Following a drift towards pop music four years ago with White Women, the Montreal funksters are back, reverting to basics on this new album. Ten years after the frenzy that ensued the release of their Fancy Footwork, Pee Thugg and Dave 1 (the younger brother of electronic producer Tiga) have decided to pay homage to the veterans of funk. And right from the start with the first track, Must’ve Been, where they dive right back within the spirit of Kool and the Gang, albeit modernised, with rapper DRAM (author of the megahit Broccoli) and guitarist Jesse Johnson, who played with Prince and The Time, the band, which gravitated around the Kid. These influences show up throughout the album, like on Don’t Sleep, a good old Californian synthetic funk in the mould of Lakeside, or Count Me, typical of Minneapolis sound. The Chromeo have expanded their guest list to American-Moroccan singer French Montana, rapper Stefflon Don and soul sister Amber Mark, and in the studio, they have collaborated with such talents as former Tony! Toni! Toné! Raphael Saadiq, R&B legend Rodney Jerkins (the man behind the hits of Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Déjà Vu), as well as Pino Palladino, who works with D’Angelo. A casting that guarantees an optimal production quality for this tribute to American funk music, although the Chromeo are well aware of their limits: “We’re not interested in singing the exact same thing as 1980s singers. We are modern. Past funk soul is an influence, but it doesn’t define who we are”. © Smaël Bouaici