| Phats & Small | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Brighton, England |
| Genres | House music Dance music |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Members | |
| Jason "Phats" Hayward Russell Small |
|
Phats & Small are a dance music duo from the UK. The duo consists of Jason "Phats" Hayward and Russell Small, they are best known for their single "Turn Around", a re-recording of which became an international hit in 1999.
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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 the Hong Kong-born singer Ben Ofoedu, and it debuted at #3 in the UK Singles Chart, before climbing to #2, with career sales of this hit amassing them £5,000 in total due to their recording contract. In 1999, they also released their first album, Now Phats What I Small Music, a play on 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 track, "September" and Simply Red's "Ain't That a Lot of Love".
Ofoedu left the group to pursue a solo career as singer, songwriter and producer, and his backing vocalist Tony Thompson, was promoted to main vocalist. He sang on most tracks in Phats & Small's second album, This Time Around, released in 2001, which featured an eponymous single, as well as "Change" and "Respect The Cock" (which was supposed to feature the phrase famously uttered by Tom Cruise in the film, Magnolia). The second album was co-produced by Jimmy Gomez.
After a few years away from the recording 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 Ofoedu and a new female vocalist, Carrie Luer.
Small is also one half of the production team The Freemasons, along with James Wiltshire (Jimmy Gómez) who was a co-producer for Phats & Small.
Small is an avid Blackburn Rovers F.C. fan after being taken to games as a youngster by his uncle.
They produced six unnamed instrumental songs for the soundtrack of the computer game K.S.-n-Kickin,[1] and also "Turn Around" was on the games CD.
| Year | Title | Albums | Peak Chart Positions | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUT | BEL (FL) |
BEL (WA) |
FIN | FRA | GER | NET | NOR | SWE | SWI | UK | ||||
| 1999 | "Turn Around" | Now Phats What I Small Music | 26 | 2 | 7 | 21 | 9 | 18 | 10 | 14 | 25 | 8 | 2 | |
| 1999 | "Feel Good" | 73 | 21 | 28 | — | 35 | 64 | 46 | — | 45 | 20 | 7 | ||
| 1999 | "Tonite" | — | 44 | 4 | 16 | — | 36 | 40 | — | 50 | 15 | 11 | ||
| 2000 | "Harvest For The World" | — | — | — | — | — | 90 | — | — | — | 59 | — | ||
| 2001 | "This Time Around" | This Time Around | — | — | — | — | — | 92 | — | — | — | 61 | 15 | |
| 2001 | "Change" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 96 | 45 | ||
| 2001 | "Respect the Cock" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2003 | "You're Rude (Get Fucked)" | Single Release Only | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 2004 | "Sun Comes Out" | Soundtrack to Our Lives | — | 30 | 14 | — | — | 57 | 45 | — | — | — | 90 | |