Tramp Records What You Need to Know

there were three people in the beginning who brought me into funk and hiphop. most importantly was my brother. he was listening to all the dope hiphop acts like jungle brothers, brand nubian, cypress hill, and older stuff like grandmaster flash, spoonie gee, as well as funk artists like james brown and kool & the gang, to name only a few. after listening constantly to his records (and compact discs!) I found myself totally into these sounds. the second guy who put me in the right direction toward funk was fritz egner. fritz had a weekly radio show in the early '90s called "black friday." it was broadcast

on bayern 3, a radio station under public law! playing mostly standard soul and funk tunes, sometimes I heard those so-called "rare groove" tracks. I remember exactly when he said: "there is a new compilation out there called the sound of funk, vol. 1." the song he played from it was no other than leroy & the driver's "sad chicken." I was like..."damn, what the f**k is this!? I must get this compilation." I bought it only a few days later. immediately after getting it home, I was hooked to the rare groove sound. I couldn't believe there were so many good tracks on one album. damn! Over the next three years, I bought every compilation released; sound of funk, luv 'n' haight, not forgetting all the bootleg comps, too. all of these people (my brother, fritz egner, the desco crew and others) have influenced me regarding the style and quality of how good funk should sound. I remember well when I bought 'the meters' "people say" 7" for 12 deutsch marks (about $8.) After leaving the shop with the 45 in my hands, I kept thinking how crazy I was to buy a 7" single for 12 deutsch marks! funny, ain't it? and that was only the beginning... most of my knowledge regarding soul/funk 45s and albums came from those compilations. you can imagine that that became costly, but now, several years later, I am very happy that it happened like that. I am running my own monthly club night here in munich called "shake-a-leg" together with jerker kluge, beside that I spin in several bars/clubs in germany, england, france, spain etc. my musical interests have developed over the years so that now I am also collecting funky breaks, drum'n'bass, afro beat etc. I founded tramp records in late 2003. so far I have released more than 100 45RPM singles (including 70 re-issues) as well as several compilations in the movements series (vol.1-6) as well as in the contemporary... series ("contemporary funk", "contemporary jazz", "contemporary afro beat"). furthermore the following artists released albums on tramp: kaleta & zozo afrobeat (2008), the hi-fly orchestra (2009), the qualitons (2010), lucky brown & funk revolution (2011) and jaribu afrobeat arkestra (2012/2014). 2014 will see more albums in the story of... series, more compilations and artist albums too. keep watching tramprecords.com for updates in the future!