Club Classics Vol. One

About

“What is Soul II Soul?” the London collective’s lynchpin Jazzie B ponders on “Jazzie’s Groove.” “Well, we’re a soundsystem, an amalgamation of good dance music.” In hindsight, it’s a deceptively modest appraisal. This album did far more than aggregate the sounds of late-’80s London club life—it completely reset the possibilities for dance music and revitalized a UK soul and R&B scene that was in thrall to what was happening across the Atlantic. By the time Virgin Records approached them with the idea of making an album, Soul II Soul was already a multi-armed enterprise: a soundsystem, a clothing brand (with its own shop), and a club night so popular that they occasionally had to ask punters to leave halfway through so the queues outside could be let in. A broth of soul, R&B, house, hip-hop, and Afrobeat, <i>Club Classics Vol. One</i> channeled the diversity and innovation of the capital’s underground dance scene. It’s all emboldened by superb but, at that time, little-known singers including Caron Wheeler and Rose Windro, and infused with an Afrocentric spirit of positivity and inclusivene. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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