Brooklyn Funk Essentials (French)

Brooklyn Funk Essentials (French)
BFE group

Songs

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  • country:USA
  • style(s):Funk, Reggaeton
  • label:not signed
  • type:Band
  • instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
  • artist posted by:Tsahara Productions

Line up

  • Anna Brooks (Sax)
  • Desmond Foster (Guitar)
  • Iwan Van Hetten (Keys, trumpet)
  • Lars Kronlund - Lati (Bass)
  • Morgan Agren (tbc) (Drums)
  • Papa Dee (Vocals)

Links

Since 1994, Brooklyn Funk Essentials have been presenting their unique brand of eclectic funk to ecstatic audiences, the world over. Made up of musicians, singers and poets from around the globe, the group famously mixes styles like jazz, latin, r&b, house, drum & bass, reggae, afrobeat and Anatolian melodies all rolled into one ferocious funk fest. If it grooves, they will funk it!

The Band

It’s the million dollar question – Can you name every musician that ever played with BFE on a stage or in a studio? Exactly. Did you know that Dizzy Gillespie plays on the Cool & Steady & Easy album? Yep, he did. And that Thierry Henry did a cameo as a rapper with BFE in Barcelona in 2009? That’s not true.

Actually, there have been members touring with BFE, who nobody can remember the name of. Like, who was that percussionist with the blonde fro, who fell off the stage in Paris in '95 and broke his foot?

Are you keeping track that Shä-key, on the first three BFE records, became Hanifah Walidah on 2008’s Watcha Playin’ album, and is now making tracks with her new St. Lo outfit under the name Mezz Walidah? Uhu.

It is only here, on this – the official Brooklyn Funk Essentials web home, that you will find out such fascinating info.

The Band Continues

The core group, who is now pulling the strings to make the new and fifth BFE opus consists of original and founding funksters Lati Kronlund – chef de cuisine/base de la bass, Papa Dee – master of ceremonies and Everton Sylvester – poet and wordsmith. Desmond Foster has been in the band since 1999. His first gig was playing guitar on Mambo Con Dancehall. We still wonder how we could function without him all those previous years.

When ATN Stadwijk left BFE in 2000, he promised to find a keyboardist replacement who would fit his shoes. Iwan Vanhetten not only looked just like ATN – two Surinamese brothers sporting baseball caps – he could rock those keys like the best of them, and as an added treat, he also played the trumpet like a mofo, which meant that Bassy Bob Brockmann could leave the group to concentrate on his studio engineer and production work with a clean conscience. Today, Iwan is the band's MD, and an integral part of the BFE sound.

Anna Brooks took over the sax position from Erik Häusler in 2010 (who took over from Dave Jensen, who took over from Paul Shapiro). Anna has completely taken audiences by storm. We are setting up a separate Anna Brooks fan page just to keep other band members less jealous of her star radiance.

The drum seat. Hmm… How can we talk about this, without it sounding too much like Spinal Tap? Actually, there have been (only) six different drummers who have toured and recorded with BFE during the band’s twenty year existence. So that’s what? 3,33 drummers per… Yeah, whatever. Unlike Spinal Tap, BFE drummers don’t mysteriously die – they just, sort of, come and go… and come. It’s looking like the new BFE record will feature drumming from original founding member, His Royal Funkiness Yancy Drew, as well as from Hux Flux and the incredible Morgan Ågren, Modern Drummer’s #1 drummer in 2010. Think it will stink with funk?!

Several other original and past members of the BFE crew will be joining in on the new record, but we will talk about that in a later update, to lure you to come back for more.