Ruffneck

New Jersey-based House collective aka [a=The Back Room], [a=Backroom Boys], [a=Backroom Congregation] and other variants. Worked from [l=Stardust Recording Studio] in Montclair which was also used by [a=Blaze] and [a=B.O.P.] in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Collaborated extensively with [a=Yavahn] aka [a=Joanne Thomas] when she was in [a=Jomanda] and later as a solo artist; the alias Yavahn is based on her middle name, Yvonne. Their most successful collaboration, Everybody Be Somebody, sampled [m65614], a New York club classic. Yavahn died in October 2003. The collaborations on [l=Soul Groove Records], their own label, were released posthumously.