Snowboy - M.F.O.S. (1996)

Snowboy is a British-based Latin artist who blends dance-club rhythms with acid jazz, hip-hop and pop. Beginning with 1988's Ritmo Snowbo, he released a series of independent records on Acid Jazz -- one of which, the 1994 album Something's Coming, reached the Top Ten on the U.K. independent charts -- before signing to Hollywood Records in 1995. The Latin-jazz-oriented Mambo Rage followed on the Ubiquity label in 1998, highlighting Snowboy's conga playing, and he scored a club hit that year with the single "Casa Forte." In 2000, he returned with two releases, The Soul of Snowboy and Afro Cuban Jazz (the latter strongly influenced by progressive Latin jazz musicians like Charlie and Eddie Palmieri). © Stephen Thomas Erlewine