Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Attica Blues (1994)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Attica Blues made their debut with the Vibes, Scribes ’N’ Dusty 45’s EP in 1994, released on Mo’ Wax after James Lavelle asked Charlie Williams for some music.
At the time Charlie Williams, who is better known by his artist name Charlie Dark, met James Lavelle while Lavelle was working at Honest Jon’s record store and the two bonded over their mutual loves of records and Star Wars. In 1992 Lavelle had borrowed £1000 from his boss and set up Mo’ Wax Records, with the first release by an American band called Repercussions. Lavelle also asked Charlie Dark if he wanted to release something on Mo’ Wax, telling him, “You look like you are into Hip Hop, I’m starting a new label and i’d like you to make some music for me.”
Dark later recalled the meeting in an interview with Crack Magazine, and how he responded to James Lavelle’s request:
The inner blagger in me is just like ‘yeah, yeah — course I can, I make tunes all the time, I got beats coming out of my ears mate’. And he’s like ‘great, studio’s booked for Saturday, I’ll see you there’. I come out of the shop freaking out, cause I’ve never made a record in my life and I’ve got a week to go and make a record for this guy who’s showing some faith in me.
Dark had been working as a DJ but noted that the Hip Hop music he played seemed disconnected from his life, with American Hip Hop at the time often focusing on gold chains and guns. So he decided he wanted to make something different, and in December 1992 Attica Blues formed in the studio as they recorded what would become their first EP. Charlie Dark had brought in Tony Nwachuku as a programmer to help translate his ideas in the studio, and they were also joined by Roba El-Essawy who was visiting the studio with a friend and ended up recording the song Contemplating Jazz. She explained in an Instagram post in May 2020:
I was asking my friend Nicola if she knew the title of a particular Stevie Wonder tune that I loved but couldn’t identify (turned out to be Love Light in Flight). She told me I had a nice voice and that her boyfriend Charlie was in a band and looking for a vocalist, and that I should come down to the studio. I did, went in the booth, sang Ribbon In The Sky. They looked kinda animated, possibly interested, then Charlie came into the booth and said he and Tony were going to play a track and I should just sing something over. The words ‘Contemplating Jazz’. So I did. I saw arms flinging in the air and heads nodding. When I was done my ad lib, cool as anything, we parted. Didn’t hear a thing from them for ages. Then Charlie called and asked me to meet him at Oxford Circus Station, where he gave me a copy of the EP Vibes, Scribes and Dusty 45s…It was so easy. For me anyway. We were blessed. Like it was just meant to happen.
It wasn’t until 1994 that Mo’ Wax finally released their debut EP, Vibes, Scribes ’N’ Dusty 45’s EP, which came in both a regular black vinyl edition as well as a special blue vinyl edition.
The EP was followed by another 12" in September 1995, titled Blueprint, which became the groups first entry into the charts, reaching #92 on the UK Singles Chart where it spent one week before dropping back outside the Top 100. Blueprint was followed by Tender and 3ree (A Means To Be), with Tender also entering the charts at #86, while 3ree (A Means To Be) sat just outside the Top 100, reaching #109.
1997 saw Attica Blues release their debut album on Mo’ Wax, which was self-titled after initially being known as Blueprints when promos were distributed prior to release. It was still referred to by this name in Muzik’s October 1997 issue where they gave the album 6/10, and praised the “lazy, blunted breaks, delicately layered strings and gentle, ear-nibbling basslines.” But they semmed to prefer the breaks and basslines over the vocals, as they ended their review with the question “Where’s that instrumental album when you really need it?”
Billboard were kinder, likening the group to Soul II Soul’s 1989 debut, and noting they had a “formidable presence onstage”, where their sound was accentuated by a live drummer and Charlie Dark’s turntable skills.
It had been a long time between the release of their first EP and their debut album, and the reason for the delay was due to their record label Mo’ Wax having signed a deal in 1995 with A&M, a major label who helped fund Mo’ Wax. As Charlie Dark later explained:
Attica Blues were one of the first bands to get signed to Mo Wax but after us came a ton of other acts and of course the success of Dj Shadow. With the A&M deal came an immense pressure to sell records and where as before when James could release records whenever he wanted he now had to adhere to a major label schedule and scrutiny. We seemed to spend an awful amount of time holed up in the studio creating tracks that would be loved one week and then rejected the next and it was a difficult period.
Following their album release, Attica Blues left Mo’ Wax and signed to Columbia Records, a major label owned by Sony. This saw the release of their single What Do You Want? in 1999, followed by the album Test. Don’t Test in 2000.
Test. Don’t Test was their only album with Columbia/Sony as Attica Blues found their next planned single was dropped as Columbia began making cuts across the label and soon lost interest in Attica Blues.
Test. Don’t Test was well received, with The Guardian calling it “Absurdly trendy to be sure, but that need not mean bad. In this case of sensuous hip hop, subtle beats and insistent melody, it means very good indeed.” While The List called it, “This year’s straight-speaking jazz monster…Fusing lugubrious hip hop with laid back funk and fluttering, stuttering melodies, and smearing the whole affair in heavy, ponderous beats, Test/Don’t Test is a heavyweight slab of forward-looking jazz.”
Muzik awarded the album 4/5 stars, writing that Test. Don’t Test “is a hotch-potch of beats, moods and tempos spun round the velveteen vocals and intelligent lyrics of Roba El- Essawy…It’s an album of songs to sing and feelings to share: mature, considered, provocative and often haunting.”
In 2000, as Test. Don’t Test was released, the group spoke about recording a third album soon, and their plans to put out solo releases on a new record label of their own called Surplus. These solo releases began appearing in 2001 when the label was officially launched in October with a party at Fabric London. Surplus put out a handful of solo releases from Charlie Dark and Tony Nwachuku under aliases such as The Red Clay, Wah-Chu-Ku, and Genre, but went quiet in 2002.
After being dropped by their major label following the release of Test. Don’t Test the band focused on remixes for several years, as well as their own solo projects.
Roba El-Essawy, Attica Blues’ primary vocalist, has been the most quiet since 2000, but in 2019 she returned to singing, collaborating with Moshka Black on the song As It Should Be. Then in April 2020 she released a song under a new project named MidnightRoba, released on her own label Sonder. The song, Don’t Let This Change, was produced by El-Essawy and Tony Nwachuku, mixed by Nwachuku, and made available online for streaming.
Prior to being approached by Charlie Dark, Tony Nwachuku had been working as a programmer in studios, and as part of Attica Blues Nwachuku was able to use his studio contacts to stretch the budget for their first album and get inside big studios and work with the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra. At the same time, Nwachuku continued to create remixes and produced his own music under the alias’ Genre, Nepa Allstar, T Plays It Cool, The Wach, and the group Moves In Motion, with their 1994 debut album produced by Nwachuku.
Following the release of Attica Blues’ second album, Nwachuku returned to DJing, which soon evolved in to his next project, CDR. CDR started in October 2002 as a means for artists to get their music heard in a club environment regardless of whether it was on a label or even finished, focusing on the idea of “bring a CD and it will get played.” Their events have proven popular, kickstarting careers for Floating Points, Sbtrkt and Maya Jane Coles, and in 2014 CDR and Ableton presented a series of workshops and seminars as part of James Lavelle’s Meltdown Festival. These included a talk titled Circa ’95 — Music Creation Then and Now featuring Mo’ Wax alumni Kirk Degiorgio, Andrea Parker, Tony Nwachuku and Charlie Dark, which was later released online.
In 2020 Tony Nwachuku has kept busy, with CDR continuing to present events including DJ sets, workshops, and tutorials, with events held around the world including England, Germany, Australia, and Denmark to name a few.
Of Attica Blues’ three members Charlie Dark has been the most publicly visible. Following Test. Don’t Test Dark set up Blacktronica at the ICA in 2001, and held a four year residency there before taking it global. The Blacktronica events were a series of monthly parties which ran until 2007, and were meant as a forum to challenge the ideas of what black music was. Dark explained the Blacktronica mission statement as, “From Carl Craig to Coltrane and everything in between because there’s more to black music than Hip Hop, Garage and R&B.” The Blacktronica nights were a celebration of culture and heritage which went beyond the “rare groove” compilations, and featured musicians and DJs as well as spoken word performances. Meanwhile Dark had also re-embraced his own poetry, and had been teaching workshops, working as a Poet Coach for the London Teenage Poetry Slam, and touring his School of Dark performance and workshops to children around England.
At the same time Dark had also begun running, initially only at night because he “was embarrassed to do it during the day. I teach…and I didn’t want the children to see me sweating in the street.” In 2007 he started Run Dem Crew, a running group which promotes and encourages members to run as a family and community, rather than being just another club. Their focus on mentoring young people and creating a safe and positive environment for all has led to acclaim from Amnesty International, The Independent, The Guardian, and partnerships with Nike, Beats, Stance Socks, and lululemon, with Dark becoming their first global ambassador and recently featuring in a series of videos on running on their YouTube page.
Outside of running, Dark teaches Yoga and has also continued to teach poetry, DJ, and create music, from walking soundscapes to sharing mixes and collaborating with other artists.
In 2017 Attica Blues appeared on stage together for the first time in 17 years at The Jazz Club as part of a Mo’Wax 25th Anniversary Showcase. The performance was recorded by fans and is available to watch on YouTube.
Unfortunately in all of this time a third Attica Blues album has not appeared, though there have been hints. In 2020 Roba El-Essawy mentioned on her Bandcamp biography that “There are more MidnightRoba and Attica Blues releases in the pipeline”, and in January 2019 Charlie Dark left a promising reply to a comment on Instagram when a fan asked about future Attica Blues. Dark said “it’s always on the cards. Just about getting us all in the same room for an extended period of time.”
