Jazzie B keeps on moving

Trevor Beresford Romeo OBE, better known as Jazzie B, is a British DJ, music producer and the founder of music collective Soul II Soul who'll be in South Africa next week to perform on on Saturday at Montecasino's outdoor events area and in Cape Town on February 8 at Kirstenbosch.

Soul II Soul will be joined by TKZee, DJ’s Admiral and Jahseed Die Fireseed.

Soul II Soul have won two Grammy Awards, and have been nominated for five Brit Awards twice for Best British Group. The group initially attracted attention as a sound system run by founder Jazzie B, playing at the Africa Centre, London. By 1988, the official line-up was Jazzie B, Caron Wheeler, Nellie Hooper, Simon Law, Doreen Waddell, Rose Windross, Daddae, Aitch B, and Jazzie Q.

They released their first single, Fairplay, with Windross on lead vocals, recorded at the Africa Centre where the collective hosted a regular Sunday night residency. The song charted at number 63 on the UK Singles Chart, while their follow-up single which featured Waddell on lead vocals, charted at number 64.

The group — now comprising Jazzie B and Charlotte Kelly — boasts six albums: Club Classics Vol. One (1989), Vol. II: 1990 – A New Decade (1990), Volume III Just Right (1992), Volume IV The Classic Singles 88–93 (1993), Volume V: Believe (1995) and Time for Change (1997).

Jazzie B, alongside his school friend Daddae created the iconic collective, Soul II Soul, who's hits, Keep On Moving and Back To Life, made them world famous. Jazzie B has also released A Happy Face, a Thumpin' Bass for a Loving Race, a book about his musical journey through life . The book celebrates music as a universal language and explores the importance of embracing diversity and nurturing understanding among individuals. Andrea Nagel spoke to him about his achievements

AN: As a person who's been involved in the music scene for a long time, what inspired you to want to tell the story of your life?

JB: The musical journey was an eclectic mix of the times I was living in. I’m a sound engineer by trade, responsible for hits that made the top 10, and which the rock scene was jigging and dancing to in the early eighties. I worked under a gentleman called Hans Zimmer and I was Richard Dodd’s assistant [head engineer at Nova Studios]. I’ve been in the game since 1977 and I come from an era in which a great melody was important. I’m also inseparably linked to the hip-hop scene. Then technology arrived on the music scene (it's all in the book).

How did you initially become so involved in the music scene?

My family came from the colonies, so breaking the glass ceiling became possible because of the musical community I was involved in. Sound systems played a large part of that. You had the attitude of the punk scene in England but as a young person I listened to everything, from country and western and folk music to whatever the popular music of the time was, with a very solid musical foundation from the Caribbean, which would’ve started off as mento (a style of Jamaican folk music recognisable by its acoustic sounds) and ska, calypso and Blue Beat (an English record label that released Jamaican rhythm and blues), which then turned into reggae at some point.

Is your music a mix of all these different influences?

Yeah. All the influences stir me. From them we were able to come up with a style of music that helped shift music in its entirety. It became driven by a groove that had electronic components. We had one foot stuck in the analogue world while the the digital world was in development. That’s one of the reasons why the music resonates today. It felt like an apartheid out there musically — we had to get from one stage to another another and access club culture. So it’s quite amazing that our sound still resonates.

You’ve had a lot of interesting collaborations throughout your career. Which ones stand out for you?

The latest one I was involved in as a collaboration was with the great band, Cymande (a British funk group). I’m featured on the next single, How We Roll. There have been some heavy milestones in my musical career. I’ve worked with Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Destiny’s Child and Sinead O'Connor. 

What can we expect from the show? 

JB: Let’s see, a happy face, yeah, and a fronting base for a loving race. I'll see you when I get there.

Tickets to the Johannesburg and Cape Town gigs are available here and here as well as Pick ‘n Pay retail stores around the country.