George Nooks “In the Mood” (2000)
2022
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George Nooks, a.k.a. Prince Mohamed, Prince Mohammed, is a reggae singer who initially found fame as a deejay.
Born in Kingston in 1958, George Nooks started his musical career in the church. It wasn’t surprising then that Nooks would score his biggest ever hit with his 2001 cover of Ben E King’s “God Is Standing By”. The success of this track led to him, alongside Glen Washington, being crowned the come-back kid Like Washington, Nooks has been performing since the 1970s.
He scored his first hit “Forty Leg Dread”, as the toaster Prince Mohammed. Running a dual career, he would guest as the Deejay, Mohammed, and sing in a Dennis Brown-inspired voice under his real name. This led to him having two simultaneous hit tunes under two different names in the same chart: “Forty Leg Dread” as Mohammed and “Tribal Music” under Nooks.
Nooks migrated from Jamaica in the late seventies and a hiatus from the music business. In 1994, he came back with the single/video “I Don’t Care/Bad Minded People”.
A hotly tipped vocalist with no less than three 1997 Tamika Reggae Music awards to his credit (for Crossover Artist, Outstanding Male Artist, and Vocalist of the Year), he recorded sporadic singles, but really hit the jackpot in 2001 with the Computer Paul produced, God Is Standing By. An album of the same title was released by VP Records early the next year and George Nooks had officially bus back.
He would then be very in demand for shows and recordings around the world, a situation which is still evident as Nook’s name can be found on a countless number of current reggae compilations.
His 1996 single “Real Man” reached number 55 on the Billboard R&B Singles Sales chart. In 1997 Nooks released his first album in 15 years, a self-titled collection resulting in three Tamika Reggae Music awards, but since 1997 he has been quite prolific, releasing a string of solo albums, as well as albums shared with Glen Washington, Roland Burrell, Singing Melody, and Lukie D. Since the death of his grandmother in 2001, Nooks has primarily recorded gospel material.
His 2016 album Ride Out Your Storm reached number 4 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart and number 22 on the Gospel chart.
Nooks also work as a producer and have run his own Total Records label since the early 1990s.
