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The D.C. R&B Groovers, N2Deep, struggled for
months to find a place that it could call home in the District of Columbia,
finally attaining it in June of 2000, despite the frequent monopolizing of
the local clubs by street wise promoters.
The nucleus of the band has always been Guitarist Bill "Whop" Suber,
a former member of the Ovation Band in the late '80s. Bill started the
group with fellow musicians Stan, Stacy, Andre, Jeff, Stixx, and Haneef. Once
N2Deep started making a name for themselves, Larell "Weezs" Ayers
was added. Rick, Weezs' cousin, was subsequently added to the group as well.
Weezs performed with several D.C. metropolitan area bands, including go-go
bands; The Legends of Go-Go, Rare Essence and AyreRayde, before joining
N2Deep. Along with bassist Gregory "Googie" Burton and
trumpeter Rick Hopkins, originally of the Reality band, the N2Deep Band
gigged around the Washington D.C. area looking to make their musical mark on
the community. In an effort to flood every club in the city with their
name and style of music, Googie and Rick had visions of incorporating the
styles of jazz, funk, go-go, rap and r&b. With that in mind, N2Deep
is searching for saxophonists, trombonists, or trumpeteers to take the
band to the top level of showmanship. N2Deep landed several contracts for
national performances which required vocalists, so they picked up vocalist
Geoffrey "Chic" Thurman and Haneef Russell, formerly of the group
Step 4.
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always had sugar coated success stories. They have also had temporary down
times. The departure of Bassist Googie, who was offered the position of sound
engineer with Earth, Wind and Fire, had a true effect on the band. It was a
hard road for the band during this time because of a style dependency. As
quoted by Rick, "The funk that came from his bass must have been God's
way of speaking to us". It took some time to find a replacement but just
as GOD spoke through Googie's bass, he also spoke through another's, Wayne
Davis. Wayne, a member of the jazz group, CitiLites, brought with him the
warm, but yet funky flavor of jazz and r&b.
N2Deep has made some new changes in personnel with
the collaboration of even more outstanding musicians, David "Butch"
Greene, formerly of Shady Groove, and Stephanie "Lil' Steph" Jones,
formerly of the all girl band, Precise, both on Keyboards. A new Bassist has
been added to allow for the consecutive changes in bass players, as Wayne has
been busy with CitiLites. Most importantly, Stixx is back on drums to
keep that pocket beat that's so close to the D.C. pulse. N2Deep has also
welcomed Andre back to the front line, on background vocals, and the newest
talker, Pluke, will change things drastically in the upcoming months. With
all of that said, N2Deep is sure to rock Chocolate City.
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Official
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