New Orleans’ Hot 8 Brass Band are back by popular demand

To celebrate this significant and incredibly hard-won milestone, the band has also launched the first ever collection of remixes of their iconic “Sexual Healing” cover, and a new video for the same track, which captures the joyous essence of this band on tour and has swiftly gained over 130K YouTube hits.

One of the great New Orleans acts, Hot 8 have pushed on through a barely imaginable series of trials. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the separate deaths of five of their band members, and the horror of trumpeter Terrell “Burger” Batiste losing his legs in a car crash, conspired to test these men almost to breaking point.

They honour their fallen friends and help to work towards the future of their community by putting their energies into positive projects at home as well as touring as much as possible. They march together and they play their music - a rambunctious yet elegant and super-tight mix of jazz, funk and hip hop – not merely as though, but because their lives depend on it.

Transcending genres and trends, Hot 8’s party rocking sound and indomitable energy have become renowned across the world. The band have performed with a wide range of artists, from Lauryn Hill to Mos Def, and their incredible story was featured in Spike Lee’s two New Orleans documentaries When The Levee Broke and The Creek Don’t Rise. They played themselves in David Simon’s hit series Treme, and in 2013, were nominated for a Grammy award for their album The Life and Times Of…

New album ‘Vicennial – 20 Years of the Hot 8 Brass Band’ (Tru Thoughts), exemplifies Hot 8’s ability to honour their city’s musical traditions while forging their own powerful legacy allowing the band to tell the story of their lives, their career and their city like only they can. Stand-out tracks include rousing covers of ‘Sexual Healing’, ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, and ‘Just My Imagination’ – plus ‘Royal Garden Blues’, ‘Get Up’, ‘What’s My Name’, and ‘New Orleans After The City’.

One of the funkiest groups from the New Orleans scene, Hot 8 Brass Band continue to win over audiences with their old school street brass approach, fusing it with some harder, funkier currents in the process. Their approach is super-fresh, super-unique, and widely appealing. Like a good-time juggernaut, you’re likely to hear them juxtapose roof-raising originals with fresh versions of Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, The Specials or Basement Jaxx.

They play their only Wales date at Swansea’s Sin City on May 25.