In today's plethora of multimedia infos, not so many thangz remind instantly identifiable. What the late Barry White had been championing on his own throughout his whole life was then to take shape in UK by the end of the 80's. A typical sound that would become a style and, even more, a spirit, opening the path to a brand new generation in the history of soul music with people like Diana Brown & Barrie K Sharpe, Omar, Dodge & IG, Young Disciples, Mica Parris, D-Influence, Brand New Heavies and the likes. The so called Brit soul as defined by Soul II Soul…

Imagine a block party with various people working on it (the DJ's, the lightman, eventually the carpenter !!! joined by some MC and a couple of singers) that would become a band with a worldwide success. It's shortly said what happened to Soul II Soul… A sound system in the true Jamaïcan tradition that would see the light in 1982 by the likes of Beresford Romeo (better known under his Jazzie B aka), Nellee Hooper (who would later become producer for Björk and Massive Attack amongst others) and Philip 'Daddae' Harvey. The threesome started an adventure that would become the biggest soundsystem ever in UK. I got into the music in the mid seventies, explains Jazzie who I'd met for the very first time in person at a DMC World championships final in London when sitting ar a table alongside Carl 'Loose Ends' Macintosh and Maxi Priest. I was a student at the time and was spending my free time listening to music from Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes and James Brown and gotta say this perfectly came along when mixed with reggae groove that was quite in demand at the time. I'm hailing from a big family. All my brothers were DJ's so I follwed their path. First while at home then for various events inside the community. He then would do the Blues parties, spinning in various basements and warehouses before starting in clubs. We was a reggae mobile disco a tour very beginning, he remembers. There was Daddae and myself and we used to work under the Joe Rico's guise back then. Their Soul II Soul adventure seing the days as time would go.

Soundsystems are definitely a criteria of advanced social position in the West Indies, he explained. The very first of'em appeared in Jamaica way before UK. We always had to find bigger rooms to play. There was a soundsytem at about any street corner in my neighborhood and we never missed an opportunity to compete with each other while trying to catch the best DJ's around, the best rappers, the best crowd. At the beginning, was a little bit like if we was going back to school. One of us was doing good in DIY, the other one in electricity, the third of us had his driving license… The fourth was like our Mr Muscles !!! This is how I've got to parcel out the activities.

Reggae is most definitely a field where you happen to dissect the rhythm parts, before cutting them and reassemble them the way you may like. Some people would then go for what was to become jungle or drum & bass, when Jazzie B and cohorts created some minimalized environment that would provide the melody, the beats, but most of all the emotion with space that was cruelly missed at the time in a US production that was following the opposite way while becoming more and more sophisticated from a year to another. People come for the music you play, Jazzie continues. We came to a point where we couldn't get any more people in our parties, simply because there no one left in the streets…

We started to gain more and more attention abroad and I told myself it would be great to be able be in Japan, Germany and London at the same time. The collective would then press 2,000 copies their first single "London Beats" and everything had gone within a short while. Soul II Soul had to become the soundsystem of the moment. It then would reach this status with the arrival of Rose Windross inside the group. She was a regular of our parties, Jazzie remembers. She then came to see us and said : I know how to sing. That's how she began putting her voice on our instrumentals.

A demo of a song called "Fantasy" was dropped at Virgin HQ prior finding its place in the club charts at the moment. The label would then send it in America with no great enthusiasm as they thought it wouldn't do Stateside. Meanwhile, Jazzie would make a step by at WBLS in NYC then meet Timmy Regisford - the soon to become VP of Motown Records who would sign a distribution deal with Jazzie's Funki Dread label – who instantly got the song on the station's playlist. The rest was soon to become history with "Back To Life" and "Keep On Movin'" featuring Caron Wheeler, illustrations of a real trademark that many would try to recapture without success.

I've felt flattered, to see  all these people having hits based on some groove which I'd created… I realized something strong was going on when some people started to try to get this our that from us with the help of their lawyers. Jazzie B and his group would make good business most of the times together but also separetely. Jazzie would do production or remixes for many people including Johnny Gil, Mica Paris, Teena Marie, Victoria Wilson-James, Maxi Priest, etc… Not to mention superstars that would offer him to collaborate like… Barry White, Dionne Warwick and even Michael Jackson !

Guess we can say that the Brits owe quite a lot to Jazzie B as they also do to Incognito, Loose Ends or Shakatak who were around before, as they've defintely contributed to put UK production as a serious alternative to its US counterpart. Big ups Mista B…

Excerpts from an interview released in May 1992

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