late 80s/early 90s uk streetsoul (bass and breakbeats and r&b vocals)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51f2l_XR28g

Sorry if some have been posted

Another one of my faves...it was all about thsi mix on the 12"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD2WxSUM0FE

<3 Mr energizer! :)

Still haven't had the chance to catch up with these but keep em coming. I do know dark Knight though - that's one of toyin agbetu's alias yes?

@NickB
Yeah that's right.. One of the originators of the sound

Speaking of Toyin Agbetu...

https://invisiblecityeditions.com/products/soul-connection-ice-016-test-pressing

Invisible City Editions reissues a selection of classic street soul tunes from the legendary duo Toyin Agetbu and Earl Myers. A mix of well loved tracks from Soul Connection's 1988 "Rough & Ready" and 1990 "Raw Street Soul". Remastered from the Master Reels!  This one has been a long time in the making and we are really excited to finally put it out! Full release to come in the next 2-3 months, so get your test pressing now.

Nice one @boxedjoy

Another one from the vaults!
Manchester's own Sylvia Tella..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IstKjsK44XQ

oh i know sylvia tella! i picked up a fantastic lovers version of 'you might need somebody' that she did in '82:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXeik-BFAD0

picked up this recently for a couple of quid. new to me, pretty good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhC85yxa558

Part II - You Lose Again (Soul Mix)

great news about the Soul Connection btw boxedjoy!

Was overcome by the urge to pull the trigger on a £40 copy of Nemesis' 'The Way Love Is' and then I remembered to check the tracklisting on the Soul Connection comp - close shave that!

Is this floating points that's selling it btw? it's gotta be surely:

https://www.discogs.com/seller/theonlysam/profile

I love the idea of Floating Points looking at his signed copy of Skream's "In For The Kill" remix and deciding he doesn't need it any more

Also how wild is it that you can pick up a compilation of Brazilian street soul fairly easily yet none of the major archival labels have managed to put together one based on the Manchester sound?

I was going to say, is this scene completely unarchived as it is?

Also how did this stuff fit in with the whole mid-80s Soul II Soul/Wild Bunch sound system thing? I don't know a lot about this stuff, whether they were broadly playing the same records or whether it was way more localised than that.

It's odd - you can be on Discogs and some of this stuff is easily available for small change and then there's some stuff that's triple figures for a twelve-inch single. There's compilations from when this stuff was "fresh" but in my experience they're always mastered very quietly and there's always at least one ropey sax solo waiting to spoil the mood.

I'm guessing this mix might be a decent dive in?

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/vf-mix-147-street-soul-by-ruffy-and-randy/

https://www.discogs.com/DJ-Milo-The-Wild-Bunch-Story-Of-A-Sound-System/release/123867

This mix uses live crowd noise from Soul II Soul doing a set at New Year in the late 80s and sets out where this stuff is coming from - 80s vocal post-disco and r&b, the birth of house and hip-hop - but it's kinda a different thing.

Oh yeah I've got that one, way more hip-hop than I was expecting but it's terrific nonetheless.

My impression is that this stuff was aligned more with Soul II Soul and Smith & Mighty than, say, Massive Attack. But I wasn't clubbing in the late 80s on account of only just having been born so I can only base that on comments on Youtubes and how the music actually sounds

I don't know a lot about this stuff, whether they were broadly playing the same records or whether it was way more localised than that.

good question - i think a lot of it was very localised around parties/clubs/radio stations/labels so whether they were playing the manchester stuff in london or not is interesting. i definitely see way more of the london stuff around when i'm looking for records (mostly on the south coast) so i don't think the distribution side of things was particularly brilliant. guessing there are major parallels with a scene like grime in it's early days

its

a bit more toyin agbetu from his later period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qWkRrABXQ

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/apr/03/features11.g2

(hero)

That Part II was a massive underground hit

Soul II Soul were the first to play what's now called streetsoul in London and in Manchester you had a sound called Soul Control..it was mainly underground clubs, blues, parties, pirate stations that played the music. Very few street soul big tunes made the charts or if they did we probably played a different mix.A lot of the UK tunes came through older regae or sound system heads and so had that reggae vibe with deep basslines dodgy vocals and bad production but just worked and sounded raw. Some of the smoother stuff came from the US although usually the B sides or different mixes were played

Also how wild is it that you can pick up a compilation of Brazilian street soul fairly easily yet none of the major archival labels have managed to put together one based on the Manchester sound?
I think cos it wasn't what you could call a 'Manchester' sound. It was played in the underground circuit in most of the Black communities but Manchester and the North seemed to push it more at the time.
I've made some compilations here if anyones interested.

https://streetsoulmusic.blogspot.com/2020/01/street-soul-compilation-1.html

Wow! Look like Toyins lost the plot a bit!

If any of you guys are near Manchester then check out King Bee Records in Chorlton..you can get a lot of Street Soul 12"s for 2.50 -5 quid...or you could last time I was in there. The best place for Street Soul in MCR

Nice Street Soul mix
https://soundcloud.com/the-trilogy-tapes/duster-valentine-uk-street-soul-mix/comment-869641822

Sylvia Tella's Spell album is nice if you like lovers

Different version of YOU LOSE AGAIN
https://youtu.be/mv69mPbSUvI

That video of Agbetu and his explanation of how his actions came about makes me adore him even more. Imagine having a hand in so many amazing singles and then being able to just walk away from that into a career in activism. Most people would be lucky to accomplish half of what he has in either field never mind both!

@boxedjoy... Where's the vid explaining his actions? Can you send a link please?

NickB posted a link right under his video :)

Thanks, missed it...it's from 2007!

Harlem Gem....another UK group

https://youtu.be/MiTnZ0Qdh_0
https://youtu.be/sMh4WbrNuRY

Toyin is still very much the activist, currently very much involved in the campaign for justice for the victims of Grenfell. Not sure he posts much about music these days, but here's his twitter: https://twitter.com/LigaliOrg

Harlem Gem are fantastic, just magic music. Was kind of amazed to find out they were from Huddersfield. Would love to see a comp of their stuff, prices for the records seem to have gone a bit daft since 'More Than You Can Wish' was included on the Beautiful Swimmers comp last year.

Thanks for the playlist link btw MrE! Will check that out in a bit

This would be a really good theme for a Bob Stanley compilation

Annoyingly the vocal version of this one isn't on Youtube but this is kind of interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGqsY2LBUak

Massonix - Just A Little Bit More (1990)

Massonix were Graham Massey's side project outside of 808 State. Vocals on the record are by Denise Johnson who was previously in A Certain Ratio (was she Donald Johnson's sister?) and then ofc Fifth Of Heaven

xp someone needs to do one! surely gonna happen soon

that Massonix one costs a whole 90p on the cogs right now btw

wow..forgot about that massonix tune with the Barry White sample

@wuhan..this is the mix that used to get rinsed
https://youtu.be/5JKqQ8tLqJQ

https://youtu.be/kTCEiZrUpt0

https://youtu.be/c2BBtwnfySQ

https://youtu.be/2VtP9twT7ZY

https://youtu.be/qDZM4xXy17I

https://youtu.be/Ap9FcQ6tg8U

https://youtu.be/oTSV6k6Ye18

Thank you for posting all this great stuff, but please be aware that if and when these YT links get broken there’s nothing to go on if you don’t also provide the track info in your post, which would be a shame.

#threadiquette

@beastcrawl. Thanks for the tip.. Will do from now on.