Mandrill

Top-flight, extraordinary funk throwdowns from this ahead-of-their-time Brooklyn outfit. Best of Mandrill draws from their first five albums, and includes well-known singles such as "Fencewalk" and "Hang Loose." Mandrill have influenced multiple generations of artists, from P-Funk to Ice Cube and beyond.

I approve of their Latin-funk concept and I'm struck by their name--a mandrill is one mother of a baboon, and what do you think a man drill might be? But their music has proven disappointingly tame. Even the big hit sequence on side one--"Fencewalk" to "Git It All" to "Hang Loose"--isn't exactly a rampage. Which is probably why the hits weren't go-rillas. (Grade - C+)