Street the Beat

i rediscover these vids like once a year and end up listening to them nonstop for a week. they're incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SP7gfvX4Ko

"STREET THE BEAT" WERE A GROUP OF VERY TALENTED LATINO EX-GANG MEMBERS FROM THE SOUTH BRONX WHO PLAYED TOGETHER IN THE 1980'S. THE GROUP CONSISTED OF THE MELENDEZ BROTHERS: BENJY, ROBERT AND VICTOR ON HIS "CUSTOM" DRUM KIT, THE ORIGINAL GROUP ALSO FEATURED CLOSE FRIEND, MANNY CORTEZ. DAVID SILVER (A COUSIN), JOINED THE GROUP LATER ON, WHEN MANNY LEFT. THE GROUP'S ORIGINAL PURPOSE WAS TO SHOW THAT YOU CAN LEAVE THE GANGS AND DRUGS BEHIND AND DO SOMETHING POSITIVE WITH YOUR LIFE. HERE THEY ARE ON "HISPANIC HORIZONS" IN 1983 DOING AN ORIGINAL SONG WRITTEN BY ROBERT MELENDEZ. UNFORTUNATELY VICTOR PASSED AWAY OVER 10 YEARS AGO. BUT BROTHERS ROBERT AND BENJY ARE STILL OUT THEIR DOING THEIR THING WITH THE GHETTO BROTHERS AND MANNY CORTEZ STILL WRITES AND PERFORMS WITH HIS LOVELY WIFE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imMvslKwva4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTJm197iu0

Used to see these guys all the time on the street corners of the West Village in the second half of the 80s. Usually they would do all Beatles covers and then throw in one original. There would invariably be a Whitman's (Whit Stillman's?) Sampler of various types of New Yorkers standing around really digging what they were doing.

Times article about them from '92

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/05/nyregion/about-new-york-bronx-fab-four-clings-to-yesterday.html

i've never heard a more accurate impression of the vocals but everything else (the drums!) make them worth listening to. i'm jealous of your life rn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq4kunl_N4w

These days the most fun Beatles buskers you will see are a bunch of apparent suburbanites called The Meetles.

Homer and Jethro did a parody of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" that musically sounds exactly like the original although they didn't try to get the vocals and harmonies.

feat. Chet Atkins

Some background on them: http://cjarchives.jrn.columbia.edu/article.asp?subj=city&course=bronxbeat&id=1283

A Bronx Tale: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/ghetto-brothers-interview

WFMU blogger loves them: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/01/fake-beatles-no-19-tk.html

Said blogger being The Great Gaylord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaO4WmI8bTo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

OK, that Ghetto Brothers album Power - Fuerza just got rereleased last month

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-b6OcOq0iA

Watch out
There goes that crazy boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAEX-RFKL6w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne4zTjZ-WpE

Here is their YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/streetthebeat

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/nyregion/benjy-melendez-bronx.html

His story is also told in Chapter Nine of the EMP book Listen Again.

Watch out
There goes that crazy boy
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