SAT 07 MAY • THE LONDON RAREGR0OVE PARTY – Exclusive Dubplate

SAT 07 MAY • THE LONDON RAREGR0OVE PARTY
6 hours of raregroove anthems, exclusive 2 Dam Funky dubplates, magical vibes, blissed out mellow groove, deep 'unshazamable' cuts... with 2 Dam Funky, MC E-Mix, Deemas Jay, live percussion and the best dancers in London... Raregroove... it's all about the dancers...   / 3214436965504858  

Video Details:
Exclusive 2 Dam Funky edit of:
Never Gonna Give You Up. Jo Ann Harris

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RAREGROOVE
They said it couldn’t be done… bringing back the vibes of our legendary Sunday Nights at the Africa Centre in… but hold on… the music lives in our hearts, we were there at the very birth of Africa Centres’ creation, we spun the tunes, we MC’d, we were there to instigate the promotion, we designed and distributed the fliers, we stood on stage and absorbed the energy from the dancefloor, we branded the event, we were fully responsible for the banners and interior staging at the original parties… and 36 years later we’ve done it… 2022 and the Africa Centre vibes are back…

Background Story
Rewind to early 1986 and why I introduced Norman Jay to Judge Jules for Norman’s first warehouse collaboration a party – I called it the Tardis. Norman and Jules then went off to do the legendary Riverside Warehouse Parties using the ‘Shake ’n Fingerpop’ logo I designed and the the wavy typography style I’d used for my own brand. Having been left out of the collective I started (strange that?) I went in search of another promotion partner and on a tip off by Jazz dancer Jerry IDJ, myself and Jerry went to a soft soul and reggae event at the Camden Arts Centre to check out a sound called Soul II Soul. It was a dark low lit affair and the music was distinctively different from the raw funkier vibes we were playing at our own parties and promotions but they had what we needed… an awesome sound system.

We met with the guy organising the event who put us in touch with another guy called Jazzie B. We arranged to meet Jazzie in front of the Africa Centre a few days later as a potential venue and promotion collaboration. He’d been in talks with the Africa Centre prior to our arrival about doing a function there on Sunday Nights. Sundays were traditionally dead in the West End and after looking around we stood outside on the pavement discussing teaming up as promotion partners and on a handshake [damn I wish I’d been savvy enough to have had a signed agreement in place] we agreed to promote the event together, my team bringing our funky West End followers and Jazzie's team providing the sound system and promoting to their soft soul and reggae crowd.

Despite central London being a ghost town on Sunday nights, after a month of grafting on the streets, using our network of dancers and funk fans, word got out and within a few short weeks the place was packed with hundreds of people arriving early so they could guarantee entry. The parties were legendary but, again strangely, whenever the story of the Africa Centre is recounted in the media, in TV documentaries and on record sleeves, we always seemed to find ourselves airbrushed out of the history.

Fast forward to 2022 and here we are back again with nobody able to change or distort the historical narrative and this time in full control of the of our promotions and parties. With the purity of the original vision – to bring together the funkiest dancers in London for an evening of magical organic vibes – we are using the term ‘Raregroove’ which is now in synonymous with the music being played at the Africa Centre, Norman Jay’s events and at other funky venues like Black Market and Cat in the Hat… There were many flying the flag, a full history will be revealed as the Untold Story of Raregroove unravels, but the ones I mention here were the ones that were memorable to me and the key influence on my musical journey.

The music has retrospectively become known as Raregroove, a phrase coined later on by Norman Jay himself when referring to the body of music that fired the funksters on the dancefloor at those original parties. With the softer soul being an integral part of the evolution two strands of Raregroove became known to music lovers and some who weren’t there at the original parties I reference here sometimes get confused as to the true origins and musical style of raregroove which centres around organic funky syncopated sounds with funky bass lines often with the added magic of jazz and afro-percussion.

We’ve now found a venue were we can showcase the original music and bring back the vibes of the Africa Centre in it’s purest form… history has finally come full circle and we’re back. Come and share the magic of our original Sunday Nights at The Africa Centre parties.