Club Classics Vol. One with two awards, R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” and R&B Instrumental Performance for “African Dance,” and Soul Train also gave out a couple for “Keep On Movin’” and one for the album. Conspicuous by their absence on Jazzie B’s mantlepiece, especially when you consider the phenomenon that was Soul II Soul in 1989, were the lack of honors dished out by the music industry establishment in the band’s homeland. They didn’t even win “Best New Artist” at the Brit Awards, the U.K.’s equivalent to the Grammys. That accolade was given to Lisa Stansfield, whose song had copied the same drum sample used on “Keep On Movin’.” “Mate, but she’s White; she has to win,” says Jazzie in mock surprise. “What else could that mean? If you’re one of the biggest bands in the world, and the thing is about being the biggest or whatever. And then you’re, like, someone goes and samples the best record, [but] does a shit version, how do you then win the fucking thing? How does that work? Well, it all reveals itself at the end of the day.” “That was a very sore point,” says Law. “We were all very upset about that. Absolutely no disrespect to Lisa Stansfield, because she’s a great artist too, but, honestly, you know, it smacked of institutionalized racism, to be quite frank with you. Like, they couldn’t quite jump to giving it to a Black English group; it would be a bridge too far.” Jazzie adds: “We live in a place like London, where the odds are stacked against us. You look at what they’re saying about Diversity [an English dance troupe that performed a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent ] and you can’t believe how many complaints, Ofcom [the British regulatory authority for broadcasting] received from the public about those dancers and their art. This is 2020! You know what I mean? This shit is still going on, and then you think to yourself, ‘Wow, back then, in 1989, 1990, I didn’t stand a chance!’” Jazzie laughs in disbelief. When the nominees were announced during the 1990 Brit Awards, Soul II Soul got the loudest cheer. After the awards ceremony, Neneh Cherry, who won Best International Female Artist, reportedly snapped her gong award in two and handed half to Jazzie. In the years that followed, Soul II Soul would be honored on many occasions, the country showing recognition in hindsight for a group that, more than any other, put British Black music on the map. Jazzie B was also given the title of Trevor Beresford Romeo OBE [Order of the British Empire] by Her Majesty the Queen. Almost three decades to the day, he played his first gig at a street party for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. After Vol. II: 1990 – A New Decade , Soul II Soul would release three more studio albums, plus two live albums. Jazzie B was in demand as a producer for hire, working with James Brown, Teena Marie, Ziggy Marley, Nas, and Destiny’s Child,
to name a few. Nellee Hooper produced six Grammy Award– winning albums for artists including U2, Sinead O’Connor, and the Smashing Pumpkins, and grew a more respectable beard. Caron Wheeler released two critically acclaimed solo albums, UK Blak and Beach of the War Goddess , returning to chat fart and sing lead with the band at regular intervals in the ensuing years—with no hard feelings. Simon Law—who sat throughout the whole interview with the Maurice White memoir My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire on the bookcase behind him—got to work with his hero, White, on a unreleased song for the Millennium album sessions, and has produced a slew of classics for the likes of J.T. Taylor (“Feel the Need”), Chanté Moore (“Love’s Taken Over”), and Ronny Jordan (“Slam in a Jam”); he also released his own solo record, Look to the Sky , in 2017. On the wall behind Arabella Rodriguez are gold and platinum discs for her contribution to Club Classics Vol. One , along with a Golden Reel Award for her work engineering the album. “All those names mentioned have been assets to the collective: Nellee Hooper, Simon Law, Andrew Levy…all of them, because they’ve all carried on in the vehicle which took them to the next stage. It’s the most powerful thing that the community has achieved and what Soul II Soul is all about,” says Jazzie, not far from the spot in Finsbury Park where his local community organized a steel statue of him. He’s out in his Mercedes running errands and gearing up for a new release on his reactivated Funki Dred label, putting out a new Afrobeat version—or “version excursion,” as he calls it—of the Soul II Soul classic “Back to Life.” Says Jazzie, “The anoraks will hear the mixes and realize that we did the same thing the first time around and they’ll go, ‘Fuck me, Jazzie, you’re a genius—revisiting and remixing the original like that!’ We’re still showing that artistically we have no boundaries. I think I’ve been blessed for anything to come out of my own little head and for somebody to go, ‘That’s all right.’ So in terms of me wallowing in my glory at the ground we covered? Here I am still being asked about Soul II Soul like, what, thirty-five years later? ’Nuff said.” .
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( opposite ) Jazzie B and Soul II Soul onstage at Brixton Academy, London, September 22, 1990. Photo by Ian Dickson/Redferns.
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