Digital Media Center
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Gate 61
920 Paul Bryant Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0370
(800) 654-4262

© 2024 Alabama Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Brand New Heavies: 'Get Used to It'

The British funk and soul group The Brand New Heavies has been flying a little below the U.S. radar since the height of their popularity, when their 1992 hit single "Never Stop" broke into the American R&B charts.

But now, after more than a decade apart, the three original band members -- U.K. natives Jan Kincaid, Simon Bartholomew and Andrew Love Levy -- and powerful vocalist and Atlanta native N'Dea Davenport have reunited for a new CD, Get Used to It.

The group got its start as an instrumental band in the mid-1980s. A few years later, the band found its voice with the addition of Davenport on vocals. The group's third album went platinum in Britain just before Davenport left for a solo career.

Levy says the group's sound is heavily influenced by U.S. funk and soul, and in Europe it evolved into a genre dubbed rare groove.

"It's soul music, but it's funky and it's got a little bit of jazz -- it's uplifting," he says.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Farai Chideya
Farai Chideya is a multimedia journalist who has worked in print, television, online, and radio. Prior to joining NPR's News & Notes, Chideya hosted Your Call, a daily news and cultural call-in show on San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM. Chideya has also been a correspondent for ABC News, anchored the prime time program Pure Oxygen on the Oxygen women's channel, and contributed commentaries to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET. She got her start as a researcher and reporter at Newsweek magazine. In 1997 Newsweek named her to its "Century Club" of 100 people to watch.
News from Alabama Public Radio is a public service in association with the University of Alabama. We depend on your help to keep our programming on the air and online. Please consider supporting the news you rely on with a donation today. Every contribution, no matter the size, propels our vital coverage. Thank you.