The legendary disco producer (and drummer) Cerrone has announced the release of his new Afro EP II, that will be coming out July 29th via Because Music.

Based in France, Cerrone has sold over 30 million albums worldwide throughout his career, and won a GRAMMY Award for his first hit “Love in C Minor” (he also has four other GRAMMY nominations). Personally signed to Atlantic Records by the legendary Ahmet Ertegun, Cerrone spent the 70’s hanging around Studio 54 with the likes of Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Goude, Gaultier and Grace Jones. Of Cerrone, the legendary Nile Rodgers says “One of the coolest things in my life was when I first heard Cerrone’s music.” His tracks have also been sampled a 171 times (Beastie Boys, Bob Sinclar, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Nas, Sébastien Tellier, The Alchemist ft. The Prodigy, etc), along with being covered 8 times and remixed 6 times during the last two decades.

“I was always deeply influenced by Afro-Rock music. This is because of the great artistic fingerprint of my first band, Kongas, in which I spent four years before starting my solo career with Love In C Minor.

It was not a surprise to see him come back to his first loves in 2016 with his first “Afro” EP.
Today, Cerrone announces the release of the second chapter of his Afro series, the second return to the roots for the French disco maestro. “African Voodoo” and “Papa Oye” are his two new songs paying a passionate homage to Africa and its syncopated, spontaneous and genuine rhythms.

“It is no coincidence that my first band ‘Kongas’ is very influenced by what we know as afro music. This music has always had an important place in my musical life, especially as a drummer. I am extremely fond of the rhythms and melodies of this musical spectrum since my early days as a producer, and they have been very influential in my own music. The disco colors haven’t always allowed me to express myself in this domain and that’s why with my ‘Afro’ series of EPs I decided to create something with total freedom, so that I could give life to the music that thrills me so much.” – MARC CERRONE

Since the Dutch trio of producers Kraak & Smaak released their first album ‘Boogie Angst’ worldwide in 2005, the boys’ dj set, soundsystem and live band have grown steadily into well-respected forces in today’s international club and festival scene.

For over a decade Kraak & Smaak have been performing DJ sets all over the world, combining their unique funk-filled sound with disco and house music. Their success led to Kraak & Smaak exploring the possibilities of bringing their sound live on stage.

The first time the band played together was a one-off to promote their first album. But after that show premiered in Amsterdam, with its energetic mix of funk, disco and house, plus a heavy dose of rock ‘n roll attitude, the reaction convinced the band to embark on a follow up tour in the Netherlands.

Their set-up, combining the fat club sound of their releases with live musicians and male and female vocalists, turned out to be a musical phenomenon on the Dutch club and festival circuit at the time, leading to invitations to play at Holland’s biggest festival, Pinkpop, and support slots for UK superstar dance act Faithless at various stadium venues in the Benelux area.

With the first international successes release-wise, fed by album licenses, television and movie syncs in the USA and growing club and radio support in more and more countries, the band landed their first big European festival, Sziget in Hungary. A short breath later K&S found themselves in Australia for a full tour and then introduced themselves to the American audience through shows at renowned festivals like SXSW, Coachella, Miami’s WMC and New York’s CMJ.

The second album ‘Plastic People’ dropped in 2008, and off that album, the hit single ‘Squeeze Me’, made for an even more rapid international rise of Kraak & Smaak. The acclaimed UK dance magazine IDJ labelled K&S as a “Must see live act”, together with big guns as the Chemical Brothers, Moby and The Prodigy. The band subsequently performed at the ‘holy grail of festivals’ Glastonbury in the UK, Lowlands in the Netherlands and again Europe’s biggest festival, Sziget. During a five-week live tour across the USA they performed at Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show on ABC television and further explicit support came from US Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who describes K&S as ‘Amy Winehouse meets Moby’. Even Kanye West declared himself a fan! And to top things off, the European Border Breakers Award (EBBA) is won, together with none other than Adele.

In the following years, the upward trend of K&S has continued and solidified with the albums ‘Electric Hustle’ (2011) and ‘Chrome Waves’ (2013). Again live and DJ tours are mapped and carried out in the USA, as are a second visit to UK’s Glastonbury festival and shows at Detroit Movement, Sziget and Exit. First steps are taken too in Latin-America and Asia, and the K&S Sounds System is rolled out combining the DJ set with the live band’s female singer and MC – and sometimes the drummer and percussionist too. In this, it successfully fills the void between regular dj sets and the full live set-up, giving the dj set a more live show feel while retaining its club approach.

At this point in time, Kraak & Smaak has grown into a renowned international crossover act that will tear apart any club or festival, whether a dance, jazz, rock or pop one. So no faceless laptop act that seems so abundant nowadays in the dance scene, but an accessible yet uncompromising, fully fledged live band with drums, bass guitar, keys, DJ and a male and female vocalist, matched up with their distinctive clubsound and their rock band stage attitude. The K&S soundsystem version completes it all by taking up the middle ground between live and their regular dj sets.

Their 5th studio album, Juicy Fruit, is out now.