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
- 30 -
: . elson trinidad, los angeles, california, usa
: . elson@westworld.com : www.westworld.com/~elson
: . groove to the futurethnic beats of e:trinity at www.e-trinity.org and
www.mp3.com.etrinity
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