Street Sounds Crucial Electro - Various Artists

This is a really classy collection of hot electro-funk tunes from 1984. Should bring back some sweet memories for all you folks old enough to remember Afrika Bambaataa, polyester tracksuits and body popping.

This music sounds so fresh, futuristic and progressive its easy to forget that these tracks were produced in some of America's most impoverished ghettos - the Bronx, Detroit, Washington D.C. - at a time when the Reagan's brutal individualism and predatory capitalism were deepening the divisions between communities and between the haves and have-nots. Fortunately, people find ways to express themselves even in the most desperate of times and this music is a testament to that; as Twilight 22 put it:

Huh, deep in the city people live in the streets
You got to be careful of everyone you meet
There’s lootin and shootin’, people stabbin’ and grabbin’
The innocent bystander the police are grabbin’

Ain’t it a pity ‘cause you hate the city
But the way you feel ain’t no big deal
You’ve got to survive and that the real nitty gritty
You go uptown, downtown, you’ve got to turn your life around (Huh)

Back in the jungle a man is free
Free from the street, from captivity
Break out, break in, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been
Snake pit, lion’s den, you need someone to be your friend

My first exposure to this stuff came when I was a schoolboy in 1984 when Channel 4 (I think) showed this fabulous documentary:



Tracklist:

01 Tyrone - Brunson The Smurf
02 Warp 9 - Light Years Away
03 Warp 9 - Nunk (New Wave Funk)
04 Man Parrish - Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)
05 Herbie Hancock - Rockit
06 Twilight 22 - Electric Kingdom
07 Cybotron - Clear
08 Hashim - Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)
09 Captain Rock - Return Of Captain Rock
10 Time Zone - Wild Style

Get it HERE.

ElectroShock Voltage 1 - Various Artists (1984)

This dodgy looking compilation from 1984 contains a couple of real boogie funk gems and some great early rap, like this:

Even Dead or Alive's ultra-camp electro-funk version of 'That's the Way I Like It' sounds pretty fresh. The tracks were all lovingly mixed together by Peter Rohmer who was a dj at the famous Hamburg discotheque, Trinity.

Track List:

The Jazzie Ladies - Blowin' Your Mind
Andre Cymone - Survivin' in the 80's
CD III - Get Tough
Was (Not Was) - Out Come The Freaks (ElectroMix)

Dead Or Alive - That's The Way I Like It
Herbie Hancock - Rockit
The Tribe - Jungle Rock
Herbie Hancock - Autodrive

Get it HERE.