Uncovered: Reggae Chic

Listen to Sonia's "Easier to Love" and you hear a Chic ballad redefined. The original is the work of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, the duo behind Chic, who wrote and produced it for Sister Sledge's 1979 We Are Family alongside their own band's records. UK singer Sonia Ferguson recut it in 1980 for the Harlesden label Cha Cha Music, the Overnight Players translating the New York single into a London skank. The 2022 Backatcha reissue finally returned it to circulation, the 12-inch carrying a previously unreleased nine-minute version and an Overnight Players dub. It is one entry in a longer story of American soul and disco translated to Jamaican reggae and British Lovers Rock. Few catalogs traveled more naturally than Chic's.

Nile Rodgers learned his signature "chucking" rhythm style on a borrowed Stratocaster. Bernard Edwards showed him how to hold one chord position while the right hand carried the groove. The two had met on a pickup gig, then discovered they shared a fanatical work ethic while playing on the chitlin circuit. They built Chic as a duo that thought about songs the way a rhythm section does, and they wrote to a private rule they called "deep hidden meaning," which they described as real subject matter buried under the gloss so the records rewarded a closer listen. Their success as a band made them Atlantic's go-to production team. In 1979 they wrote and produced Sister Sledge's We Are Family, sending "He's the Greatest Dancer" and the title track to number one R&B, and the following year they gave Diana Ross her first number one in years with "Upside Down." The catalog they built became one of the most sampled in popular music. Their records are built from interlocking parts with space between them: bass, guitar, and strings only where needed. Jamaica, where most A-sides came backed with a dub instrumental on the flip, recognized that architecture.

In 1979, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and Jackie Mittoo produced Norma White's cover of "I Want Your Love" at Studio One. The house band, credited as the Brentford Disco Set, delivered the instrumental version on the B-side. Mittoo was no incidental choice. As the founding keyboardist of the Skatalites and the architect of the Studio One house sound, he had spent two decades building the riddims that the whole of Jamaican music versioned and re-versioned. When he turned to Chic, it was one master meeting another. That same year, "Rapper's Delight" was riding the "Good Times" bassline. Kingston and the South Bronx both saw the potential. Soul Jazz later anthologized the White single on Studio One Disco Mix and have kept the reissue in print, part of their catalog of the disco-mix era, when roots, lovers, and disco shared one groove.

Sonia's record belongs to the parallel London story. With Lovers Rock, the children of the Windrush generation built a Black British genre from reggae foundations and the soul records in their houses. American dance hits were the raw material by birthright. The scene loved Motown and the Philly Sound, and a Chic ballad sung over a rocksteady beat was their own innovation.

The translations, and the hits, kept coming. Another We Are Family cut, "Thinking of You," surfaced three decades on in Wellington, where Mike August, recording as Lord Echo, cut a disco-reggae version with Lisa Tomlins for his 2010 debut Melodies. The record traveled the world after a friend handed a disc to Soul Sides, and later saw a Jakarta Records 7-inch edit. Versioning, sampling, covering; different scenes, one songbook.

In the Mix

• Sonia's "Easier to Love" (DJ Duckcomb Edit) featured on Lovers Dub | 01

• Norma White's "I Want Your Love (Version)" and Lord Echo's "Thinking of You" both featured on Lovers Dub | 02