Shaft (rave group)

This article is about the early 1990s rave group. For the act known for dance covers of "(Mucho Mambo) Sway" and "Mambo Italiano", see Shaft (British electronic duo).

Shaft was an English electronic music group, scoring a top 10 hit on the UK Singles Chart in December 1991 with "Roobarb & Custard".^[1] It featured recreated vocal samples from the vintage children's television cartoon Roobarb, as well as a variety of sound effects. The main contributors were the British record producers Mark Pritchard and Adrian Hughes.^[1]

Although the single reached the top 10 in 1991, it climbed to its highest position of No. 7 in January 1992. The follow-up track was "Monkey", which peaked at No. 61 in July 1992.^[1]

The use of samples from children's television programmes was not unique to this hit within the genre, with Mark Summers having sampled The Magic Roundabout in his early 1991 hit "Summers Magic". However, Shaft was the first dance act to reach the top 10 with a track using this type of formula. Other groups who went on later in 1992 to repeat this success were Urban Hype, who reached No. 7 with "A Trip to Trumpton", and Smart E's, who achieved a No. 2 hit with "Sesame's Treet". The string of similarly created records were dubbed toytown techno.

References

1. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 491. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.