Soul II Soul

English pop performers. They can be best thought of as a collective of ever-changing personnel rather than as a pop band, and in the 1980s were harbingers of the looser confederation of working units which typified certain areas of dance music in the 90s. Soul II Soul was formed in 1982 by Jazzie B (Beresford Romeo; b London, 26 Jan 1963; rapper) and Phillip ‘Daddae’ Harvey (multi-instrumentalist) as a reggae sound system unit. They first played at street parties and youth clubs, but by the mid-1980s the collective had become one of the leading promoters of warehouse raves in London. Jazzie B...

English pop performers. They can be best thought of as a collective of ever-changing personnel rather than as a pop band, and in the 1980s were harbingers of the looser confederation of working units which typified certain areas of dance music in the 90s. Soul II Soul was formed in 1982 by Jazzie B (Beresford Romeo; b London, 26 Jan 1963; rapper) and Phillip ‘Daddae’ Harvey (multi-instrumentalist) as a reggae sound system unit. They first played at street parties and youth clubs, but by the mid-1980s the collective had become one of the leading promoters of warehouse raves in London. Jazzie B was as much a pop entrepreneur and guru as musician, with a shop in London selling band merchandizing and fashion accessories; he later became a radio DJ on the then pirate station Kiss FM and produced an album for James Brown in 1993. In 1985 the band was joined by Nellee Hooper, who later went on to record with Massive Attack and become a producer, and in 1987 Soul II Soul finally became a recording band with two underground dance hits, Fairplay and Feel Free. In 1989, however, they entered mainstream pop. Their singles Keep on movin' and their UK number one Back to Life (However do you want me) both featured vocals by Caron Wheeler and blended Chic-inspired disco string arrangements with 1980s rap and hip hop. Their first album, Club Classics Volume 1 (Ten, 1989) was an international success and sold 2 million copies in the USA under the title Keep On Moving. In the 1990s Soul II Soul’s innovative hybrid dance sound was subsumed by the mainstream and, although the band continued to have hit singles and albums, their critical and commercial stock declined. They released their sixth album, Time For Change (Island), in 1997, but the critical consensus was that the band had failed to heed the title’s directive to any good effect.