Latin Quarter is a British band formed in 1983. They had one top 20 single "Radio Africa" in the United Kingdom. From the beginning they became more successful in Germany.Latin Quarter released their latest album, Releasing the Sheep, on 29 October 2021. Their sound mixes elements of pop, rock, reggae and folk with largely political based lyrics. Career Latin Quarter began when ex-printer and Lincoln-born Steve Skaith left Liverpool for London in 1982 to write songs for music publishers Chappell, together with keyboard player Steve Jeffries. Skaith was also working on some rather more radical music with lyrics from an old friend of his called Mike Jones, both were members from the left wing political group Big Flame. Mike Jones himself did not play any instruments with Latin Quarter, but he wrote the lyrics to the songs. The former technical school teacher from Liverpool had already been writing political songs for eight years and had been a friend of Steve Skaith’s since grammar school. Their political viewpoint were sometimes reflected in the choice of subject matter and lyrics of Latin Quarter's output. Latin Quarter were the first band to be managed by Marcus Russell (who is from Ebbw Vale along with Mike Jones). Russell formed the Ignition Management in 1983. The only problem was that there was no band, just a bunch of songs already written. Skaith, Jeffries and Jones formed Latin Quarter in autumn 1983 with guitarist Richard Wright, a classically-trained musician and ex-member of the Inversions, a band active on the jazz/funk scene, together with drummer Richie Stevens (who had played on Linton Kwesi Johnson album Making History). Yona Dunsford (vocals/piano) and Carol Douet (vocals/percussion) joined the band at the end of the year, with the line-up completed by Greg Harewood on bass. After the band’s first sporadic London gigs in 1984, ex-The Police producer Nigel Gray recorded two of Latin Quarter’s songs at his own expense, and the band released the single Radio Africa on its own independent record label, Ignition in September 1984. The band was signed by Rockin’ Horse Records, an offshoot of Arista Records, and completed work on their debut album Modern Times. After being re-released, Radio Africa finally became a UK hit at the start of 1986 when it reached number 19 in the UK Singles Chart. Jones described their first album Modern Times as "a veritable manifesto". The album only spent two