Flux Magazine
Finland funk faves The Soul Investigators have teamed up with Brooklyn-born vocalist Nicole Willis to craft what is easily the finest album yet from the global nu-funk movement. Lots of folk are taking us back to Motown, but the songs here come the closest so far. Incredibly light and catchy hooks, a deftly modern production sound and deceptively chunky funk snaps make every track hugely immediate and highly enjoyable. Flawless.

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IDJ Recommends (best albums of the past 3 months)
Mrs Jimi Tenor teams up with Finnish funk revivalists The Soul Investigators for an inspired set of authentic 60’s soul. Probably the best classic Motown album never recorded, with a wonky noughties twist.

Review up on http://www.spinemagazine.com

Get with the present and recognise and realise ain’t a damn thing cool about retro music. It’s backwards not to go forwards; there’s enough old music available to make rehashing outdated styles a pointless exercise. Wanna make a funk record that tries to sound like 1971, a rap record that’s oh-so 1996? Spare us, and get back to the future where you belong. Nicole Willis And The Soul Instigators’ satisfying Keep Reachin’ Up LP is an increasingly rare exception to this hardheaded rule, merging sixties and seventies soul with a fifties hairdo on the cover with some kind of blissful disregard for time in the pursuit of accomplished music.

Willis – Finnish jazz maestro Jimi Tenor’s wife – has a history as a vocalist of some note, as part of The Repercussions and a guest on records by the likes of Leftfield, Nuspirit Helsinki and Tenor’s great Out Of Nowhere album, but seldom has she been afforded the luxury of production and arrangement of this calibre. Stylistically the all-Finnish band are leagues ahead of most JBs-sweating modern funk troupes who play in homage to their record collections, horn and string arrangements a rare commodity in small-budget independent releases but here proven invaluable if executed adeptly. It’s consistently solid but three cuts put it over the top: the driving opener ‘Feeling Free’ draws on movie-score strings and an easy-going hook; ‘If This Ain’t Love (Don’t Know What Is)’ is a new-old sweet soul classic and it’s no wonder they had to repress the 45 three times; and ‘My Four Leaf Clover’ is a beautiful mid-tempo dancefloor charm, genius in its simplicity and universal in its appeal.

Records like Keep Reachin’ Up are becoming truly rare species because too often new artists lack the knowledge and discipline of older practitioners whilst sometimes groups who are clued-up about their history take it too far and confuse tribute with imitation. Nicole Willis And The Soul Investigators have managed to strike the difficult balance – and make theirs a much-coveted creative niche - of drawing on the soul of the past without sounding outdated or archaic.

For anyone who would like to think about this one here. The NYPD, the CIA, the American government, need to reconsider the human rights of non-white people in the USA, across the world.

Martin Lee Anderson, was a 14 year old boy, brutalized by 9 adults while in custody at a Florida correction facility.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people"

-Kanye West



"Amadou Diallo was born on September 2, 1975 in the village of Sinoe, Liberia, West Africa. He was the first of four children born to Saikou and Kadiatou Diallo. Amadou has one sister, Laouratou, and two brothers, Ibrahima and Abdul Salaam. Because his father, Saikou, was a businessman, Amadou traveled throughout much of his childhood living in Togo, Guinea, the homeland of his parents, Bangkok and Singapore.

Amadou grew up with a love of reading, music, dancing and sports. Once in the United States, he became an avid basketball fan, in particular, Michael Jordan. In fact, Amadou was such a true Michael Jordan fan that he shifted from a Bulls fan to a Knicks fan when Jordan had decided to retire.

Amadou had a passion for school and attended some of the finest schools in the world, including The French International School, London's Cambridge University, The British Consulate College in Thailand and the Asian Institute of Microsoft. It was Amadou's dream to one day enroll in school in the United States. At twenty, he decided to come to America to continue his computer education and he wanted to do it on his own. In September of 1996, he decided to come to New York to start a business with his cousin. His father, Saikou, was reluctant at first but later relented after he was reassured by relatives that Amadou would be taken care of.

Upon his arrival in New York, he first worked as a delivery man but later became a street peddler selling gloves, socks and video tapes in Manhattan on 14th Street. He worked six days a week, 12 hours a day. However, his dream to pursue his education in America continued. A young man from Senegal who met Amadou in New York fondly recalls the times he and Amadou would sit talking for hours about school. After class, he'd stop by Amadou's stand where Amadou would always have a cold bottle of apple juice waiting for him. He'd take his usual seat while Amadou would run down his usual questions; "So tell me, how was school in America today? How do you feel about being in the classroom?" He'd get so excited just listening and, at the end of every conversation, he'd say, "You know, I'm really going to go to school here someday."

A spiritual person, when Amadou was about 18 years old, he began to focus and collect books on his religion, studying the Koran and praying five times a day in the Muslim tradition. When the family came to collect Amadou's belongings after his death, they found solace in what they discovered. Among the many things they found were writings where Amadou had begun to research the prophets. He had written the names of all the prophets along with the dates of their birth. He had highlighted passages in the Koran that spoke about the dialogues between Christians and Muslims. Amadou was on a spiritual journey.

Amadou was killed on February 4, 1999, after midnight, by four New York City police officers from the Street Crime Unit. Amadou had come home from work to his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview Section of the Bronx and decided to go back out to get something to eat. Upon his return, he encountered the police officers who ultimately fired a fuselage of 41 shots, 19 of which riddled his body. Amadou died in the vestibule of his apartment."