It was back in 1989 when soulful dance music trio Ten City (aka Byron Stingily, Byron Burke & Herb Lawson) exploded on the scene with their ‘Foundation’ album, spawning tracks such as ‘Devotion’, ‘Right Back To You, and ‘That's the Way Love Is’.
Boasting a career over 36 years, with six album releases, the band’s lead singer, Byron Stingily, has teamed up once again with Chi-town house producer, Emmaculate, along with a host of fresh vocalists on a new collaborative album project aptly titled, ‘The Next Generation’.
Across these 13 songs, where decades of songwriting experience meets today’s dancefloor sensibilities, the album comes loaded with a variety of soulful house vibes, where evocative vocal performances meet meaningful lyrics.
Joining Byron and Emmaculate on the project are a cast of vocalists bringing their light to the project, including Mon'Aerie, El Boogie & Ric Wilson, DRAMA, D. Lylez, OVEOUS and Uneq'ka. The project also includes co-producers Shebazz Curtis, DJ Flipside, Na’el Shehade, Gershon Jackson and Paris Cesvette.
Byron Stingily: “Staying TRUE while incorporating the NEW!”
Chicago’s Byron Stingily is a singer/songwriter/producer known for his distinctive falsetto voice and possibly considered a pioneer in the genre of house-music. He has written over 20 top 100 pop songs around the world. In 2021, he teamed up with producers Emmaculate and Shannon Chambers to release ‘Be Free’, the first Ten City single in 25 years, taken from the Grammy nominated album, ‘Judgement’.
Aside of Byron’s Ten City hits in the ‘80s and ‘90s, he had his biggest success on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, hitting No.1 three times.
In 1997 he spent a week in the top spot with ‘Get Up (Everybody)’ where he sampled Sylvester's ‘Dance (Disco Heat)’, then hit No. 1 again in 1998 with a remake of Sylvester's ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’, produced by Damien Mendis and Stuart Bradbury.
One of the best house music tracks ever ‘That's the Way Love Is’, a No.1 dance hit in 1989 for Ten City, brought him to No.1 again in 1999 when he re-recorded it on his own.
Chicago-born DJ/producer Eric Welton earned his nickname Emmaculate because of his apparent immaculate attention to detail and quality. Developing his DJing and production skills in house music, hip hop & R&B in the ‘90s, he apparently became one of the go-to producers and sound engineers in Chicago.
In 2017 Emmaculate began releasing music as an artist on labels Ultra, Helix, Big Love, Soulfuric, Yoruba, Nervous, Reel People, Dopewax, Z Records, Peppermint Jam, Mirror Ball and more. These included his remixes of Robin S’ ‘Show Me Love’ and Mary J. Blige’s ‘Good Morning Gorgeous’, along with remixes for Incognito, Roy Ayers and Barbara Tucker.
He has been nominated for a Grammy three times - as a producer on Ten City’s ‘Judgement’ album (2021), a mix engineer on Beyoncé’s ‘Break My Soul (Terry Hunter Remix)’ (2022), and Mariah Carey’s ‘Workin’ Hard (Terry Hunter Remix)’ (2023).
As a DJ, he has performed at the Chosen Few Picnic & Festival, Southport Weekender, Amsterdam Dance Event, SXSW, Miami Music Week, and Suncebeat, among others.
Ten City ‘The Next Generation’ is out now on Nervous Records.
© justaweemusicblog.com
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