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The line above is taken from the track ‘Letter To The Old School’ and it’s worth reflecting that People Under The Stairs (PUTS) were just kids back in the day. The LA duo Mike ‘Double K’ Turner and Chris ‘Thes One’ Portugal got together as PUTS in 1998 and were on OM Records for a long time. This latest release is a mighty 20 tracker on the appropriately named Basement Records.

Fans of Ugly Ducking will probably already have this album (remember People Under The Stairs appeared on Bang For The Buck) while one track on Stepfather features the grand daddy of funk, George Clinton!

It’s a shame that the Clinton track, ‘The Doctor And The Kidd’ is so short as soon as the cosmic funk warms up, it fades out. Perhaps that’s as much vocal as he can do these days? That said, this is more than a one-track album, even if there’s already been one big hit off it. Their feel for the old skool is perfectly encapsulated in the Sugarhill Gang/Michael J ‘Tuxedo Rap’. It’s the standout commercial track to break them out of the ‘underground’ tag.

If Talc’s ‘Garden Of Dance’ is BBQ disco/funk, PUTS’ hip hop version is ‘Jamboree’ Part 1 and Part 2 in a chill out groove after-party. While on the subject of food, ‘Eat Street’ should be enough to put fast food franchises in the Super Size Me dustbin. Not so convincing is the retrospective ‘Thank you’ of Days Like These (touch of the Xzibit here) and the reggae of ‘Reflections’ doesn’t really work for me, although the rap is a strong message.

The second-half has its own highlights like ‘Crown One’, although the organ on ‘LA9X’ and ‘The Brownout’ sounds like one of those cheesy cinema ads but the live bass and breaks gives them a great feel.

The album ends with ‘On And On’ featuring the Rhodes piano of Kat Ouano, which is a winner for me as we’re back in that mellow groove with jazzy keys in a Futuristic Music type way

The CD comes with a DVD of the making of Stepfather and also includes show footage, video clips and a short film, Ice Castle.

It says on their MySpace site, “People are really going to be surprised by this album. We study a lot of music theory and classic material, and this album reflects that”. Well it must be going straight over my head as it sounds just like great hip hop party music to me; they have got to be great live on the strength of this.

Hectic Mix Nominations: ‘Step In’, ‘Pass The 40’, ‘Crown One’, ‘LA9X’, ‘On & On’

Reviewed: People Under The Stairs — Stepfather (Basement Records) Cat. No. BR1157-2, CD + DVD (contains documentaries, music videos, and a home-made movie) Release date: 18 Apr 2006.
Tracklisting:
1. Intro
2. Step In
3. Pass The 40
4. Pumpin’
5. Flex Off
6. Tuxedo Rap
7. Days Like These
8. Jamboree Pt. 1
9. Jamboree Pt. 2
10. The Doctor And The Kidd feat. vocals of George Clinton
11. Eat Street
12. Crown Ones
13. LA9X
14. The Brownout
15. Letter To The Old School
16. More Than You Know
17. Reflections feat. vocals of Odell Johnson
18. 4 Dollar Afro
19. You
20. On & On feat. Kat Ouano

Links:
www.putsonline.co.uk
www.myspace.com/peopleunderthestairs
www.myspace.com/giantpanda
www.BasementHipHop.com
www.myspace.com/basementrecords
www.supersizeme.com