Derek Yates describes his images: “The first image shows part of the sound system being set up at their base in Camden Town. True to their roots much of the equipment they used was handbuilt and adjusted to give the trademark ‘blues party’ sound that gave Soul II Soul’s parties that ‘feel it in your chest’ bass pressure. In the second image Aitch warms up the crowd with the mixture of rare groove, 2 step soul and roots reggae that was later developed by Jazzie B and Nellee Hooper into the seminal album Club Classics Volume 1, which provided the worldwide urban sound track for the summer of 1989. In the final image the great and the good of underground London lose themselves on the dance floor as Jazzie tells the crowd, “if your not dancing, Fuck Off!” The prints are a result of a process of refining and perfecting observational ink drawings, which are then transferred to screen and printed over backgrounds that are created using spraypainted stencils and relief printed textures.

This process is designed to reflect the ‘Do It Yourself’ ‘trial and error’ attitude of sound system culture and the final images are hopefully as raw, dynamic and unpretentious as a one of those nights at the Africa Centre".