Rebel MC

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Rebel MC was the stage name of British hip hop artist Michael West (born 27 August 1965, in Tottenham, London). He gained fame as a pop rapper in the late 1980s, but as his career progressed he began to use greater reggae influences in his music and now records for a predominantly Jungle audience as Conquering Lion.

[edit] Biography

In the early 1980s, West formed the group Double Trouble with the now departed Michael Menson, Karl Brown (more commonly known as the garage DJ Karl 'Tuff Enuff' Brown) and Leigh Guest; and released the single "Just Keep Rockin" on the Desire record label in 1989 as Double Trouble and Rebel MC. The single was a UK Top 20 hit, and the follow up "Street Tuff" was his biggest success, reaching #3 in the UK charts.

Because of the style and content of these releases, West was often dismissed by a British hip hop community, distrustful of pop success and "selling out". The release of his first album Rebel Music (Desire, 1990) did little to change their views.

This was soon to change, however, as West used to money he had made from his pop successes to record his second album. Black Meaning Good (Desire, 1991) was a complete change of style for West, mixing his former pop-rap influences with reggae, hip hop, dance and the emerging jungle styles to produce an album that was uniquely his own. The album won over the Rebel MC's detractors, and is now widely regarded as a classic of the era.

Not resting on his laurels, West left Desire and released his third album, Word Sound and Power (Big Life, 1991). West also used the success of his albums to set up his own record label, Tribal Bass, and began signing some of the scene's most important artists - such as the newly label-less Demon Boyz - as well as releasing some of his own work on the label. The third album featured even more of the diverse inspirations than previous efforts, but it was also clear that West was starting to move in new directions.

Tribal Bass gradually mutated into Congo Natty, and West himself released some material under this name, before settling on the Conquering Lion name. However, this was not the last the world heard of Rebel MC. Despite his continued success with his new style of music (West is one of the few artists from the first wave of British hip hop to continue recording throughout the years to the present day), West released the single "Junglist" (Congo Natty, 2004) under the Rebel MC name, and followed this up with a greatest hits album Born Again (Congo Natty, 2005)