With today's news of a possible CDB reunion on the horizon, it's a fitting time to revisit the brief period from 1994-1996 when Australia first, briefly, embraced local R&B acts. Despite local labels obviously having no idea what to do with music that wasn't pop or alternative rock, a handful of acts from Sydney and Melbourne were able to somehow break through with R&B music which, looking back, was actually pretty good.
While local acts have continued to pursue R&B since, there hasn't been another period since the mid-90s that featured so many acts representing the genre with the chart-topping success of CDB, Deni Hines and Kulcha.
Despite the impact the acts had on Australian music in the 90s, they have been largely forgotten since their time at the top. Google searching Kulcha for example gives you recipes for North Indian flat bread. For today though, let's take a moment and remember a time when Starter jackets and suburban R&B acts were the hot shit.
Kulcha "Shaka Jam"
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There's no list of Australia's forgotten R&B chart-toppers without Kulcha. After the ARIA charts had a brief period of flirting with home-grown hip-hop via Sound Unlimited Posse, Kulcha were the first locals with a genuine R&B sound to break through to Australia's mainstream. The Samoan crew played it as contemporary as possible on their 1994 debut, with a combination of New Jack Swing and basketball references.
Despite Shaka Jam peaking at 7 on the ARIA charts, the crew unfortunately weren't able to capture more of the country's attention. Their debut album Kulcha was followed up with Take Your Time, which spent only two weeks on the local top 40 charts in 1997.
CDB "Hook Me Up"
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1995's "Let's Groove" was the big hit for the Central Dandenong Boys, but they kicked off their campaign a few months earlier with 1994's slammin' slice of New Jack perfection, "Hook Me Up". The first single from their debut album Glide With Me, Hook Me Up was produced by Rockmelons, who were at the time pushing the R&B genre forward in Australia with their Deni Hines collaborations "That Word (L.O.V.E)" and "Ain't No Sunshine".
Alongside the legit production and songwriting, the music video's synchronized dance moves, rooftop pool and whatever those weird leather overalls were, gave the song a contemporary legitimacy local kids weren't quite expecting from an R&B act fresh out of Melbourne's suburbs.
Deni Hines "It's Alright"
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Australian R&B's most successful jam was unquestionably Deni Hines' "It's Alright". The single and its iconic video featuring Deni dancing in a black bra on Sydney's Pyrmont Bridge, was the pinnacle of mainstream Australia's brief, mid-90s love affair with R&B.
Produced by music biz veteran Ian Green, who was behind several of Hines' post-Rockmelons singles, It's Alright peaked at 4 on the ARIA charts, followed by the slow-burn "Imagination". Her career kind of faltered in the years after her debut album, unfortunately taking her to the depths a season of The Celebrity Apprentice. But in 95, Deni was the queen.
Past To Present "Crazy"
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They were four Samoan dudes from New Zealand, but in true Australian style, we claimed them as our own once they got a hint of success. They even (years later) made a cameo appearance on Home & Away, and there's nothing more Australian than that.
Much like CDB, Past To Present made a name for themselves after covering an Earth Wind & Fire classic. While CDB flipped "Let's Groove", Past To Present gave "September" their own flavour. Crazy was the group's first single, an uptempo New Jack jam which unfortunately spent only three weeks in both the Australian and NZ charts. Their biggest hit came the following year, when they teamed with Peter Andre Da Gawd to cover Kool & The Gang's Get Down On It.
Daniel Amalm "Honey Dip Girl"
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OK this is 100% not one of the best R&B songs to come out of Australia, but while the previous four songs might be sitting somewhere in your memory, there's a good chance everyone – tragically – forgot about Dan.
To bring you up to speed a little on Daniel Amalm, he was best known at the time as Jack Wilson on Seven's long-running series Home & Away. Far from the usual popstar-by-numbers approach of a pretty, prime-time soap actress churning out formulaic pop, Amalm instead embraced the emerging R&B sound and gave Australia Honey Dip Girl. He also, somewhat confusingly, rocked a Raiders durag on the back cover of his album, which itself was a somewhat confusing blend of acoustic guitar, latin house and whatever genre you would attach to Honey Dip Girl. Mainstream Australia wasn’t ready for this. Hip-hop fans weren’t either though, and unfortunately, Daniel Amalm’s rap aspirations sunk like a Summer Bay sunset.
