The Get Down Brothers vs. The Notorious Three

This track is faux old-school hip-hop created for the TV show "The Get Down". It's a good fake, though. It sounds like it could have come out in the late 1970s. This show has done a great job of mixing older funk, soul and hip hop with newer tracks that fit right in.

The show's Get Down Brothers and their DJ Shaolin Fantastic are modeled on the Furious Five and Grandmaster Flash. It's best to not think too hard about that though, because Flash is also a character in the show, as Shaolin Fantastic's mentor. And since this track mixes in some old Flash tracks, even though the show's Flash had previously gotten on Shaolin Fantastic's case over a bootleg recording.

Or maybe Shaolin Fantastic, like Flash himself, is mixing up Freedom's "Get Up And Dance" (and I always thought the Furious Five were just playing kazoos, as weird as that image is).

In this show they play fast and loose with the musical connections, plainly having fun and including in-jokes and making it all work. Another track, the new "Set Me Free", becomes a disco anthem in the show. In the middle is a short drum break that Shaolin Fantastic works into his mix, to great effect. A religious-inspired song with a drum break the DJs love? Can anyone say "The Amen Break"? I knew you could.