Strong Island
Mark "Marc Mac" Clair grew up in Harlesden, the son of a Windrush-generation Jamaican family. By the mid-1980s he was running sound systems, Solar Zone and Midnight Lovers. Through that scene he met Denis "Dego" McFarlane, and in 1989 the pair set up Strong Island, a pirate radio station broadcasting from Dollis Hill.
The same year Marc and Gus Lawrence started Reinforced Records to put out their own productions. Dego and Iain Bardouille joined, and the four called themselves 4hero.
Hardcore, darkcore and Reinforced
The first single, "All B 3 / Rising Son", came out in 1990. The Combat Dancin' EP followed, and its track "Mr Kirk's Nightmare" became a rave anthem. Built on an Isley Brothers break and a spoken-word sample about an overdose, it reportedly sold more than 24,000 copies and put Reinforced on the map.
The debut album In Rough Territory arrived in 1991, the only one with all four founders as full members. By 1993 the group's sound had turned darker. The Journey from the Light EP led critic Simon Reynolds to suggest 4hero could claim to have invented darkcore.
Reinforced grew into one of the most important labels in the scene. Goldie, introduced by DJ Kemistry, began by designing artwork for the label, learned production from Marc and Dego, and released his first records there as Rufige Kru. The label's roster came to include Doc Scott, Grooverider, Kemistry & Storm, Photek, Peshay, J Majik and the early Roni Size and Krust as Wings.
Parallel Universe showed what jungle could do across a whole album.
Parallel Universe (1994)
Now a duo, Marc and Dego released Parallel Universe on Reinforced. Its sci-fi titles ("Terraforming", "Sounds from the Black Hole", "Power to Move the Stars") matched music that treated breakbeats as a way to build atmosphere, not only energy. It is widely credited as the first full-length drum & bass album, and NME named it album of the year in its dance category. The same period produced a string of aliases: Tom & Jerry, Cold Mission, Project A-KO, Internal Affairs with Goldie, and Jacob's Optical Stairway, an album for Belgium's R&S in 1995.
Two Pages (1998)
Signing to Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud, the duo widened the palette again. Their 1997 remix of Nuyorican Soul's "Black Gold of the Sun" introduced a new, orchestral 4hero, and it is still regarded as one of the great dance remixes.
Two Pages followed in July 1998: a double album with one "page" of live strings, jazz and soul (Ursula Rucker on "Loveless") and one of futurist drum & bass. It reached number 38 in the UK, was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize and won a MOBO award. Two remix albums followed, Two Pages Remixed in Japan and Two Pages Reinterpretations in 1999. Between 1998 and 2001 Marc and Dego also hosted a Sunday night show on Kiss 100 with Kirk Degiorgio under the name R Solution.
Creating Patterns (2001)
Recorded at their own Dollis Hill studio, Creating Patterns moved further into what was being called nu jazz and broken beat, a sound that had partly grown out of Reinforced's second wave. Guests included Jill Scott, Ursula Rucker, Terry Callier, Mark Murphy and Patricia Marx, alongside a cover of Minnie Riperton's "Les Fleur". It reached number 65 in the UK.
Raw Canvas and beyond
The duo launched their own Raw Canvas label for The Remix Album (2004), two discs of 4hero remixing others and others remixing them. Play with the Changes followed in 2007; Mixmag made it Album of the Month and called it their finest album to date. Extensions came in 2009.
Since then both members have been prolific on their own. Marc Mac runs Omniverse and records as Visioneers, among other names; Dego runs 2000Black and works with Kaidi Tatham. They still come together as 4hero, most recently remixing Ada Morghe's "Lost" in 2023.