Guided by impresario Jazzie B (né Beresford Romeo) and Überproducer Nellee Hooper, Soul II Soul found success with songs that grooved, deceptively simple beats and the enthralling voice of Caron Wheeler. Positive racial messages were laid over seductive house beats and African percussion on 1989's Keep On Movin'.

But the vision soon unraveled. Vol. II – 1990 – A New Decade,...

What made Soul II Soul's first album such a revelation was its sound, a sinuous, bass-driven groove that was unlike anything else in R&B at the time. In late 1988, when Keep On Movin' arrived from England, most American R&B seemed beholden to the preprogrammed precision of drum machines and sequencers; for that reason, there was something refreshingly human about the strings, vocals and percussion...