 ‘Welcome To The Real World’ album featuring Adeva and co-written by Kronlund. Brooklyn Funk Essentials gave the song a funky boogie disco make-over and tweaked the lyrics to reflect the seemingly never-ending plight for universal civil rights. They also changed the title to ‘Watcha Want From Me’ and it is a duet between Limerick and BFE’s guitarist/singer Desmond Foster. It was released a single in August 2019, supported by a remix from the French DJ crew Mochi Men.

The duet-arrangement with Limerick and Foster runs throughout the album, and can be heard on titles such as ‘No Strings’ and ‘Ain’t Nothing’ which were released as singles in December of 2018 and May 2019 respectively.

Funk Ain’t Ova (2015)

Release date: 13 November 2015
Label: Dorado Records under license from Black Plastic Magick

TRACK LISTING

1. Blast It! (4:44)

2. Dance Or Die (4:53)

3. I’m Gonna Find Me A Woman (Cause It’s Cold Outside)(4:59)

4. Prepare (4:38)

5. Hold It Down (4:14)

6. Set It Off (4:59)

7. Hook (4:28)

8. Gabriel (4:58)

9. Brooklyn Love (4:37)

10. Recycled (5:31)

11. Unique (5:37)

Click on title for lyrics

Produced by Lati Kronlund for Black Plastic Magick.
‘I’m Gonna Find Me A Woman (Cause It’s Cold Outside)’ produced by Lati Kronlund and Danny Madden.
Executive producers: Peter Lax, Violet Benny and Jesper Wikström.

The band:

Anna Brooks - Saxes and backing vocals
Papa Dee - Lead and backing vocals
Desmond Foster - Guitar, lead and backing vocals
Lati Kronlund - Bass, guitar and keyboards
Hux Nettermalm - Drums on all songs except ‘Hold It Down’
Iwan VanHetten - Trumpet, keyboards and backing vocals Everton Sylvester - Dub poetry vocals

Bob Brockmann - Trumpet on 3.
Joi Cardwell - Lead vocals on 2 and 8.
DJ Cue - Cuts on 11.
Yancy Drew - Drums on 5.
Isaac Hayes - Lead vocals on 3.
Awa Manneh - Backing vocals on 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 11.
Stephanie McKay - Lead and backing vocals on 1, 3 and 4.
Josh Roseman - Trombone on 3 and 10.
Danny Sadownick - Percussion on all songs except 5.
Paul Shapiro - Tenor sax and flute on 3.
Masa Shimizu - Space guitar on 1, 3 and 4.
Bill Ware lll - Vibraphone on 3 and 11.
Crystal Waters - Backing vocals on 4.
Morgan Ågren - Percussion on 11.
Will Downing, Audrey Wheeler, Nicki Richards, Craig Derry and Danny Madden - Backing vocals on 3.

Recording engineers:
Andy Tommasi (Bedford Studios, Brooklyn)
Lati Kronlund (Black Plastic Magick, Stockholm)
Iwan VanHetten (VanHetten Productions, Birmingham)
Bob Brockmann (Dangerous Sound, New York)
Willem Bleeker (X-Level Studios, Stockholm)

Mixed by Lati Kronlund at Black Plastic Magick Studio.
Mastered by Björn Engelmann att Cutting Room, Stockholm.

‘Funk Ain’t Ova’, was Brooklyn Funk Essentials 20th Anniversary Album. It was recorded live in studios in Brooklyn, Birmingham and Stockholm and brought together many of the original and past members of the band. The album was produced using the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic, and lot of the recording sessions were filmed and later used in videos for the campaign.

The opening track and first single ‘Blast It!’, was a psychedelic dance track echoing People’s Choice and Rose Royce which featured the dub poetry of Everton Sylvester and the soulful vocals of Stephanie McKay and Desmond Foster. The second single, ‘Dance Or Die’ featured lead vocals by Joi Cardwell, her first studio performance with the band since their debut hit single ‘The Creator Has A Masterplan’ from 1994. Built on Lati Kronlund’s driving bass-line and featuring an inspired sax solo by Anna Brooks, the song quickly became Brooklyn Funk Essentials most successful song ever on streaming services.

Stephanie McKay could also be heard as the lead vocalist on the song ‘Prepare’, written by Kronlund and house music legend, Crystal Waters, who’s backing vocals are also on the track. This song also shot up as one of BFE’s most popular songs both live and on radio and streaming.

‘I’m Gonna Find Me A Woman (Cause It’s Cold Outside)’, was a song which the band had recorded together with the late great Isaac Hayes in 1997 for the soundtrack to the movie Woo, in which Hayes originally had a major part. But when his character was cut from the final version of the film, so was the song. So for the ‘Funk Ain’t Ova’ album, Brooklyn Funk Essentials picked up and re-recorded it with band leader Lati Kronlund’s son Sebastien, taking on Mr. Hayes lead vocal part. Interestingly, Sebastien had also been present at the studio during the sessions with Isaac Hayes in 1997 - but at that time, he was only 2 years old.

Watcha Playin (2008)

Watcha Playin’ was BFE’s come-back album of 2008. It is the result of fans insisting that the band tour again, and band members writing and playing new songs during these tours. In that respect, it is probably BFE’s most coherent album. It is not an album about a city. At this time, the band were no longer all living in New York. Instead, members were spread out in different countries in the world, and what kept them together was the love of the music and playing it together. This is clear on crafted songs like Dance-Free Night (about New York’s restrictive dance laws in clubs), For A Few Dollars More (about the greed of people with money) and The Park (about falling in love in Prospect Park).

Track listing

1. Need 12:40

2. Dance - Free Night 4:46

3. Bellybuttons T&a 5:00

4. Rude Boy Shuffle 6:38

5. The Park 4:11

6. Wendell Wedding 5:32

7. For A Few Dollars More 8:09

8. Work It Out 6:10

9. My Jamaican Girl 5:19

10. Dibby Dibby Sound 2:31

11. S-curved 7:46

12. The Day Before Adidi 6:12

Make Them Like It (2000)

Recordings for 'Make Them Like It' started already in 1996. It was actually supposed to have been BFE’s second album, but the Turkish adventure of 'In The BuzzBag' got in the way. Both the title track and 'Mambo Con Dancehall', as well as 'Kik It!' were songs based around sax player Paul Shapiro's timeless and inimitable hornlines. 'Date With Baby', 'Martha' and the by now very famous fan favorite, 'I Got Cash' was Lati and Everton experimenting with merging funky disco with dub poetry - Barry White meets LKJ... 'Woman Thing' turned Erroll Dunkley's 'Little Way Different' into a feminist anthem duet featuring Stephanie McKay and Hanifah Walidah.  Papa Dee moves away from the chatting when he sings Gregory Isaacs' classic 'Confirm Reservation' over an eerie funk-house groove locked down by drummers Yancy Drew and E.J. Rodriguez. 'Jump Around Sound' is a twangy punk-ska thing featuring Josh Rosman's trombone melodies which has become an audience jump up favorite. None of the periodic publications namedropped in 'I Got Cash' reviewed the album on it's release.

Track listing

1. Make Them Like It 4:22

2. Mambo Con Dancehall 6:48

3. Date With Baby 5:07

4. Woman Thing 6:20

5. I Got Cash 4:50

6. Confirm Reservation 6:13

7. Kik It 6:00

8. Jump Around Sound 4:41

9. Hard To Stop/Feelgood 6:46

10. Vinyl Crisis 5:38

11. To My Peeps 1:07

12. Martha 4:59

13. Bill's Playground 4:17

In the Buzzbag (1998)

Buzbag was the name of a cheap Turkish red wine. Not very good, but there was lots of it floating around in the Istanbul recording studio during the nine days and nights it took to record this album. In The BuzzBag is about the meeting between New York and Istanbul. Two cultural centres dotted with towers and held together by bridges, shrowded in smoke and crowded with speeding yellow taxi cabs. Brooklyn Funk Essentials headlined the 1996 Fuji World Music Festival in Istanbul, and as a third encore, they played a funky dancehall version of the classic Turkish melody, 'Üsküdar'. People went nuts. After the show, the promoters asked the band to come back to Istanbul and record that song together with the 11-piece Turko-Roman band Laço Tayfa. One member of this group was a young clarinet virtuoso by the name of Hüsnü Senlendirici. Today, he is a mega star in Turkey and he still performs regularly with BFE, both live and in the studio.

There were no click tracks, computers or samplers on In The BuzzBag. The songs were literally written as the band played them. And even though Imaj Studios were the biggest facility in Turkey, with the two bands numbering 23 people together, every single room was used to mic up something or somebody. The four BFE singers were eventually housed in the studio elevator, which had to be switched off for the purpose. The album earned BFE their first Grammy nomination.

Cool & Steady & Easy (1995)

Cool & Steady & Easy is all about New York. It is a musical trip on the L-train from Brooklyn to 8th Avenue and back again. The album chronicles the creation of the band that became Brooklyn Funk Essentials. Some of the songs started off as sampling and splicing sessions in Arthur Baker's Shakedown Studio. Others were outright late night jam sessions with the budding band. It was first released in 1994 on Dorado Records in the UK and most of Europe, and then picked up by RCA-Groovetown in the US, where the album was released in 1995. Already between these two releases of the “same” album, there is an audible difference, where what started off as a studio project was becoming more and more of a live band. This is perhaps most notable on songs like Madame Zzaj, from the Dorado release, which on the US release has been re-written, re-recorded and re-named Mizz Bed-Stuy. Instead of samples and DJ cuts, the new track featured vocals by Everton Sylvester and drummer Yancy Drew. Bop Hop had the same treatment, and Brooklyn Recycles was remixed and tightened up on the Groovetown release.

Track listing

1. Take The L Train (To B'klyn) 5:50

2. The Creator Has A Master Plan 5:51

3. The Revolution Was Postponed Because Of Rain 4:59

4. Bop Hop 5:13

5. Brooklyn Recycles 5:25

6. Mizz Bed-Stuy 4:10

7. A Headnaddas Journey To The Planet Adidi-Skizm 6:15

8. Big Apple Boogaloo 6:21

9. Blow Your Brains Out 4:59

10. Stickman Crossing The Brooklyn Bridge 7:27

11. Dilly Dally 5:10

12. Take The L Train (To 8th Ave.) 4:05