Urban Dance Squad was a Dutch rap rock band formed after what was originally intended as a one-time jam-session at a festival in Utrecht on December 20, 1986. The band consisted of vocalist Rudeboy Remington (Patrick Tilon), guitarist Tres Manos (René van Barneveld), bassist Silly Sil (Silvano Matadin), drummer Magic Stick (Michel Schoots), and turntablist DJ DNA (Arjen de Vreede). Described as pioneers of rap/metal fusion, the band's debut album Mental Floss for the Globe (1989) won an Edison Award, and its single "Deeper Shade of Soul" reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Urban Dance Squad was one of the most successful Dutch bands of the nineties, releasing five studio albums before disbanding in 2000.

Career

Urban Dance Squad first got together in 1986, at a jam session in De Vrije Vloer, a club in Utrecht, a jam which resulted in the first Dutch rock band with a rapper (they borrowed the name from Parliament-Funkadelic's Urban Dancefloor Guerillas); a song, "Struggle for Jive"; and the blending different forms of music in the Netherlands, at the same time that Fishbone, Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, and the Beastie Boys were doing the same in the United States. The band recorded its first album, Mental Floss for the Globe, in Brussels in 1989 (produced by Jean-Marie Aerts, of TC Matic), and came to instant success. It won an Edison Award, and the single "Deeper Shade of Soul" was a hit in Europe, and in the United States, where it charted at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two more singles were released from the album, and Urban Dance Squad toured the US in 1991, opening for Living Colour. The UDS had always been a volatile unit with the band members frequently arguing, and this came to a head while touring as the opening act for U2, after the release of Life 'n Perspectives of a Genuine Crossover, when DJ DNA quit abruptly.

In the middle of the band's career, to capitalize on the success of grunge and alternative rock, Urban Dance Squad released Persona Non Grata in January 1994. All of the tracks feature heavy use of distortion and guitar. The singles "No Honestly" and "Candy Strip Exp." were released, the latter single being released as a radio edit that cuts most of the pre-song noise.

Artantica saw release in 1999, and was a return to the band's hip-hop roots, and received critical acclaim. Urban Dance Squad disbanded the following year, though they did perform together again as late as 2006.

Musical style and influence

The Pittsburgh Press described Urban Dance Squad's music as "refried Zeppelin riffs and neo-Hendrix guitar solos complete with sound effects and old soul records to produce an exceedingly loud, densely packed, dissonant garage-rock stew." In 2021, Metal Hammer named UDS as one of "10 funk metal bands that time forgot". AllMusic described UDS as a "sample-heavy, groove-happy rap-rock band"; biographer Heather Phares wrote, "Urban Dance Squad's mix of rock, rap, funk, ska, folk, hip-hop, and soul signaled the trend toward genre-bending that prevailed in '90s music." In the site's review of their album Artantica, writer Rick Anderson wrote, "For those who think of rap metal fusion as something invented by bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit, Urban Dance Squad is back to remind you that they've been doing it for ten years now".

Band members

Rudeboy Remington (Patrick Tilon) - vocals Tres Manos (René van Barneveld) - guitar Silly Sil (Silvano Matadin) - bass guitar Magic Stick (Michel Schoots) - drums DJ DNA (Arjen de Vreede) - turntables (1987-1993, 1997-2000, 2006) U-Gene - keyboards (1996-1997)

Discography

Albums

Mental Floss for the Globe (1989) Life 'n Perspectives of a Genuine Crossover (1991) Persona Non Grata (1994) Planet Ultra (1996) Beograd Live (1997) Artantica (1999) The Singles Collection (2006)

Extended plays Mental Relapse (1991) – US only

Singles

+ List of singles, with selected chart positions Year Single Peak positions Album NED AUS N.B. The High Point number in the NAT column represents the release's peak on the national chart. BEL(FL) US 1989 "Deeper Shade of Soul" 52 56 — 21Mental Floss for the Globe 1990 "No Kid" 52 — — —1991 "Fast Lane" 59 146 — — "Bureaucrat of Flaccostreet" — 165 — —Life 'N Perspectives of a Genuine Crossover1992 "Routine" 65 — — — "Grand Black Citizen" 65 — — —1994 "Demagogue" 31 174 39 —Persona Non Grata "Candy Strip Experience" — — — —1996 "Dresscode" — — — —Planet Ultra "Temporarily Expendable" 61 — 15 —1997 "Ego" 94 — — — "Carbon Copy" — — — — 1999 "Happy Go Fucked Up" — — — —Artantica "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released.

Music videos +YearAlbumTitleDirector1989Mental Floss for the GlobeFast Lanen/c1990Deeper Shade of SoulKevin KerslakeNo Kidn/c1991Life 'n Perspectives of a Guenine CrossoverBureaucrat of Flaccostreet1994Persona Non GrataCandy Strip Experience1995DemagogueCarlos Grasso1996Planet UltraTemporarily Expendablen/c1999ArtanticaHappy Go Fucked UpRogier van de Ploeg

Other media

Film

"Fast Lane" appears in the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume but does not appear on the soundtrack album. The song "Good Grief" appears on the soundtrack of the 1995 film Hackers, and the band has a cameo appearance in the film with the same song. The song "Demagogue" appears on the soundtrack of the 2001 film Crazy/Beautiful and in 2003 on Gigli.

Documentary

5 jaar wanorde (5 years of disorder) is a two-part documentary about Urban Dance Squad by director Bram van Splunteren for VPRO's Onrust, originally broadcast in 1992.

References

Frans Steensma (ed), "OOR's Eerste Nederlandse Pop-encyclopedie" (12th edition, Amsterdam, 2000)