NEW MUSIC | KOOL & THE GANG RELEASE NEW SINGLE “WE ARE THE PARTY” AHEAD OF ALBUM

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Con­tinu­ing to release music that makes the good times bet­ter and the bad times more bear­able, this col­lec­tion will be the band’s 34^th stu­dio album, fea­tur­ing some of the last stu­dio work by found­ing horn play­ers, Kool’s broth­er Ron­ald “Khal­is” Bell and Den­nis “D.T.” Thomas, who passed in 2020 and 2021. Lead vocals on the album also include Sha Sha Jones, Shawn McQuiller, Lav­ell Evans, Domi­n­ique Karan, Rick Mar­cel and Walt Ander­son, plus rap­pers Ami Miller & Olé’.

Both Bell and Brown view People Just Wanna Have Fun as a sum­ma­tion of their long career, dur­ing which they sold 70 mil­lion albums world­wide with hit singles like “Cel­eb­ra­tion,” “Ladies Night,” “Get Down on It,” “Hol­ly­wood Swinging” & bey­ond. Since their start in 1964, the group has amassed two Grammy Awards, sev­en Amer­ic­an Music Awards, a BET Soul Train Life­time Achieve­ment Award and star on the Hol­ly­wood Walk of Fame. Kool’s bass gui­tar is even fea­tured in the Smith­so­ni­an Museum of Afric­an Amer­ic­an His­tory and Cul­ture in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

From Newark to Nairobi, Kool & the Gang have per­formed con­tinu­ously longer than any R&B group in his­tory and are the most sampled R&B band of all time, includ­ing by Madonna, Jay‑Z, Beast­ie Boys, Janet Jack­son, Cypress Hill and P. Diddy. Not to men­tion their music on soundtracks from Rocky, Sat­urday Night Fever and Pulp Fic­tion to Wreck-It Ral­ph and many more.
Yet through­out all the suc­cess, Kool & The Gang has remained true to their roots while push­ing into the future. Bell says of the new album,

“You’ve got the funk, you’ve got the jaz­zi­er tracks, we have a few bal­lads on there. Then there are songs that cross over to a pop sort of thing. We go from the ‘70s, the ‘80s, right into now. It’s old school, it’s new school — we kinda cap­tured it all here. With all our music over the years, people have had fun. So I’d say this album just about sums it all up.”

Work on the album star­ted five years ago, record­ing at Brown’s Alley Cat Stu­dio in Wood­land Hills, CA for ses­sions spread out over sev­er­al months. Though the group recor­ded much of People Just Wanna Have Fun dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic, Brown says, “It’s all done live. Noth­ing was flown in. We made sure we had the ultra­vi­olet lights and the sprays and the masks. Nobody got sick. We kept the num­ber of people in the stu­dio way down.”

Up next, the band is look­ing for­ward to this summer’s “Kool and the Gang Rock the World Tour,” which will be sponsored by Bell’s own Le Kool Cham­pagne. He’s served as US ambas­sad­or of music and the arts to many coun­tries like the Ivory Coast of Africa, and the band has shared stages before with Van Halen & Elton John to Dave Mat­thews Band & The Roots.

Next year will see the group con­tinu­ing to cel­eb­rate six dec­ades of hav­ing fun.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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