She is a British recording artist who gained fame by writing and singing the lead vocals on the two biggest hits for Soul II Soul; Keep on Movin' and Back to Life (However Do You Want Me). She then embarked on a solo career, and released two albums: UK Blak in 1990 and Beach of the War Goddess in 1993. Her biggest solo success single is Livin' In The Light from her first solo album, which hit no.53 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and spent a week at No.1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1989. It also reached no.4 in the UK Singles Chart.
She is reportedly working on a new solo album to be released in 2014. She is also back in the recording studio with Jazzie B recording tracks for a new Soul II Soul album for a 2014 release.
Lance Ellington is an English singer, songwriter and actor. The only son of the band leader, Ray Ellington, he specialises in swing and big ballads. He has worked with many artists including Sting, George Michael, Michael Jackson and Robbie Williams, and currently makes regular performances on the BBC programme Strictly Come Dancing.
And is one of the most underrated, overlooked British soul talents of the last 20 years.
Back in 1990, before Mr Ellington was relegated to being a backing singer on Strictly or doing James Bond theme shows, he released Pleasure And Pain, his debut album on A&M records. If you haven't heard this album, check it out; tracks like Who's Loving You Tonight, Love Scared, Don't Ever Leave Me Again and Do Something For Yaare worth of gracing any top soul artist's repertoire.
And that goes for that track featured here, Treat Me Right. A great way to start the album and the 12" remix here gains a little extra kick here courtesy of Flytetyme wingman Steve Hodge, a man who mixed almost everything that came out of Jam & Lewis's studio for 16 years and produces six tracks on this album.
He's still got plenty to give as a soul artist, if only someone would sign him up; please don't let him reside in TV schlock ignominy...
In 1989 Johnny Male teamed up with Guy Batson and Jhelisa Anderson to begin the project Soul Family Sensation. Their debut album New Wave was praised by the UK media as was the single, I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby.
Despite interest from the style press and radio play for the single release, SFS bombed. Too white for the dance kids, too black for the indie kids it seemed, SFS were stuck in a sort of no-mans land inbetween. I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby was re-released in 1991 and spent 4 weeks in the UK Charts, reaching no.49.
Their second LP, Burger Habit, recorded without Jhelisa under the band name of Sensation, disappeared without a trace and SFS split. Male, after reputedly writing songs for Jimmy Nail, turned up next in Republica.
Jhelisa Anderson of course has become an accomplished solo artist singing, writing & producing under the name Jhelisa. She has made two albums and struck gold with Friendly Pressure. Her sister is P.Y. or Pamela Anderson (No, not that one) who sang with D*Note and Incognito and of course, her cousin is Carleen Anderson, daughter of Vicki Anderson & Bobby Byrd.
I've loved this song since day one, both versions here are absolutely sublime. Don't be misled by the alternate title of the remix, it's another version of the same song but remixed by the iconic producer Marshall Jefferson, produced just before he took a break from music in 1990; he then returned to DJing in 1993.
"Don't call it a comeback!" L.L. Cool J shouted at the start of Mama Said Knock You Out. For all his bravado, after the critically disappointing Walking with a Panther in 1989, L.L. was sorely in need of a career boost. As he rapped on Cheesy Rat Blues, his self-mocking tale of woe, "I wanna fall off, but I don't know where the edge is/I'm so hungry, I eat my neighbour's hedges." The 22year-old got new life on his fourth record by hooking up with legendary New York DJ Marley Marl (producer of tracks for Biz Markie, Kool G Rap, Masta Ace), who produced a radio-ready hip-hop masterpiece - not just spare, muscular beats or self-conscious samplefests, but a smooth blend of borrowed licks with real instruments and vocals. When you played the album in your car, it had so much propulsion, it started the ignition and rolled down the windows all by itself.
L.L. had a lot on his mind; his stature in the rap community, insults to be avenged, life in Queens, the power of God. But what he rapped about on most of the fourteen tracks here was women, particularly the homegirls with bamboo earrings he praised on Around the Way Girl. L.L. portrayed himself as a good-natured Lothario; he had enough confidence to assume that all women would want to sleep with him and enough perspective to laugh when they turned him down. On rap after rap, he stretched metaphors for sex as far as they could possibly go -- and sometimes beyond, as on Milky Cereal, where he crammed more Kellogg's trademarks into a single song than you would think possible. But Illegal Search was brilliant: L.L. took the indignities of racial profiling and effortlessly flipped them into the efforts of seduction.
Mama uses samples from James Brown's ubiquitous Funky Drummer, the Chicago Gangsters' Gangster Boogie, Sly & The Family Stone's Trip to Your Heart and Sing a Simple Song, and his own track, Rock The Bells.
The single reached number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold by the RIAA. LL Cool J won Best Rap Solo Performance at the '92 Grammy Awards.
