MENAHAN STREET BAND

Diamond West

It’s the origin story for a Samba Super Hero: Rogȇ, a mild-mannered sambista is accidentally exposed to intense levels of funk and transforms into… “Tropical Man.” The song isn’t his first collaboration with Tommy “TNT” Brenneck, the producer behind Budos Band, Charles Bradley, Molly Lewis, and Menahan Street and more, but it’s the perfect introduction to the Brazilian singer, songwriter and guitarist. Building off of last year’s Curyman, Rogȇ’s international debut on Diamond West Records, the Tropical Man 12” EP documents one insane night in the studio with the Menahan Street Band as they unlock a previously unreachable hybrid of samba and soul music.

On the “Tropical Man (Club Mix)” Brenneck re-imagines and refines the organic swing into three minutes of spit-shined samba funk. Rogȇ invites you to “só chegar” (just come) to his samba de roda, an informal, afro-brazilian samba session, but instead of the usual battery of percussion instruments, he’s backed by the tightest rhythm section in the business, soaring female vocals, kinetic clavinet, and joyful brass accents. Samba has never slapped so hard.

Over one insane night sandwiched between two weekends of Coachella performances for the east coast-based El Michels Affair (many of whose members overlap with the Menahan Street Band) Roge, Tommy and gang wrote and recorded two new songs live to tape at Diamond West studios in Pasadena, California. In addition to a few different mixes of “Tropical Man,” the 12” EP to be released on June 21 features two versions of “Mis Filos,” a slinky mid-tempo ode to Roge’s children that could easily pass for a previously undiscovered early-seventies slice of syncopated, soft-psych samba soul.