Us3 formed in London in the early 1990s, with Gerry Gee, Geoff Wilkinson, and Max Beesley blending jazz instrumentation with hip-hop rhythms. Their 1993 debut album 'Hand on the Torch' featured the single 'Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia),' which sampled Herbie Hancock's 'Cantaloop Island' and became their most recognizable track.
That album established their approach of weaving live jazz elements into hip-hop production, with songs like 'Was It Love' and 'I'm Thinking About Your Body' following similar patterns. They continued releasing music through the 2000s, including albums like 'Broadway & 52nd' in 2000 and 'Lie, Cheat, Steal' in 2010.
Their sound sometimes divided listeners who expected more conventional genre boundaries, but the group maintained their hybrid style across recordings. Other tracks like 'Kick This' and 'You Can't Hold Me Down' kept working that same intersection of jazz phrasing and beat-driven arrangements.
Keep it compact: a lyric you come back to, a live memory, or the part of the catalog you would point someone toward first.
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