Early days All of the ten members grew up in Highams Park, Walthamstow East London and attended Highams Park School. The group made their first single with the production team TNT Xplosive called "Standard Flow". They went on and signed a recording and production deal with Terry Mcleod and Tapps Bandawe aka TNT Xplosive on their indepedant label Xplosive Records, who then licenced the band to EastWest/Warner Music. "Standard Flow" became the bands first single to be released, this featured the dancehall legend Elephant Man and was released to pirate radio stations on the Weighty Plates label. ...show more

Early days All of the ten members grew up in Highams Park, Walthamstow East London and attended Highams Park School. The group made their first single with the production team TNT Xplosive called "Standard Flow". They went on and signed a recording and production deal with Terry Mcleod and Tapps Bandawe aka TNT Xplosive on their indepedant label Xplosive Records, who then licenced the band to EastWest/Warner Music. "Standard Flow" became the bands first single to be released, this featured the dancehall legend Elephant Man and was released to pirate radio stations on the Weighty Plates label.

Xplosive Records and EastWest/Warner Music followed this with their first commercial release "Crossroads" which debuted at number one in the UK Charts. Breakthrough and debut album TNT Xplosive and EastWest/Warner Music both agreed to work on the single "Crossroads", which was originally recorded by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony as "Tha Crossroads" in 1996. Using their own version of the chorus the band wrote their own MC verses. The track was released as their first single once they left school at the ages of 16, where they also had a history of academic success.[citation needed] "Crossroads" went straight into the UK Singles Chart at number 1 in August 2002.

During their short time of 2 years together, the group achieved 6 consecutive UK Top 10 hits, however they faced a lot of criticism. Their rap skills were not taken seriously by the British media, sidelining them to a younger audience. Despite this, their debut album In The Beginning achieved gold satus in the UK and spawned two further UK Top 10 hits, "Love On The Line" which reached number six and a double a-side single "Reminisce/Where The Story Ends" which reached number eight in February 2003. The group were popular with commercial radio gigs and roadshows as well as pre-teen pop-music magazines such as Top of the Pops and Smash Hits[citation needed]. ...show less