'"Flavour of the Old School"' is a song by British R&B recording artist

Beverley Knight Beverley Knight (born Beverley Anne Smith, 22 March 1973) is an English recording artist and musical theatre actress. She released her first album, ''The B-Funk'', in 1995. Heavily influenced by American soul music icons such as Sam Cooke and ...

, released as her debut single from her first album, '' The B-Funk'' (1995). The track, which peaked at number fifty on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

when it was released in March 1995, was accompanied by a low budget music video that saw Knight in the recording studio singing directly into the camera. It was re-released however in October 1995, supported by a new video and strong support from urban radio. The song went on to become Knight's first top 40 single, peaking at number thirty-three in the official

. The song later reappeared on the b-side of Knight's 1999 single "Made it Back". The video is frequently shown in rotation on

MTV Base MTV Base was a British pay television music channel from Paramount Networks UK & Australia that focused primarily on hip hop, R&B, grime, garage, reggae, funk, soul and dance music. It was launched as part of MTV's digital boutique of music cha ...

Critical reception

In his weekly UK chart commentary for ''

Dotmusic ''Dotmusic'' was a music webzine that existed as a standalone website from 1 June 1995 to December 2003. Initially intended as the web complement to the UK music industry trade magazine ''Music Week'', the site was relaunched in December 1998 as a ...

'',

James Masterton James Masterton (born 2 September 1973) is a music writer and columnist, his work focusing on the UK Singles Chart having been an online fixture on various sites since the 1990s. Masterton is also a producer for talkSPORT, and has worked on air ...

described the song as "an interesting if unexciting piece of R&B." Caroline Sullivan from ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' felt that "floor-fillers", like the "deliriously retronuevo single ..pump up the hip-hop-based grooves while retaining the

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

-boogie feel of modern UK soul." A reviewer from ''

Music & Media ''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later ...

'' wrote, "Everything sho' is funky here. Knight knows her classics from

Rose Royce Rose Royce is an American soul and R&B group. They are best known for several hit singles during the 1970s including "Car Wash", " I Wanna Get Next to You", " I'm Going Down", "Wishing on a Star", and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore". Career Th ...

Chaka Khan Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Qu ...

, but despite the title she isn't deaf for the latest developments in new jill swing. Have a taste of it." Ralph Tee from ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

s ''RM'' Dance Update said, "Every now and again the UK soul scene comes up with something that blows everyone away, and this time it's Beverly Knight with this amazing vocal debut on a chunky, full-on swing cut good enough to rival any US production." Another editor, James Hamilton, declared it as a "plaintive

Janet Jackson Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer. She is noted for her innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows. Her sound and choreog ...

-ish sweetly cooed jiggling funky

hip hop soul Hip hop soul is a subgenre of contemporary R&B music, most popular during the early and mid 1990s, which fuses R&B or soul singing with hip hop musical production. The subgenre had evolved from a previous R&B subgenre, new jack swing, which ha ...

jogger".

Track list

Original release

CD: # "Flavour of the Old School" (radio version) 4:06 # "Flavour of the Old School" (Featuring Rapro) (album version) 4:45 # "Flavour of the Old School" (Full Flava remix) 4:48 # "Promise You Forever" 5:51

Re-release

CD: # "Flavour of the Old School" (radio version) 4:06 # "Flavour of the Old School" (2B3 New Flava mix) 4:31 # "Flavour of the Old School" (Featuring Rapro) (Hip Hop mix) 4:09 # "U've Got It" 4:34

Charts

Personnel

*Written by Beverley Knight, Neville Thomas and Pule Pheto *Produced by Neville Thomas and Pule Pheto *All vocals performed by Beverley Knight

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flavour of the Old School 1995 debut singles Beverley Knight songs New jack swing songs 1995 songs Songs written by Beverley Knight Songs written by Pule Pheto Songs written by Neville Thomas