Gil Green for STEREOGUM – Like always, New York’s Red Baraat delivers an explosion of sound. I first heard the six-piece party band’s frenzy of funk, jazz, hip-hip, and Indian bhangra at Bonnaroo in 2012. That always seemed like the perfect setting for them: hot, sweaty, uncontrollable dancing.
It’s a whole new experience listening through headphones, but the new title track off their upcoming album Sound The People — produced by Run The Jewels collaborator Little Shalimar — still carries the same power. The single, which features Heems of Das Racist and Swet Shop Boys, is a politically soaked display of energy. Against a current of knocking drums and the ominous, dissonant hum of horns, his lyrics are striking. Heems is intense as he raps the song’s hook, “Together we sound, together we down, together we frown, forever we brown, sound the people, sound my people.” Look out for his Robin Williams Flubber reference too.