Hit the Floor

Album Review

A solid serving of contemporary funk at its finest, Breakestra's first outing for Ubiquity moves beyond the classic funk covers of their Live Mix series for a set of all original material, and the results are consistently impressive. Keep in mind that the songs — roughly half of them instrumental, the rest mostly party-minded jams sung with ample soul chops by Mixmaster Wolf and Breakestra ringleader "Music Man" Miles Tackett — aren't necessarily going to stick in your head for days; nor is it even all that easy to distinguish one from another (the soulful, midtempo "Hiding" and the street-racing story-rap "Hit tha Flo!" are among the more distinctive). But they sound great while they're playing, and most importantly they never get in the way of the relentlessly funky grooves and top-notch ensemble playing that are this record's unambiguous raison d'être. As contemporary interest in vintage funk and soul continues to develop — by the mid-2000s, the music was becoming more prominent in the American popular consciousness than it had been since its heyday in the '60s and '70s — it remains to be seen whether its current practitioners will find a way past the nostalgic lens that necessarily accompanies their chosen style (by which standard the highest possible compliment would be "Hey, this sounds like it was recorded in 1972!"). For their part, Breakestra seem content simply to channel the spirit of the classic funk bands — the J.B.'s, the Meters, Tower of Power, etc. (something they do exceedingly well) — with neither the self-consciously retro trappings of their East Coast counterparts the Dap-Kings nor any apparent compulsion to innovate, although they do highlight their hip-hop roots with the standout posse cut "Family Rap," featuring members of Jurassic 5 and People Under the Stairs. No more or less than flawlessly executed stylistic revivalism, Hit the Floor is highly recommended to anybody who enjoys a good groove. ~ K. Ross Hoffman, Rovi