A duo with a reggae-meets-pop-meets-soca-meets-grime kind of sound that could be dubbed neo-island, De Tropix feature singer/songwriter Cherry B along with producer Instinct. Both were born on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Instinct was raised in the U.K. town of Luton, while Cherry was college age when she moved to London, the city where the two would meet and bond on the shared opinion that England’s weather was “awful.” They also shared a love of island music plus left-field dance tracks, but with Instinct DJing and background vocalist Cherry joining M.I.A. on tour, it would take four years before they worked together. In 2008 they landed a track on the compilation Girl Powder from the French label Lofty, and a year later they took matters into their own hands by releasing both the EP Oi plus the track “Brap” as free downloads. By the end of 2009 their song “Adeyhey” appeared on the Warp record label’s forward-looking compilation 2010. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi