Regular perusers of YouTube will have seen the benign bearded face of Jules Buckley smiling beatifically amidst the hyper-rapid edits of Jacob Collier’s videos as he wields his baton as guest conductor of the Metropole Orkest, the go-to ensemble for hip artists looking to add some symphonic sweep and drama to their oeuvre.

He’s also the co-founder, along with Chris Wheeler, of the Heritage Orchestra, a self-described ‘non-classical orchestra’ playing a repertoire inspired by the likes of Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin, and renowned for their ability to make a symphonic ensemble actually groove and swing.

This new release develops the project he brought to the 2019 BBC Proms, that celebrated Hip Hop culture by bringing together DJs and breakdancers with orchestral renditions of the iconic funk tracks that provided the raw material for hundreds of hip hop classics. Deep rare groove cuts by the likes of Manzel, The Incredible Bongo Band, Zapp and James Brown are re-recorded by Buckley’s regular musical team, augmented by star guests such as Kamasi Washington (who contributes some deliciously non-bombastic, delicately grooving tenor sax to “It’s Just Begun”), Snarky Puppy collaborators Ghost Note, and champion DJ Mr Switch, while the strings and brass of the Heritage Orchestra add the requisite lush expansive textures - it’s nice to hear Gareth Lockrane’s flute featured so extensively as well. It’s fun recognising the breaks that have been made familiar from their samples in so many classic hip hop tracks, and the skill and verve with which the orchestra is integrated into the arrangements can’t be faulted, but the original grit of both the source material and its hip hop progeny has been lost amid the lush textures, so we feel a long way from the streets of the South Bronx.