Instrumental-funk-soundtrack masters import hip-hop’s ?nest.
Despite a standout debut album for Stones Throw, one of the hottest funky drummers in the biz (Price), and a host of cronies from Brand Nubian to Macy Gray, Californians Connie Price & the Keystones have found it tough to break out of the shadow of more established live hip-hop funk fellas (like Breakestra, with whom Keystones guitarist Dan Ubick started out). The latest in a trend of funk-band-meets-MC collaborations (The Roots, Galactic, Bamboos), Tell Me Something might go a long way toward this goal. The MCs—from today’s heroes (Ohmega Watts, Aloe Blacc) to underground standard bearers (Percee P) to at least one bona-?de American-music legend (Big Daddy Kane)—universally shine on Tell. But it’s the music—an archly deliberate cross between hip-hop and funk, with ’70s-soundtrack instrumentalism a la Lalo Schifrin and Ennio Morricone—that sets CP&K apart from the rest of the new breed of live-band hip-hop.