Sounds & Rhythms

Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn, New York-based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008 on Dunham, a sublabel of Daptone Records.

Various songs from Make the Road by Walking have been sampled by hip hop artists, including the title track, which was sampled by Jay-Z on the track "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)...", "Going The Distance", which was sampled by Kid Cudi on his song "Solo Dolo Pt.II" featuring Kendrick Lamar on Cudi's third studio album Indicud, and "The Traitor," sampled by 50 Cent on his mixtape War Angel LP and by Cudi on his debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day. In addition, the song "Tired of Fighting" is used as a primary sample in Kendrick Lamar's "Faith" from his eponymous 2009 EP, as well as YBN Cordae's 2019 track "Family Matters" from his debut album The Lost Boy.

Art of the Olympians (AOTO) is an organization and program of Olympian and Paralympian artists that promotes the Olympic ideals of values, integrity, character, respect, honor, and work ethic through exhibitions and educational programs. It puts on traveling exhibitions, runs workshops, organizes talks at schools, to show and discuss the connection between sport, art, and the Olympics. AOTO previously operated a museum.

Jimi Tenor is a Finnish musician. His artist name is a combination of the first name of his youth idol Jimmy Osmond and the tenor saxophone. His band Jimi Tenor & His Shamans released its first album in 1988, whilst Tenor's first solo album appeared in 1994. "Take Me Baby" became his first hit in 1994. He has released albums on Sähkö Recordings, Warp Records and Kitty-Yo record labels.

The Shaolin Afronauts are an Adelaide-based instrumental afrobeat band styled after Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band and Sun Ra. Their music incorporates elements of avant-garde jazz, soul and traditional African and Cuban percussive rhythms.

Founded in 2008 out of a fascination with Afrobeat and creative improvised music, seven out of the ten band members were also members of The Transatlantics. In 2011, they were booked to play the Womadelaide festival.

Later in the same year, they were signed to Freestyle records and saw the release of their debut album, Flight of the Ancients. The album was featured on Radio National Breakfast and garnered considerable attention on community radio, streetpress and Triple J.

Elmer Lee Fields (born April 26, 1950 in Wilson, North Carolina) is an American soul singer, sometimes nicknamed "Little JB" for his physical and vocal resemblance with James Brown. He has worked with Kool and the Gang, Hip Huggers, O.V. Wright, Darrell Banks, and Little Royal. Fields has also worked with musicians such as B.B. King, Clarence Carter, Dr. John, Tyrone Davis, Johnny Taylor, Denise LaSalle, Bobby Blue Bland, Betty Wright, The Manhattans, Little Milton and Bobby Womack. He recorded his first single in 1969 and is still active. His recent work is with The Expressions, including the albums Faithful Man (2012), Special Night (2017), and It Rains Love (2019).

In 2014, he provided additional vocals for the James Brown biographical movie, Get On Up.

William Daron Pulliam, who performed in the 1970s under the name Darondo, was an American soul singer from the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Budos Band is an American instrumental band from Staten Island, New York, formed in 2005. AllMusic describes the group as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch" that joins "musical universes from trippy psychedelia and Afro-funk to '70s hard rock and late-'60s soul." They have described themselves as "70's Psychedelic Instrumental Music," and "Afro-soul inspired by Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent" and "sprinkled a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top." One reviewer described the band as “sounding as if Quentin Tarantino was the music supervisor for a Bond film". Their more recent albums have incorporated sounds from 1970s jazz, funk, Afro-Beat, underground rock, and proto-metal. They have been signed to Daptone Records throughout their career.

Mason Jar Music is an audio/visual production company and creative collective based in Brooklyn, New York co-founded by Dan Knobler and Jon Seale.

Charles Edward Bradley was an American singer. After years of obscurity and a part-time music career, Bradley came to prominence in his early 50s. His performances and recording style were consistent with the revivalist approach of his main label Daptone Records, celebrating the feel of funk and soul music from the 1960s and 1970s. One review said he "echoes the evocative delivery of Otis Redding".

Record Kicks is an Italian Milan-based independent record label set up in 2003 by Nicolò Pozzoli (aka Nick Recordkicks) and specialized in both new and vintage black sounds: deep funk, soul, northern soul, afrobeat, rocksteady, dancefloor jazz.

Record Kicks has released records by Hannah Williams & The Affirmations, Martha High, Tanika Charles, Hannah Williams & The Tastemakers, Third Coast Kings, Trio Valore, The Liberators, Nick Pride & The Pimptones, Baby Charles, Diplomats Of Solid Sound, Dojo Cuts, Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra, Milano Jazz Dance Combo, Calibro 35 and The BlueBeaters among others. In addition to single artists' releases, the label has been releasing two series of compilations: Soulshaker (currently at Volume 7) and Let's Boogaloo (currently at Volume 6).

A hobo is a migrant worker or homeless vagrant, especially one who is impoverished. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States around 1890. Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all, a "hobo" is a traveling worker.

The origin of the term is unknown. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, the only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890. Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?" Author Todd DePastino notes that some have said that it derives from the term "hoe-boy", meaning "farmhand", or a greeting such as "Ho, boy", but that he does not find these to be convincing explanations Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound". It could also come from the words "homeless boy". H. L. Mencken, in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote:

Eighteenth Street Lounge Music is an independent record label based in Washington, D.C. founded by Rob Garza and Eric Hilton in 1996. The duo, as Thievery Corporation, heads the label's roster of artists.

Valerie Jean Maynard was an American sculptor, teacher, printmaker, and designer. Maynard's work frequently addressed themes of social inequality and the civil rights movement.

Cinematic soul is a genre of soul music with a "cinematic" style, combining traditional rock / soul arrangements with orchestral instruments.

Cinematic soul builds on the foundations of soul music. The backing track can include drums, bass guitar, clavinet and electric guitar played with a wah-wah pedal. On top of this are orchestral instruments including a string section and brass, similar to that heard on a movie soundtrack.

During their psychedelic soul period of 1968-73, The Temptations created what is described as "cinematic soul", songs, often long in length, with longer instrumental introductions and detailed orchestration. Two such examples are the Temptations' 1972 recording of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", and their follow-up single, "Masterpiece". Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft" was considered another good example of cinematic soul, and subsequently influenced David Bowie's "Stay", released several years later. Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly" was a top ten Billboard hit, and praised as an archetypical example of the genre.

Hiatus Kaiyote () is an Australian jazz/funk band formed in Melbourne in 2011, made up of singer/guitarist Nai Palm, bassist Paul Bender, keyboardist Simon Mavin, and drummer Perrin Moss.

In 2010, Nai Palm (born Naomi Saalfield) performed a solo show in Melbourne that was witnessed by Paul Bender. After the show, Bender approached Palm and suggested a collaboration. After working as a duo for a short time, they recruited Perrin Moss and Simon Mavin in 2011 and formed Hiatus Kaiyote. Mavin was then a member of The Bamboos but left that band to focus on Hiatus Kaiyote.

Hiatus Kaiyote played their first gig at the 2011 Bohemian Masquerade Ball among sword swallowers, fire twirlers, and gypsy death core bands. In February 2012, the band opened for Taylor McFerrin in Melbourne. McFerrin was so impressed with them that he introduced their music to influential broadcaster and record label owner DJ Gilles Peterson.