Listen: Young Soul Rebels / Mica Paris MicaParisYoungSoulRebels.mp3

Lucky Mica Paris, the credibility maintained despite most of her output becoming dated pretty quickly. It wasn’t for lack of effort. Julian Palmer, RnB obsessed A&R guy, tried matching her with US producers, getting even Prince on board, all in an attempt to spread voice and personality to worldwide attention.

Nope. Mica was desperately rooted in that UK version of US soul. Despite being so ahead of the curve and/or completely in tune with the times, the English never quite coined the pure American black sound. UK rap being especially embarrassing, every last bit of it. Okay, some of it’s funny.

No matter, the dated ball and chain ended up framing Mica’s stuff nicely as period pieces. Time heals many things. You see, I for one quite liked a lot of the soggy UK soul attempts.

‘Young Soul Rebels’ has a track humbly reminiscent of Diana Ross’ ‘Love Hangover’ atop a perfectly sterile Soul II Soul drum pattern, all ‘feel the beat beneath your feet’ stuff. My first listen to her trail-off inflection on that initial “fighting for the right to be free” lyric in the chorus and I was sold. Besides, it’s the theme to the film of the same name – which although unseen to these eyes, hopefully is an amusing self celebration of and by UK soul fans. Fingers crossed that image won’t be spoiled by getting a copy.