UMG Teams Up With The Roots’ Stro Elliot To Create “Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined”

Celebrating the pioneer of funk James Brown, Urban Legends, a division of UMe, Universal Music Group’s global catalog company, has teamed up with multi-instrumentalist and member of The Roots, Stro Elliot, to create Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined by Stro Elliot, out NOW. The album, consisting of ten remixes of classic James Brown songs, will be available digitally on DSPs, physically as an LP on black vinyl, and will also have a clear vinyl color variant available as an e-commerce exclusive on the Urban Legends website HERE. 

Stro Elliot, a producer, and collaborator with multiple GRAMMY-winning artists, spent his childhood playing, studying, and listening to jazz, funk, and soul legends, building a rapport with James Brown tracks at an early age. “The ‘Godfather of Soul’ was The Godfather of so much more,” says Elliot. “There are genres and subgenres that wouldn’t exist today without him. Whatever genre one might place me in included. This is a dissection and celebration of that.”

For Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined by Stro Elliot, Elliot had the chance to handpick ten classic James Brown hits and remix them, infusing inspiration from several different genres. Tracks like “She Made Me Popcorn” (remix of “Mother Popcorn”) prominently feature hip-hop style sampling of Brown’s vocals, “Machine No Make Sex” (remix of “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine”) transforms the original with Afrobeat rhythms and horns, “Get Up Off” (remix of “Get Up Offa That Thing”) and “The Goodest Foot” (remix of “Get On the Good Foot”) lean deep into a steady hip-hop groove, while “Coal Sweat” (remix of “Cold Sweat”) swirls the ‘60s hit into a psychedelic electronic daze. All ten remixes offer a completely unique take on the song and simultaneously honor the original track as well as the many genres that stemmed from the “Hardest Working Man In Show Business,” James Brown.