Tom Tom Club

The side project of Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz, Tom Tom Club created an unusual brand of eccentric, new wave pop filled with infectious funk, oddball raps and arty experimentation. Formed in 1981 when Island Records boss Chris Blackwell asked the married couple to record a song together in the Bahamas, the pair produced the UK Top 10 hit Wordy Rappinghood and were duly invited to make debut album Tom Tom Club. Inspired by the early, old skool hip hop stars such as Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, the group's Afrobeat rhythms and strutting, playful rhymes crossed over into the dance clubs where singles Genius Of Love, Under The Boardwalk and The Man With The Four Way Hips were played alongside early forms of house music. Albums Close To The Bone (1983) and Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom (1988) became cult favourites as the band expanded to include a loose collection of artists that included Tina's sister Laura Weymouth and occasionally Lou Reed and David Byrne. The group regularly opened for Talking Heads and were featured in the concert movie Stop Making Sense, and marked their sixth album Downtown Rockers (2012) with an appearance at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival.

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