1986 compilation which brings together some of the very best James Brown related releases from his label People Records and serves as an extremely competent primer to this particularly fertile period in Brown’s career. Featuring early 1970s funk classics from Fred Wesley and the JBs, Fred & the New JBs, Lynn Collins, Maceo & the Macks (all of which were simply various permutations of James Brown’s band) it’s non stop genre-defining classics from start to finish. Most of these records weren’t big hits on release but many of them have since become hugely influential in hip hop, house, techno, jungle, drum and bass and other electronic music genres.

– Harold Heath