Soul Strutter: Rahsaan Patterson

Wednesday, 11 January 2023

Rahsaan Patterson - A Profile

Rahsaan Patterson was born in The Bronx, New York City on 11 Jan 1974 and is celebrating his 49th birthday today and yet is already in his fifth decade of performing.

He was singing in the church choir from the age of 6 and was discovered on a US talent show 'Junior Star Search' around 1984 and then won a part in Disney TV series 'Kids Incorporated'. In 1986 he won a follow up show 'Star Search' aged 12. He released his debut, self-titled, album in 1997 and to date has released seven studio albums plus a reimagined version of his last album "Heroes & Gods".

He first came to this listener's attention circa 1999/2000 with the 'Silk's Old Skool Mix' of "Where You Are". At around the same time his original version of "I'll Go" came to light when a promo was received by Terry Jones when he interviewed him on, the now defunct, Soul 24/7 radio station. Terry started playing it at gigs up and down the country and it was then featured on the "Soul Togetherness 2001" compilation. Patterson agreed to let Jones record it rather than himself (as Jones was a hot prospect at that time) and it appeared on the soundtrack for "Love And Basketball" and as a 12" white label promo.

Whilst not garnering mainstream success, his music is highly regarded in soul circles and hopefully many of the 30 tracks selected (from just six albums as the Xmas and Reimagined albums were not selected from and only one track was chosen from Bleuphoria) may prick the ears of anyone not familiar with the quality of his music.

Rather than having to read about his background, a video interview is included below.