reakestra was a refreshing anomaly back in the late 90’s.



After so many years of DJs and hip-hop producers extracting and sampling nothing more than a beat or a riff from funk, R&B, and jazz songs, here came this full-band that took the classic breaks from hip-hop songs and went backwards. Led by multi-instrumentalist Miles Tackett, they made their name by faithfully covering every note and spark of soul in the songs sampled by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Warren G, Gang Starr, and the Ultramagnetic MC’s. The full acoustic band also nobly went beyond what the hip-hop groups sampled and covered classics by the students of James Brown, Kool and the Gang and the Meters, the Blue Note catalog, and late jazz legend Irving Weldon, Jr. To listen to the 29 abbreviated songs in the band’s brilliant 2000 party jam, The Live Mix Part 2 is to absorb decades of soul music and its triumphs. Breakestra are an anomaly because they were about history during a time when mainstream hip-hop typically retired its stars by the age of 35 and many fans couldn’t care less about where a dope sample came from. What does it matter where Biggie sampled Pink Floyd, where P. Diddy snagged from “Public Enemy No. 1,” or where Jay-Z went Broadway with Annie?

For Hit the Floor one of LA’s greatest cover bands wrote their own songs, though they could be superficially mistaken for covers. They continue on the vintage heavy-funk tip with stabbing riffs, the band dropping out to let drummer Josh “Wallet” Cohen fill in the obligatory breaks, and vocalist Mixmaster Wolf reminding the congregation that it may be Friday but Sunday is coming. Just like fellow heavy-funk revivalists the Poets of Rhythm, the Budos Band, and the Dap-kings, they channel their influences instead of taking a bit of this sound and a snatch of that. And in the process, the band also treads farther away from their hip-hop roots, besides J5’s Chali 2na and Soup, and People Under the Stairs’ Double K leading a rap homecoming on “Family Rap.”

Opener, “Stand Up” sets a template that pays the bills with an up-tempo strut that has guitarist Dan Ubick, bassist Tackett and the brass section marinate a groove. The following, “Got to Let Me Know,” slams hard, with a swing that barrels downhill as keyboardist Carlos Guaim screams along. Easing down the commotion and placing Wolf at the center is “Hiding,” a mid-tempo soul number where he laments over love he could’ve had.

The rest of Hit the Floor is divided into either “get off yer ass ‘n’ dance” jaunts or melancholic soul numbers that become more desirable with each listen. Not that any of the upbeat songs grow old. When I hear guest flutist James “The Penguin” King sing the praises of just being alive on “Burgundy Blues,” I wonder about the public need for the antidepressants advertised during dinner time TV.

Hit the Floor proves that Breakestra has shed its old reliance on hip-hop breaks and has grander designs than pleasing the B-boy scholars fixated on the “identify that sample, crate-dig it and blow $50 for a special DJ price” sport. The only drawback is that that they all too rarely move in a direction where the funk legends never went. But Breakestra is bulletproof from any alleged clichés. “You don’t need a dance / Let the music move your soul,” Wolf announces to me as I sit alone at a booth in the back of the club with arms crossed and two fingers scratching my chin. I’m listening.