Brand New Heavies

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• Genre: Acid Jazz
• Hometown: London

About

Live instruments may not have seemed like the cutting edge of Acid Jazz at the time, but the Brand New Heavies' combination of 1970s-style Funk grooves and catchy urban melodies had a huge influence on the London scene of the late 1980s and beyond. Soulful singing from N'Dea Davenport led the band's organic sound for their first few albums, earning the band major success on both sides of the Atlantic. On their second album Heavy Rhyme Experience, the band took a different approach by backing a selection of hip-hop's finest emcees (including Pharcyde, Guru and Main Source), foreshadowing the sparkling live rap of bands such as the Roots who would arrive later in the decade. More recently, the band has tightened their sound considerably with crisper dance tracks and poppier melodies led by singer Seidah Garrett.

- Jessy Terry