Make the Road by Walking

Featuring musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, The Roots, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and The Budos Band, New York-based soul/funk outfit Menahan Street Band’s 2008 debut Make The Road… showcased their particular take on retro R’n’B. Hints of soul-jazz and Blaxploitation soundtracks mingle with tinges of easy-listening and lounge, along with plenty of Memphis-flavoured horns and gritty, funky beats, all sounding very live as though it was recorded in one take in a dusty basement studio, deep in the swamps, circa 1972. It’s almost like reverse-engineered hip hop: a soul and funk album that sounds inspired by the way hip hop producers flip an old soul sample. Hypnotic, moody, melancholy horn-led hip-hop flavoured-funk. 

Even without the co-sign of being sample-flipped for a Jay-Z banger (the title cut provided the prizefighter horns for “Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)”), Menahan Street Band embodied everything good about 2000s Brooklyn funk. The most obvious reason is that they’re literally an all-star outfit, featuring the cream of Antibalas, Budos Band, El Michels Affair, and the Dap-Kings, a sort of funk-revival super session to end them all. They’re at their best when they’re triumphantly pugilistic — not for nothing do they absolutely scorch the climactic Rocky score moment “Going the Distance” — but even their mellower side (the Sunday sun-kissed “Home Again!”; the funky reggae of “Montego Sunset”) has the power to punch above its weight class and win by TKO.