Us3 - Funky Revolution

Some accidents are unhappy ones, like the broken collarbone Us3 founder Geoff Wilkinson suffered at the end of the group’s recent three week European tour. Some accidents, however, are happy ones, like the fact that the latest Us3 album, Lie, Cheat & Steal, meshes perfectly with the trying times, and protests, people are experiencing all over the world. Wilkinson started work on the album before the London riots and Occupy Wall Street movement, but with Lie, Cheat & Steal he, along with emcees Oveous Maximus and Akala, have created a jazzy, funky, soundtrack to those political movements happening in both England and the US.

Musically, Wilkinson notes “I put some different influences on this album. I always try to throw something a little different in there.” Some of the variety of Lie, Cheat & Steal includes “a very Fela Kuti-ish track called ‘You Are So Corrupt,” and there’s a bit of a Flamenco, a bit of a Spanish, influence with the clapping on ‘Uptown.’”

This week I caught up with Wilkinson to discuss the music of Lie, Cheat & Steal, as well as its potential connections with political movements in London and US, and his goal of bringing Us3 back to American stages.

Read the full interview at RapReviews.com.