TOK

The T.O.K. story started humbly enough, 9 years ago, with four ambitious high school boys. Alistaire, Roshaun, and Craig were in the school choir at Campion College headed by John Binns, while Xavier attended Calabar High. Originally, the acronym T.O.K. stood for Touch of Klass, but over the years it has taken on different meanings from Taking Over Kingston to To Klaat, and whatever else the creative minds of T.O.K. can come up with.
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From the beginning, life was about T.O.K. - school and music, says Alex. Xavier and I loved singing and were good friends. I went to school with Craig and Roshaun, so we brought them in. This was in the early 90s, during the whole emergence of Boyz II Men, so we started out singing their songs and sounding a whole lot like them. But in growing together as a unit, we developed the sound you hear now. Its about combining the hardcore dancehall sound with R&B harmonies and hip hop, thus creating something brand new.
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Its more like a evolution rather than a change, notes Craigy T. We wouldnt be true to ourselves if we did straight R&B, straight covers of Boyz II Men, or tried to write songs like them. Were Jamaican. That has to come out in the music, and thats what happened, gradually. Music is music and its one big umbrella under which all the genres fall together. If you listen hard enough, you hear all the similarities.
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Key to the T.O.K. evolution were a radio diet weighted equally between Stateside and home-grown sounds, vocal training from renown Jamaican coach Georgia Guerra, and years of hard time put in at high school party performances and, a bit later, on Jamaicas famed North Coast hotel lounge circuit. It was all experience for us, says Xavier. The cabaret circuit is totally different, different audiences. Actually, we werent fully accepted in the hotel circuit, says Roshaun. We werent the norm. The other groups sang straight, but we always tried to do something different. Wed do a Bob Marley song or an Ini Kamoze song like `Hot Stepper. From ever sin