Craig David, UK Garage in Los Angeles Times

From: Elson Trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Date: Mon Nov 06 2000 - 05:14:58 MET

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    Media watch time...

    Looks like 2-Step is slowly getting US press:

    From Los Angeles Times Calendar section, Sunday, 11/5/00:

    http://www.latimes.com/print/suncal/20001105/t000105806.html

    Prime Picks From Across the Pond
    Singer-songwriters and tuneful dance music are just hitting American soil,
    but they've taken over England.
    By PHIL SUTCLIFFE

    [excerpt:]

    " Completely different yet evincing a similar air of freshness is the latest
    wave of dance music, patriotically designated U.K. Garage (don't
    ask--antecedents reach back to New York's Paradise Garage club scene in
    the early '80s). The vital variant from much dance music is that this time it's
    got tunes.
      Early this year, the wave burst out of Southampton, the seaport the old
     ocean liners sail from, with a single called "Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo
     Selecta)" by two studio boffins called Artful Dodger who are unlovely and
     30-ish but were fronted on that record by Craig David, handsome and 19.
     The genre's friendly, supple grooves crossed the age barrier in the U.K.
     with David's autumn solo album, "Born to Do It," becoming the
     fastest-selling debut ever--225,000 in its first week."

    They then list a who's who of new UK movers and shakers:

    " Craig David: Still lives with his dear old mum, but turns the girls on
    something rotten. Writes his own songs and bends lyric to beat with a limber
    syncopation even TLC might appreciate--though the comparison does raise
    the question of whether there's an American-market vacancy for an artist
    so immersed in the idiom of new R&B (but then Ireland's Samantha
    Mumba seems to be doing well in a somewhat similar vein, with a single in
    the U.S. Top 5). But the immediate problem is to secure U.S. distribution, a
    task in which his U.K. indie label Wildstar seem to have been somewhat
    tardy. Meanwhile, he is available singing a track called "No More" on
    Guru's "Jazzmatazz" album, his illustrious companions including Isaac
    Hayes, Macy Gray and Angie Stone."

    I just thought it was cool to see the words "bo" and "selecta" in a major
    US newspaper... :)

    Elson
      

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    : . elson@westworld.com : www.westworld.com/~elson
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