The Jungle Brothers

For the best part of a decade the Jungle Brothers have kept a step ahead of the pack in the rapidly evolving world of hip hop. While the music has spun an intricate web and spawned several subgenres, this New York-based threesome has retained iconic status by relying on the form's most basic driving force - the instinct to party.

This is very much good-time music and, as such, it was ideal for the second Guinness Southern Soul and Disco Festival. Though the weather gods may not have smiled, the festival ensured that the southern capital was bathed in a warm balm of funk over the holiday weekend.

The Jungle Brothers headlined at the Metropole's festival club on Saturday and throughout the course of a 90minute set they kept the capacity audience glued firmly to the dancefloor. Lead rappers Mike G and Afrika Baby Bambaata traded their eloquently-coined versifications over a righteous squall of breakbeats and scratching, offering a broad selection culled from their cultish back-catalogue. Old favourites such as Straight Out Of The Jungle and Brain were trotted out with aplomb and Messrs G and Bambaata engaged in a constant barrage of audience participation routines.

The highlight of an excellent show was probably I'll House You, a breakthrough cut from 1991, which has long been a favourite on Leeside.