Broadway & 52nd was the second album by jazz-rap group Us3

US3

Us3 is a jazz-rap group founded in London in 1991. Their name was inspired by a Horace Parlan recording produced by Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. On their debut album, Hand on the Torch, Us3 used samples from the Blue Note Records catalogue, all originally produced by...

. They continued mixing live musicians with samples and hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 lyrics. While not as well-accepted as their debut album Hand on the Torch

Hand on the Torch

Hand on the Torch was the debut album for the jazz-rap group Us3. It received much attention because of its mix of jazz and rap, using live jazz musicians...

, it was a more mature approach to jazz-rap, up to par with Guru

Guru (rapper)

Keith Edward Elam , better known by his stage name Guru, was an American emcee and member of the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts...

's Jazzmatazz

Jazzmatazz

Jazzmatazz may be a reference to:An album from the Jazzmatazz series of hip hop and jazz recordings from Guru , including:* Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1* Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality* Jazzmatazz, Vol. 3: Street Soul...

. After the huge success of their first album, the president of Blue Note

Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...

 records allowed the trio to dig deep into Blue Note

Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...

's vault and do whatever they wanted to do with Blue Note's material.

Broadway & 52nd has a more dark, conscious mood to it. Track 9, "Sheep" is an example of this: It talks about a young man who is not interested in being down with the herd.

The album title comes from the street in the middle of the theater district in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. It also used to be the center of bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

in New York City, with infamous night clubs, when bebop was in its heyday.

Tracks

1. "Intro" (Geoff Wilkinson, Hawkins, Powell, De Moraes) – 1:14
2. "Come on Everybody (Get down)" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead, McLean) – 5:48
3. "Caught Up in a Struggle" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Vialva) – 3:42
4. "True to the Game" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead) – 3:34
5. "Snakes" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead) – 4:10
6. "I'm Thinking About Your Body" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Vialva, McFerrin) – 5:21
7. "Grand Groove" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armsteads) – 3:35
8. "Nowadays" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead) – 4:24
9. "Sheep" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Vialva) – 4:46
10. "Doin' a Crime" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Vialva) – 5:37
11. "Recognise and Realise" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead, Vialva) – 5:40
12. "Time and Space" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Vialva, Jordan) – 4:45
13. "Soul Brother" (Wilkinson, Hawkins, Armstead) – 3:59
14. "Hymn for Her" (Wilkinson, Hawkins) – 4:54