Musical Youth, the English kids' group of the 80s, is back on the music scene. They sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their cover of the Mighty Diamonds' Pass The Kutchie.
You don't change a winning team, and it is with a new cover that the now fortysomethings intend to make a name for themselves again: The Harder They Come, by Jimmy Cliff.
Remember, it was in the last century. In 1982, England was swamped by the Musical Youth phenomenon, a band of kids aged 11 to 15 from Birmingham. Pass The Dutchie (on the album "Youth of Today") was a phenomenal success, selling more than 100,000 copies on the first day alone. It was on 25 September 1982, exactly 31 years ago, that the song entered the UK charts. A meteoric trajectory that ended in 1985, when the band split up. After a few attempts at solo careers, and the death of Patrick Waite in 1993, they reminded us of their existence last year by suing their own lawyers, claiming to have been poorly advised on the royalties linked to Pass The Dutchie.
Refocused around Dennis Seaton and Michael Grant, the band is thus orchestrating its comeback. A first single this summer (the Jimmy Cliff cover, then), which should pave the way for a new album, "When Reggae Was King". Will it surprise anyone to learn that it is a collection of covers of reggae classics? Besides Jimmy Cliff's Harder The Come, we should find Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff, Dennis Brown's Money In My Pocket, Gregory Isaacs' Front Door, Sugar Minott's Good Thing Going, but also Aswad's African Children, Matumbi's After Tonight, and John Holt's I’d Love You To Want Me.