Sonique
Now I know you nineties kids must remember good old Sonique and her hit singles I put a spell on you and It Feels So Good. But now that you’ve hung up your shiny disco balls and moved onto the likes of McFly… we wonder, whatever did happen to Sonique?
Okay, so first of all, her name is obviously not Sonique, and is in fact, Sonia Clarke and she was born 21 June 1968 in Crouch End, North London, United Kingdom. Wonderful. Who was to know that 33 years later she would be taking home the 2001 BRIT Award for British female solo artist!
Career Beginnings
Sonique hasn’t always been the musical superstar she is - or was to be more accurate - although buying Donna Summer’s I Fell Love was probably her first stumbling block when it came to establishing a music career!
She was born and raised in Crouch End, North London to parents of Trinidadian descent and has actually credited listening to her mother’s CD collection as the reason behind her musical success. When Sonique was sixteen her mother re-married and moved back to Trinidad, she refused to move with her mother and two siblings and instead stayed in England moving into the YMCA, but with mounting debt and disgusted by the sexual advances of the hostel warden, she moved out and slept on the streets.
However, at the age of seventeen, a youth worker commented that she had a nice voice and suggested she utilize it, so she put together a reggae band called "Fari" in which she ended up writing all the music. She credits this band with getting her through her time on the streets.
After Fari disbanded she set about getting a recording contract and in 1985 she released the single Let Me Hold You, published by Cooltempo. Surprisingly, the single hit the Top 40 on the British dance charts.
It was another five years before her next big break, as in 1990, she was credited for the transcendental loop-groove on a track called "Zombie Mantra" on the album Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass, the debut record of William Orbit's project Bass-O-Matic.
Soon after she teamed with DJ Mark Moore in S'Express and the dance-pop duo charted in the UK singles chart with such singles as Nothing to Lose. She maintained a friendship with Mark Moore after S'Express disbanded and shortly afterwards, he gave her the gift of a set of turntables and a mixer with which she began experimenting.
DJ Career
Like most young people, Sonique loves going out and shaking her booty on her local dance floor, but she became increasingly infuriated by what she considered to be the inept performances by DJs. She decided to take on the challenge herself.
For three years she accompanied both Mark Moore and her childhood friend Judge Jules to their DJ gigs to study the crowds. She eventually signed to one of Simon Belofsky's' companies Serious Records where her first single was I Put A Spell On You, which, I’ve got to admit, I did play quite a lot during a family holiday to Rhodes!
Clearly thoughm, I was heading to the wrong place for my holidays, as she was DJ-in-residence at Club Manumission in Ibiza from 1997-1999. During this time (in 1998) she came to the attention of UK promoters/label Fantazia and was asked to mix one of the discs on their album Fantazia British Anthems Summertime. The album was certified as gold in the UK.
Solo Career
Sonique released her own album, Hear My Cry, in 1998, which didn’t do overly well the first time around, but when it was re-released in 2000, the hit single It Feels So Good topped the charts for three weeks in May. After 14 weeks in the Top 40, it became the UK's third best-selling single of 2000.
In 2001, after the success of It Feels So Good she announced that she planned to retire from the world of DJing to focus on her singing career, however, that didn’t last for very long, after finishing the album Born to be Free, Sonique did in fact return to DJing on a few special occasions, but later decided to go back to headlining events, you know, where people loved her more!
In 2004, Sonique announced she was working on a new album called On Kosmo, the first single of which was Another World, which reached number 57 in Germany when released. However, all went downhill when the album got pushed back from the expected release date of February 2006, and the third single release was cancelled.
When the new release date of 29 September 2006 was announced, the track Sleezy was chosen as the single with which the album was to be released, however, the single was also cancelled when the release date was pushed back once again. When On Kosmo was finally released, on Monday 13 November 2006, it failed to chart significantly in the UK.
Where is she now?
In 2007, despite the flop of her album, Sonique was keen to battle onwards and continued touring Europe. Even after the tour did poorly, she still managed to pick herself up and start work on some new material.
A teaser from some of the new material she has been working on 'leaked' online on 5th October 2008 entitled Better Than That, and due to the positive reception of this 'leak,' the track was available to download on various legal mp3 download sites which has since gone down a storm on the club scene. Woo!
What’s more, we think that Sonique is destined to make a triumphant comeback this summer with a new single and album to make 2009’s festival season go down a storm! Woo!
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison