Let's Do The Latin Hustle
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Album Summary
Eddie Drennon & The B.B.S. Unlimited dropped 'Let's Do The Latin Hustle' in 1975 on Friends & Co. Records, riding the crest of a wave that was sweeping dance floors from the Bronx to the Barrio and beyond. Drennon, a seasoned musician and bandleader with deep roots in funk and soul, recognized that the Latin hustle was more than a dance craze — it was a cultural moment — and he moved fast to capture it on wax. The record was lean and purposeful, built around the infectious groove that defined the mid-seventies dance scene, and it came out at exactly the right time, when America was lacing up its platform shoes and heading to the discotheque.
Reception
- "Let's Do The Latin Hustle" made genuine noise on the charts, giving Eddie Drennon & The B.B.S. Unlimited a moment of real commercial visibility in the crowded mid-seventies dance market.
- The record connected strongly with Black and Latin urban audiences who recognized the authenticity in Drennon's groove, earning solid airplay on rhythm-and-blues and dance-oriented radio stations.
- The release helped establish the Latin hustle as a named, codified dance phenomenon, with the record itself serving as both a soundtrack and an instruction in the movement.
Significance
- This record stands as one of the early documents of the Latin hustle as a distinct genre fusion — a moment where funk, soul, and Latin rhythm locked arms and walked onto the dance floor together, reflecting the cultural cross-pollination happening in New York City's working-class communities in the mid-seventies.
- Eddie Drennon & The B.B.S. Unlimited captured a transitional sound that sat right at the intersection of the funk era and the emerging disco age, and this album is a time capsule of that beautifully restless musical moment.
- The record's two-track focus gave it a laser-sharp identity — this wasn't a collection, it was a statement, and that kind of singular artistic intention helped define what a dance-floor record could be in the hustle era.
Samples
- "Let's Do The Latin Hustle" — one of the most recognizable hustle-era grooves to find its way into hip-hop and R&B productions, with its rhythm and horn elements drawn upon by producers mining the rich vein of mid-seventies funk and dance records.
Tracklist
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A Let's Do The Latin Hustle —
3:11
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B Get Down Do The Latin Hustle —
3:27
Artist Details
Eddie Drennon & The B.B.S. Unlimited were a New York-based funk and soul outfit who hit their stride in the mid-1970s, blending the gritty groove of street-level R&B with the emerging disco pulse that was electrifying dance floors coast to coast. Their 1974 hit "Let's Do the Latin Hustle" was pure magic — a record that helped popularize the hustle dance craze before it even had a name on most people's lips, making Eddie Drennon one of those unsung architects who laid the foundation for the disco era without always getting the credit his rhythm deserved. A funky footnote in the grand story of 70s soul, Drennon and his band represented that beautiful underground current of musicians who kept the party alive and the dancers moving, even if the spotlight of history shined a little brighter on others.
