Phats & Small
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Phats & Small are a duo of British house music producers and DJs, Jason "Phats" Hayward and Russell Small. They define their sound as "mutant disco", and the majority of their output is heavy with disco samples. They are based in Brighton, one of the leading cities in the production of dance music in the United Kingdom.
They appeared on the scene in 1998 with "Turn Around", a track that featured sampled vocals taken from Toney Lee's "Reach Up". The track was re-recorded in 1999 with the vocals sung by British singer Ben Ofoedu, and debuted in the at #3 in the UK Top 40, before climbing to #2. In 1999, they also released their first album, Now Phats What I Small Music, a play of their name and the compilation series Now That's What I Call Music!. Ofoedu sung on two tracks, "Feel Good" and "Tonite", which were also released as singles. In 1999, Phats & Small also achieved notoriety for remixing the Earth Wind & Fire classic, "September" and Simply Red's "Ain't That a Lot of Love".
Ben Ofoedu left the group to pursue a solo career as singer, songwriter and producer, and his back-up singer, Tony Thompson, was promoted to main vocalist. He sung on most tracks in Phats & Small's second album, This Time Around, released in 2001, which featured an eponymous single, as well as the french-flavoured track "Change" and the controversial "Respect The Cock" (which was supposed to feature the phrase uttered by Tom Cruise in the film Magnolia. The second album was co-produced by James Wiltshire, better known as Jimmy Gomez.
After a few years away from the studio, Phats & Small returned in 2005 with a new vocalist, Ryan Molloy, and a new album, Soundtrack to Our Lives, featuring the single "Sun Comes Out", this track sung by a returning Ben Ofoedu.
It should be noted that Small is also one half of the popular production team The Freemasons.
