It’s been suggested that, by bringing the full gamut of hip hop culture to mass audiences in 1983, “Buffalo Gals” — its video packed with breakdancers and scratch DJing — was McLaren’s most culturally influential act, more even than his work in bringing the Sex Pistols to fame. That may be overstatement, but it was nonetheless epochally important. And the album that came with it is a joyous, curious, deranged work of cracked genius too. Showcasing South African, West African / Caribbean and Latin American sounds smashed into hip hop, dreamy proto-Balearic ambient drifting and radio samples, it surges with modernity and delight in cultural collision even decades later.

– Joe Muggs