We came across this video via Louie Vega’s Facebook page, and we were so blown away we had to run it here as well. So enjoy this fantastic video of George Benson at the recent Festival de Jazz de Montreux performing “You Can Do It, Baby,” a song he originally recorded with Nuyorican Soul back in the mid-’90s.

To really catch the significance of this video, we’ll have to run you through a little bit of dance music history, so bear with us. Back in the early 1990s, famed New York house producers Masters At Work (Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez) began to cut latin-and-soul influenced tracks under the moniker Nuyorican Soul, and released the monumental “The Nervous Track” in 1993. Some years later the duo returned to the studio and started work on a full-length album that blended the traditions of jazz, salsa, disco, and Latin. The result was a critically acclaimed debut album of urban dance music simply titled Nuyorican Soul. The production was a real piece of vinyl art, with a limited release as a 5-LP box set, for anyone lucky enough to get their hands on one.

With Nuyorican Soul, the pair established their place among dance music’s greatest contemporary producers, beyond the realms of house and techno, effectively mining their roots to create music built on live instrumentation and legendary talent. Growing up the nephew of famed Salsa star and key member of the Fania Family Héctor Lavoe, Louie Vega’s personal heritage was evident on the record which featured Roy Ayers, Jocelyn Brown, Vincent Montana Jr., India, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, and lastly George Benson on the now-classic track “You Can Do It, Baby.” All of which brings us to this video, proving that although it’s been over 10 years since Nuyorican Soul, Benson still performs his piece of the project to this day.

So in summary, this video illustrates that the lineage of dance music (and music in general) creates binding connections that cross generations; here we have the talent of George Benson and the inspired production style Louie Vega and Kenny Dope all tied together by one performance of one decade-old track. Coming full circle never sounded so good.