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Kareem Shabazz is a UK singer and songwriter. He has made reggae and lovers rock since Nu-Vizion in 1992, and has sung on and written house records, most of them on Italian labels, since 1997. He performs as Ryddim King, and fronted Kareem Shabazz and the Ryddim Kings.

Portrait of Kareem Shabazz in a flat cap and denim jacket in front of a painted wall

1992 to 1993

Nu-Vizion

Kareem's first records were with Nu-Vizion. When Claudia Fontaine, the Pink Floyd backing singer, left the band, he took over as lead singer.

Their 1992 EP, Issues Of Life, carried his songs By Any Means Necessary, Environmental Crisis and You Gave Me Life. In 1993 he sang lead on the band's version of Bobby Caldwell's What You Won't Do For Love.

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Kareem Shabazz singing with a hand on his chest in a patchwork denim waistcoat on an outdoor festival stage
From Kareem Shabazz's archive. Photo: Pascal Mirza

1997

Exploding Plastic

In 1997 Kareem put out two house singles under his own name on Exploding Plastic Records, both with Mike Patto. Rumours And Lies came in eight mixes, among them Restless Soul, Femi Fem and Da Maytrix's 3 A.M. Never Give Up On Love followed on 12-inch. Kareem wrote both with Patto, and on both records he is credited under another name, M. Grant.

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Kareem Shabazz standing in a denim jacket and scarves against a graffiti wall
From Kareem Shabazz's archive. Photo: Pascal Mirza

1998 to 2011

Italy

After Nu-Vizion split, Kareem went to Italy to record a dance track, and kept going back for years to work with Airplane! Records.

His first Airplane! feature, T&F's Got To Have It, came out in 1998. Soul Deluxe's Free At Last followed on Train! in 2000, and Champion Records USA put it out in 2001 as a 12-inch with a Kerri Chandler Club Mix. He sang on Colours' 7 Seconds in 2003, on Tommy Vee vs. Andrea T. Mendoza's Lovely in 2006, and on Walterino's I Love Muzik, on Purple Music, in 2011.

He was in an Italian band too, D-Other, with Danny Losito and the keyboard player Gianluca Mosole. D-Other made Train To Nowhere for Tommy Vee's 2005 album First!

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Kareem Shabazz singing at a microphone stand, a stage light beam cutting across behind him
From Kareem Shabazz's archive. Photo: Courtney Anglin Photographic, 2017

Kingston

Orange Street

On a visit to his mother in Jamaica, Kareem went to his friend Lego's studio, Leggo Studios on Orange Street in Kingston, and stayed three months recording an album. The musicians played together in the room in real time: among them Earl "Chinna" Smith, Errol "Flabba" Holt and Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace. Derek "Demondo" Fevrier mixed it.

The album was never released as a whole, but So Much Love in the World came from those sessions, and the Ryddim Kings released it as a single in 2013.

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Kareem Shabazz with one arm raised under stage lights
From Kareem Shabazz's archive. Photo: Pascal Mirza

2002 to 2022

Danny Losito

His longest partnership is with Danny Losito, the voice on Double Dee's 1990 club hit Found Love. It runs through D-Other's Reaching For The Stars in 2002, B.A.D. Connection's Be Thankful on Purple Music in 2009, Funkatomic's Livin' It Up, which Kareem wrote for Danny to sing, in 2011, and Tommy Vee's Life Goes On in 2014, which Kareem co-wrote and sings with Danny, and which was nominated for an MTV award in Italy.

Falling Out, one of the songs Kareem wrote for Danny to sing, was nominated for a Grammy in 2015 in its Ming remix. There was a run of GrooveJet singles with Danny in 2015 too. In 2017 Kareem wrote Dèjavù, the album Danny's duo Double Dee released on Airplane! on 23 March 2018, and in the 2020 lockdown the two wrote the four Quarantina songs, recorded from home by Italian and UK artists.

He writes for other Italian artists too: Faith, for Marcello Sutera featuring Frank McComb, in 2016, and Kaigo's album K 3, on Irma Records in 2022.

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2013 to 2018

The Ryddim Kings

Back in London Kareem started Kareem Shabazz and the Ryddim Kings. Their first single, Live It Again, written with Derek "Demondo" Fevrier, came out in June 2013, and So Much Love in the World followed that October.

The band played Brixton Academy that summer and Hootananny Brixton in October, then the Rhythms of the World festival in Hitchin on 2 August 2014. That October Kareem was a judge at Reggae Star Factor, at the Tabernacle in west London.

The band also played a year of London pub gigs that ended with them headlining the South End Green Festival in Hampstead, and they played the Dublin Castle in Camden in January 2016 and Parliament Hill Bandstand on Hampstead Heath on 13 July 2018.

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2016 to 2023

The albums

Born on the Street, his first album, came out on Stingray Records in March 2016. Dub Vendor called it "a well accomplished debut album crafted with the Stingray production team".

Lovers & Rockers followed in November 2021 on Ryddim King Productions, and in 2023 his song Better As Friends was one of the voicings on Stingray's Knowledge Riddim.

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2024 onwards

Now

In 2024 he put out Soul Survivor, a house EP on Irma Records. In 2025 came The Spirit of Henry Sloan EP, and two more house singles on Irma with SLAMTWISTED, The Weekend and Call Your Name. A new EP, Resist to Exist, is in progress.

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Every record mentioned here, and more, is on the Music page, year by year.

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