Herman Kelly & Life – Percussion Explosion!

Description

Source of an all-time ‘Breaks and Beats’ classic, Mr Bongo reissueHerman Kelly’s timeless 1978 album Percussion Explosion! Immortalisedin hip-hop folklore, when the anthemic ‘Dance To The Drummer’sBeat’ was featured on the influential Ultimate Breaks & Beatscompilation series in 1986.

*Includes the anthemic ‘Dance To The Drummer’s Beat’ which has been sampled in over 100 songs including tracks by N.W.A, Run D.M.C and Double Dee & Steinski. *Vinyl LP comes in tip-on sleeve.

Percussion Explosion! was the brainchild of drummer, percussionist, producer andarranger, Herman Kelly and his percussive disco-funk group from Miami, ‘Life’, thatfeatured Aaron McCarthy, Oliver Well, John DeMonica, Michal Cordoza and TravisBiggs. The album houses a collection of disco, funk and Latin-inspired cuts that weredestined for greatness. Nestled within the grooves is the B-Boy and B-Girl’s anthem,’Dance To The Drummer’s Beat’, which contains a now legendary break. A cursoryglance at Whosampled will show that it has been sampled in over 125+ songs. Theseinclude Double Dee & Steinski on their groundbreaking 1985 production ‘Lesson 3(History Of Hip Hop Mix)’, as well as by DJ Shadow, N.W.A, Masters At Work, RunD.M.C. and a whole host of heavyweights across hip-hop, dance and pop music.

When the album was released in 1978 it came out on two different labels, AlstonRecords and Electric Cat. Each label pressed different versions of ‘Dance To TheDrummer’s Beat’, with the former featuring a 4:12 version and the latter a longer 5:09version that has a different structure, crowd noise at the start and overdubbedpercussion.

For this Mr Bongo reissue, we have chosen the classic 4:12 version from the AlstonRecords release, which would later find its way on to the illustrious Ultimate Breaks &Beats compilation. To make matters even more confusing the Alston version art onthe back cover also states the track length as 5:09, whilst the centre label lists itcorrectly as 4:12.

Aside from the much celebrated ‘Dance To The Drummer’s Beat’, the album includes arange of other fantastic overlooked cuts. From the percussive soul stepper ‘ShareYour Love’, to the beautiful Latin-favoured ‘A Refreshing Love’ or the party disco-funkgroover ‘Who’s The Funky D.J.?’.

This wonderful and inspirational record features an important piece of hip- hopheritage and deserves a place in every collection.

Tracklist

1. Dance To The Drummer’s Beat

2. Time After Time

3. A Refreshing Love

4. Who’s The Funky D.J.?

5. Share Your Love

6. Do The Handbone