Jazzie B Quotes

United Kingdom, Disc Jockey
January 26, 1963

Trevor Beresford Romeo OBE , better known as Jazzie B, is a British DJ and music producer. He is the founder of Soul II Soul. Jazzie was born to parents of Antiguan descent in Hornsey, London, the ninth of ten children, several of whom began running sound systems in the 1960s and 1970s. He had his first gig in 1977 working with friends under the name Jah Rico. He changed their working name to Soul II Soul in 1982. Soul II Soul was originally an umbrella name for several of his projects - the sound system, a clothing line and Camden record shop, a record imprint, as well as the group itself.

We were being put somewhere interesting from being involved with analog, to working with digital. Those two worlds just collided and it felt great! That was probably the key inspiration in terms of me going on to not just making dub plates for my sound, but doing the unobvious and "selling out" to the masses. I subsequently got a record deal because of that.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- Inspiration
- Sound
- Record
I listen to music every day and that is a fact. My son pointed out the other day that there's not a day that goes by without him listening to music in our house. I'm still an avid punter when it comes to either checking out bands or buying new music.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- Music
- Buying
- Checking

Growing up with my brothers, I was like an accompanying mascot to them. The whole heritage and culture of soundsystems is all in my blood y'know? Then obviously from DJing, I just went onto building my own sound and producing my own music.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- Music
- Sound
- Building
Personally I was just sick of the mimicry of American culture that was going on because it wasn't natural for us. We had grown up listening to reggae music in our communities. People were enjoying what we were doing with out music - we didn't have to work to sell it to them.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
Music and fashion really do go hand in hand. This is even going back to the reggae days.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
While we travel as much as we do; this city is still really unique to us in terms of how eclectic it is. There's the variation of pockets when you're travelling around London that you don't necessarily find in the centre, but I'm talking about the city as a whole. For us, the inseparable links to the arts, being innovative and creative in an area like this is very transient as well.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- City
- Creative
- Travelling
No matter where I went, there was someone rejecting my ideology. What was interesting was these reactions made me want to do it even more because we had smoothed over that void, smoothed over what was missing. After all, our motto was, "A happy face, a thumping bass, for a loving race."

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- To Do
- Ideology
- Reactions
I think the production thing was a stroke of luck really. But for me, I had to do it, as it was always part of the plan. But my biggest claim to fame was to recognize those who were at the time unrecognised. Soul II Soul was like a festival to all these artists who wanted to be a part of it. We travel to all these different destinations and everyone gets off where they need to.

Jazzie B Soul II Soul
- Soul
- Travel
- Festival