Musical Youth

As first generation British-Jamaicans set the UK reggae scene alive in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Birmingham teenagers Musical Youth were one of the first Caribbean boybands attempting to take over the pop charts. Put together when Frederick Waite (a member of 1960s rocksteady group The Techniques) put his sons Junior and Patrick together with schoolfriends Michal Grant and Dennis Seaton and arranged local gigs at pubs around the city. The band got their big break when they appeared on John Peel's Radio 1 show and landed a deal with MCA Records. Seaton's sugar sweet harmonies and the band's cheery reggae-pop scored the huge hit single Pass The Dutchie, which sold 5 million copies and topped the UK charts for three weeks in 1982 despite some controversy about its reference to marijuana smoking. Aged between 11 and 15, they were the first black artists to be played on MTV and debut album The Youth Of Today (1982) produced another Top 10 hit with Never Gonna Give You Up, before the band collaborated with Donna Summer on single Unconditional Love and were nominated for a Grammy Award in 1984. Second album Different Style! (1983) proved a bit of flop though and they split in 1985, but did reform in 2003 for the Here and Now 1980s nostalgia concerts with other long-lost stars of the era.

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