Thomas August Darnell Browder was born in
The Bronx, New York City on August 12, 1950. His mother was from
South Carolina and his father from
Savannah, Georgia. As an adult, Browder began going by his two middle names as August Darnell. Growing up in the Bronx, Darnell was exposed early on to all kinds of music. Darnell began his musical career in a band named The In-Laws with his brother, Stony Browder, in 1965. The band disbanded so Darnell could pursue a career as an English teacher. Darnell obtained a master's degree in English, but in 1974 again formed a band with his brother under the name
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. Kid Creole and the Coconuts' debut album
Off the Coast of Me was critically well-received but not successful commercially. They made their national TV debut performing "Mister Softee" and "There But For The Grace of God Go I" on
Saturday Night Live in November 1980. The second release,
Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, was a concept album matched with a
New York Public Theater stage production; it received positive reviews, with Darnell recognized as a clever lyricist and astute composer, arranger and producer. By the second album they were accompanied by the Pond Life horn section Charlie Lagond, Ken Fradley, and Lee Robertson, as well as lead guitarist Mark Mazur. The album charted briefly, and subsequently Coati Mundi's early Latin rap "Me No Pop I", though not originally on the album, became a Top 40 UK hit single. It was the band's first hit. Their breakthrough came with 1982's
Tropical Gangsters, which hit #3 in the UK and spun off three Top 10 hits with "
Stool Pigeon", "
Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and "
I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby". "Dear Addy" also made the Top 40. In the US the album was retitled
Wise Guy and reached #145, and "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby" flirted with the R&B charts. Darnell subsequently produced a 1983 spin-off album for the Coconuts with Cheryl Poirier on lead vocals. Coati Mundi also released his solo LP
The Former 12 Year Old Genius before the fourth Kid Creole and the Coconuts album in 1983;
Doppelganger was a relative commercial disappointment, despite the single "There's Something Wrong in Paradise" reaching the UK Top 40. In 1983, Kid Creole formed a new swing big band,
Elbow Bones and the Racketeers, and he gained the hit "Night in New York". The group performed the song "My Male Curiosity" (with choreography by Kaegi) for the 1984 movie
Against All Odds; the song also appeared on the best-selling soundtrack album. The Coconuts also sang background vocals in the songs "Red Light" and "Surrender" on
U2's album
War, which was released on 28 February 1983 on Island Records. Darnell and Kaegi divorced in 1985, though she remained with the band. Taryn Hagey dropped out of The Coconuts around the same time, and the two remaining Coconuts (Adriana Kaegi and Cheryl Poirier) formed their own spin-off group Boomerang with
Perri Lister. This group released a dance-oriented album, somewhat different in sound to their Coconuts recordings, on the Atlantic label in 1986. The producer was
David Kershenbaum. Kid Creole and the Coconuts continued, now with third Coconut Janique Svedberg replacing the departed Hagey. On record, though billed as guests and not as Coconuts, during this era some female co-lead vocals were performed by Haitia Fuller and
Cory Daye. In the mid to late 1980s, the group contributed to various film soundtracks and other such projects. They also appeared at the
Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986 and in this period released the albums
In Praise of Older Women... and Other Crimes (which included the single "Endicott") and
I, Too, Have Seen the Woods, neither of which charted in the US. Still, the group continued world tours, performed sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and was invited by Princess Diana to perform at a private function in the UK. In 1987, Kid Creole and the Coconuts made their only appearance on the US Hot 100 charts with "Hey Mambo", a track from
Barry Manilow's
Swing Street album. The single, credited to "Barry Manilow with Kid Creole & The Coconuts", peaked at #90. The band also performed on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Longtime associate Hernandez left the ensemble before 1990's
Private Waters in the Great Divide, an album described by the
NME as "a return to form with inspired lyrics and buckets of the type of sexual innuendo that Creole has made his own." Andy Hernandez has also made appearances in a number of films separately, and Adriana Kaegi produced and directed a documentary film about the band called Kid Creole and My Coconuts. She now runs her media production company in New York and has her own
Styleculture.tv channel. They also composed music for the 1999 French animated series
Pirate Family. ==Present==