Kool & The Gang are gearing up for their 60th anniversary and have announced the release of their new album, “People Just Wanna Have Fun”. Scheduled for release on July 14 via Astana Music, the album is the 34th from the American R&B, soul and funk group.

Led by founding band member Robert “Kool” Bell and George “Funky” Brown, Kool & the Gang recorded 15 songs.

The album will feature the final recordings with Kool’s brothers, Ronald “Callys” Bell and Dennis “Dee Tee” O. Thomas, founding members and saxophonists of Kool & The Gang, who died in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Sa Sa Jones, Sean McQuiller, Dominic Curran, Rick Marcel, Walt Anderson, Amy Miller, Lavelle Evans and All contribute lead vocals.

“We have funk, we have more jazzy songs, we have some ballads. Then there are songs that cross into a pop genre. We go through the 1970s, the 1980s and up to the present day. They’re classic, they’re contemporary – we’ve got it all covered here. With all our music over the years, people have been having fun. So I’d say this album pretty much sums it all up,” said Robert ‘Cool’ Bell. Brown added: “It was all done live. Nothing was thrown away. We made sure we had UV lights and sprays and masks. Nobody got sick. We limited the number of people in the studio».

The band, which was founded in 1964, is behind a string of all-time hits, ‘Celebration’, ‘Ladies Night’, ‘Get Down on It’, ‘Summer Magic’ and ‘Hollywood Swinging’. Their music has also been featured on various movie soundtracks, including Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction and Wreck-It Ralph.