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Dimas Sanfiorenzo

Dimas Sanfiorenzo is the Editorial Director ok OkayMedia. He specializes…

Photo Credit: Marc Pfitzenreuter/Redferns

Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the R&B and funk band Kool & the Gang. And, even though we are still a year out, the band is already celebrating. 

Kool & the Gang are planning on releasing their 34th studio album, People Just Wanna Have Fun. The album will be released through Astana Music Inc, distributed by BFD/The Orchard, and is led by their latest single, “Let’s Party,” which features Sha Sha Jones. 

The album will have 15 new tracks and will feature founding members Robert “Kool” Bell and George “Funky” Brown. The real selling point is that it features the last recordings from founding horn players, Ronald “Khalis” Bell — and Robert’s brother — Dennis “D.T.” Thomas. (Bell passed away in 2020 and Thomas died in 2021.)

Robert “Kool” Bell put out a statement about the album. He wrote:

“You’ve got the funk, you’ve got the jazzier tracks, we have a few ballads on there. Then there are songs that cross over to a pop sort of thing. We go from the ‘70s, the ‘80s, right into now. It’s old school, it’s new school — we kinda captured it all here. With all our music over the years, people have had fun. So I’d say this album just about sums it all up.”

In his statement, Brown said:

“It’s all done live. Nothing was flown in. We made sure we had the ultraviolet lights and the sprays and the masks. Nobody got sick. We kept the number of people in the studio way down.”

Just Wanna Have Fun drops on July 14. It will be their first non-holiday album since Still Kool, which was released in 2007. Watch Kool & the Gang perform “Let’s Party” on Good Morning America below.