Trans-Global Underground had to happen. They refused to accept that dance music had to be four to the floor house. They refused to accept that something called ‘World Music’ ever existed. They slowed down hip hop and sped up dub. They sang in whatever language they felt like singing in. They were DJs but they played live. It all seems so obvious now. Their influence is all over the place, sometimes benign, sometimes joyful, sometimes hidden deep, sometimes beautiful and sometimes bloody dreadful. But the price of innovation is often a trail of shite left in your wake. A thousand dodgy car adverts with colourful tribes people, colonialised blanded out ethnic samples and five year old beats…that’s not it at all…

Trans-Global Underground turned out to be very real indeed, appearing as a live band presenting one of the best live shows in the country at the time featuring a whole mix of live instruments and percussion, rappers dancers and bellydancing vocalist Natacha Atlas…imagine Basement Jaxx jamming in a Cairo nightclub with Princes rhythm section and you’re halfway there. Their audience was accordingly varied. One night they’d be at a hardcore rave in Glasgow, the next a bhangra night in Birmingham, next in a club on an indie lineup in London, next at a hiphop night in Cardiff…TGU and Nations mix of breaks, rap, Arabic and Indian samples, and heavy helpings of ragga, house and funk, now sounds like a premonition of a whole heap of music out there currently.