Roni Size
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Born to Jamaican immigrant parents, Roni grew up in the Bristolean suburb of St. Andrews (home to Tricky, Massive Attack, and Smith & Mighty), where he learned the fundamentals of hip-hop through the areas sounds systems, house parties, and underground clubs. Expelled from school in his mid-teens and running game through his neighborhood until risk became greater than reward, Size started dabbling with house and reggae production in the late 80s. He hooked up with labelmates DJ Krust, Suv, and DJ Die at the 1990 Glastonbury Festival, and the four stayed in contact, eventually forming Sizes longest running musical commitment to date: his own Full Cycle label. Formed simply as an outlet for the fours entree into the nascent drumnbass scene (Krust and brother Flynn [of Flynn & Flora] were already working with Smith & Mighty, while Die was producing hardcore tracks as Sublove), Full Cycle eventually grew into a label group, releasing a steady flow of twelves (on both Full Cycle and Dope Dragon), and a label comp, Music Box, in 1995.
Oft duplicated, the Full Cycle sound is a subtle mix of jazz and soul with jump-up rhythms and worldbeat references spanning from Ronis Jamaican roots to 50s bop and the Motown sound. Although hardly popular in the days before ragga (then jump-up) ruled the decks, the crew now counts a number of classics among their credits, including Sizes Its a Jazz Thing, Krusts Jazz Note, and Reprazents Reasons for Sharing EP, the crews first outing through major-label subsidiary Talkin Loud. The success of 1997s New Forms launched Size to the top of the electronica genre, and the Dope Dragon label continued to rise in the ranks of dubplate hysteria, with tracks from Selector Owoy, Gang Related, and Mask consistently passing muster on most DJs decks. After a relatively silent 1998, Size returned in 1999 with a new project -- Breakbeat Era, with DJ Die and vocalist Leonie Laws. The trio released Ultra-Obscene in the fall of that year. In 2000, Size returned to the Reprazent project with In the Møde, boasting sit-ins from Method Man and Rage Against the Machines Zack De La Rocha. It failed to cross over or build his fanbase, and he returned to solo productions with 2002s Touching Down and 2005s Return to V. Size has also mixed a two-disc volume in the Full Cycle mix series Through the Eyes.
