Originally Jonas Berggren from Ace of Base wished to produce and write material for a solo female artist project. But when he met Marie Knutsen and Linda Schönberg the solo artist project became a duo.
Yaki-Da was founded in february 1994. Yaki-Da (“cheers” in Welsh) recorded various singles and the album “Pride” at John Ballard’s Tuff Studio. The first single “Show me love” was first only released in scandinavia and was a hit. “I saw you dancing” the second single, was released on mainland Europe. The album “Pride” was released in most of the world, especially successful in South Korea with about 400.000 albums sold there and was also a smash hit in the Far East, South America and South Africa. “Pride” was mostly described as a mix of Ace of Base and Ofra Haza.
A new name and the second album
A night club in Gothenburg had the registered name “Yaki-Da”, at first the owners had nothing against Linda and Marie taking the name, but later they changed their minds. Linda and Marie couldn’t used the name Yaki-Da in Sweden. Jonas Berggren became very successful with Ace of Base and didn’t have the time to write or produce the second album for Yaki-Da. Under the new name Y-D (pronounced why - dee) Linda and Marie recorded the second album. With the help of some Scandinavian’s best producers like Douglas Carr, Ole Evenrude, Jonas von der Burg, Candy Hill and Remee they released the album “A small step for love”. The album sold very well in South Korea, but wasn’t released on mainland Europe.
