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Loft stands for 'Live Our Fathers' Teaching'. The members are the Jamaican
rappers Courtney Dean St Patrick Williams and Richard Wayne Williams, aka Ranking
Richie, and various vocalists, including Lori Glori
Gina Mohammed, Sandra Steinborn and Kim Sanders.
Produced by DMP (Michael Eisele
and Dietmar Stehle), Loft makes a very upbeat sound, varying from eurodance
to what is called euro-reggae (an electronic reggae style, done by European
groups like Ace Of Base, for instance).
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the Williams brothers came to Germany with the US-Army.
In Nürnberg they worked at the same time in a small recording studio in
which demos for newcoming artists were produced.
All the singles became eurodance classics. The first one was Hold On,
which peaked # 8 in Israel. It featured the voices of Kim Sanders and Magdalena
Reyes. The texts were written by Nosie Katzmann with C. & R. Williams, the
music was composed by Attack II, Giora Schein and Nosie Katzmann. It was recorded
in 1993 and released the following year. A remixes single was also released,
included a 3-nuts mix and a mix by TNT.
Wake The World, the debut album of Loft, was something very surprising.
By the time of its release, there was nothing alike in the market, so innovation
was the word. It featured the voice of Gina Mohammed
apart from Hold On and Live It Up (which used vocals of Lori Glori).
It was followed by the hits Wake The World (with remixes done by Thorsten
Adler, who also co-wrote the track Mad) and Love Is Magic.
Even the one which flopped (only # 21 in Israel), Summer Summer Summer,
was a great euro-reggae anthem.
Future World was the second album of Loft. Released in 1997, its sound
was still great eurodance, fortunately with less reggae influences than the
previous one. At this time, LOFT vocalist was not Gina anymore, she had been
replaced by Sandra Steinborn. The production team was still done by the Cyborg
team , DMP and Nosie Katzmann.
The single tracks, Don't Stop Me Now and It's Raining Again were
the best ones (the last one sounded very DJ
Bobo-ish since it was written by Axel Breitung
and featured vocals by Christiane Eiben).
Afterwards, 2 new singles not featured on the album were released. With Long
John Silver they went back to their euro-reggae roots. Their last single,
Mallorca, was a homage to one of the most beautiful islands in Europe.
It went #1 in Mexico. Afterwards they decided to make a pause.
1999 : they released a Best Of album including a previously unreleased track
: Hang On Sloopy.
2003 : LOFT, like many German eurodance groups, released a 2004 version of
their hit Summer Summer Summer
2004 : LOFT are back for good with a brand new single called Still Number
One. The Courtney brothers were is still a part of the group they created,
but the female vocalist was new. They had teamed up with new producers : Andreas
Hüging and M. Abbing, and the manager Marino Menichelli. The sound was
definitevely ragga, but the B-side We Pray was dance.
Sue, the new vocalist, is also a bassist and composer. In 15 she created her
first own band, ThisBadLife, renamed ElectricCircus... The trend was punk. An
album had been recorded, and the group even toured. She took part as vocalist
to the project Naive in 1997. She released a solo single called Bliss
in February 2004.
2005 : the new single was entitled Love Can't Be Wrong. Written and
composed by C. and R. Williams along with Andreas Huging, it was licensed under
Warner Chappel and contained a B-side called Loft Scratch. An album was
planned. The following tracks could be included : Ayaya, Bliss, Close, Free
For You, Illuminare, Love Can't Be Wrong, Love In Motion, No More, Scratch,
Still Number One, To You, We Pray, Windy Night.
2006 : Sue was featured on
Reunion of Dance's first single Rebirth of Tonight
© Eurodancemix
Thanks to Shimon O'Hana for the charts positions
Added :
24/01/2000 - Biography last updated Thu, April 24th 2008
LINKS
Official websites
LOFT Official Website
Sue from LOFT official homepage
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