Funk U Up

"Funk U Up" is the third single from Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets' self-titled album Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets.

The song is a blend of hip-hop and Turner’s 70s funk guitar stylings. The rapping is courtesy of the Modern Day Poets, while Turner performs the instrumentation, chorus, bridge, and a beatboxing solo. "Funk U Up" is one of the few tracks on Turner’s debut album that contains a real beat rather than vocal percussion. Lyrically, it is said to be about "getting women to dance and for men to stop drinking at the bar, get off their bar stools and join the ladies on the dance floor".

The video for the song features both live and candid footage of Turner and his crew on their first national tour, much of which also appears on the DVD Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets with the Beatbox Alliance. There are also black-and-white scenes of the gang performing the song in a Newcastle hotel room. As a side note, the director Amiel Courtin-Wilson claims that of all the clips he has done for the group, this is the one that Turner is happiest with.

The Producers

The Producers may refer to:

Titled works

Bands

The Producers (musical)

The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Complications arise when the show unexpectedly turns out to be successful. The humor of the show draws on ridiculous accents, caricatures of homosexuals and Nazis, and many show business in-jokes.

After 33 previews, the original Broadway production opened at the St. James Theatre on April 19, 2001, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and ran for 2,502 performances, winning a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. It spawned a successful London production running for just over two years, national tours in the US and UK, many productions worldwide and a 2005 film version.

Background

David Geffen persuaded Mel Brooks to turn his movie into a stage musical. When Brooks met with Jerry Herman to discuss their working together, Herman declined, telling Brooks that he should do the job himself, as he was a good songwriter. Brooks then asked Thomas Meehan to join him in writing the book for the stage. Brooks persuaded Mike Ockrent and his wife Susan Stroman to join the creative team as director and choreographer. After Ockrent's death in 1999, Stroman agreed to continue as both director and choreographer.

The Producers (1968 film)

The Producers is a 1968 American satirical comedy film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they can repay (the shares they sell total more than 100% of any profits) and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.

The film stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, the producer, and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom, the accountant. It features Dick Shawn as L.S.D., the actor who ends up playing the lead in the musical within the movie, and Kenneth Mars as a playwright and former Nazi soldier, Franz Liebkind.

The Producers was the first film directed by Brooks. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Decades later, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry and placed 11th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. It was later remade successfully by Brooks as an acclaimed Broadway stage musical, which itself was adapted as a film.