T-Spoon is a Dutch Eurodance project founded in 1991 by rapper Shalamon Baskin and co-founder Remy de Groot. The project was offered a recording contract by No More Music.
Musical career
The debut T-Spoon single "No Time 2 Waste" was released in 1993, which reached the top 10 in Europe. During the following years, T-Spoon scored a string of hits, which brought them success in countries like the UK, Australia, Canada, Israel, Ireland, Scandinavia, South America and their home country, the Netherlands. Songs like "A Part Of My Life", "Where R U Now", "Take Me 2 The Limit" and Sex on the Beach. Releasing 4 full album CDs, including a remix CD and a hit single collection, they proved to be a versatile dance act. They produced some powerful eurodance tracks, but also groovy R&B songs, upbeat happy hardcore tunes and even euroreggae and eurodisco tracks. Behind T-Spoon stands Prince Peration, the group's founder and one of its driving forces. The co-producers were Dominic Sas and Serge Ramaekers. On stage T-Spoon consisted of 4 people: a female vocalist and a male rapper, and the two dancers, Regilio and Anatevka Bos. In 1994 the American jazz/blues vocalist Jean Shy was the featured singer for the Dutch formation. In 1996, singer Linda Estelle joined the group, which changed the band's direction into the then-popular happy hardcore-genre. In 1997, they became famous with the summer hit "Sex on the Beach", which made the charts in The Netherlands as well as Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. The song was first released in Ireland following its success in Europe. There it became one of the biggest hits of the year, peaking at number 3 in the Irish charts. Such was the success in Ireland that the song was released in the United Kingdom at the end of the summer and reached number 2 in the UK charts. In 1998, Shamrock left the group and was replaced by Greg Dillard. With Dillard as the band's new rapper, the group had the 1999 hit "Summerlove". In 2000, Dillard left, and Estelle became the new face of the group. In 2002, Shamrock rejoined T-Spoon, and the group subsequently released a number of remixes that were not very successful. In 2008, Shamrock and Linda Estelle toured with their "T-Spoon Reloaded show". In March, they performed at Ekonomika Rewind Leuven. In December, it was announced that Linda Estelle and Shamrock were back in studio, and that they would record some new songs together to be released the following year. In 2009 February, they announced that they were busy recording and remixing some of their old hits, and that they had started writing new songs and were looking for collaborations throughout the world. In June, they appeared at Q Music's Foute Party in Den Bosch. Then they took part in a commercial for Johma salads' 40th anniversary, with Shamrock doing a sing/rap style in Dutch. In 2010 there are nowadays 3 different T-Spoon formations for tours, all of them official: Blondi & Raw Jawz, Linda & Shamrock and T Spoon Dj Squad. Remy de Groot explained that "We have the past, present & future, the past is T-spoon Reloaded with Shamrock & Linda, the present is the fresh young T-Spoon with Raw Jawz & Blondi, and The future is T-Spoon Dj Squad, for every generation there is something to enjoy about T-Spoon". In 2012 T-spoon released a collaboration with Dirty House Bastards featuring Akon entitled Dubhop Shawty. In 2013 T-Spoon's released a new single entitled Ticket to the Tropics. It is a cover of a song released in 1985 by Dutch artist Gerard Joling.
Origin of the name
Legend says that Shamrock said while stirring a cup of tea "I'd rather have a gold record than a gold tea spoon any day". "That's it," exclaimed Prince Peration, "That's the name", and so the name T-Spoon was born. More recently, Remy de Groot explained that the name actually came from a western TV show in which the sheriff was called Teaspoon.
