Exclusive Extract from Where We Come From: So Solid Crew and the birth of UK Rap

At the peak of their popularity, So Solid Crew were as famous as footballers. During school tours, where a few members would turn up at schools up and down the country, they’d perform a song or two in assembly halls for screaming teenagers and children. Online footage shows Romeo walking on to stages in Liverpool and Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry, Nottingham and Leicester and Cardiff, greeting his young audience. The kids howl in response, then after the Live PA is finished, swarm him: delirious smiles and screams exposing gap teeth and braces, their hands falling over his shirt as they follow him from the assembly hall to the car, to the school gates as he was driven off the premises and onto the next stopping point.

When Lisa Maffia tried to drop her own daughter at school, she remained trapped for two hours, signing autographs and waving away requests for her to sing.