Eleven years after scoring a Top Ten hit with "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" by sampling Herbie Hancock, Us3 are sampling themselves. The London collective -- set to release its fourth album, Questions, in the U.S. on April 26th -- now has a nine-piece live band creating jazz grooves to mix with its hip-hop beats.
"If you listen to the first album [1994's Hand on the Torch] and then you listen to Questions, it will probably be a shock to the system," says Us3 producer/ringleader Geoff Wilkinson. "The band is on fire."
As the only regular member of Us3, Wilkinson has seen quite a few incarnations of the group. "I change the vocalists from album to album," he says. "I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. It's just a spark, really. I've come to trust my instinct."
Wilkinson heard that spark in Brooklyn rapper Reggi Wyns and South African chanteuse Mpho Skeef, who handle the vocal duties on Questions. "As soon as I heard her," Wilkinson says of Skeef, "I knew."
As well as new personnel, Questions finds Wilkinson dabbling with new sounds. Tracks like "Whatcha Gonna Do" and "When She's Dancing" showcase Skeef's sultry voice over mambo piano riffs. "The two things I was listening to the most when I was making this album were Timbaland and Charlie Palmieri," Wilkinson admits. "I thought it would be quite interesting to marry [hip-hop] beats and late Sixties Latin jazz."
Wilkinson, Wyns, Skeef and the band will embark on a two-month European tour in March. As for when they'll find their way to the U.S., Wilkinson quips, "When the exchange rate improves. It's hard to bring over a nine-piece band on English wages when you haven't played there in eight years . . . But Reggi, our token American, is convinced we would tear it up in the States."