Natty Rebel R.I.P

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U-Roy passes: another giant figure in the soundtrack of my youth has left us. I am truly blessed to have been at the right age at the right time with such great music in the ascendant. U-Roy, among many others, was part of the tapestry of sound that formed the backdrop to our formative years. Growing up in Winson Green, and reaching early adulthood in the mid-seventies, I was surrounded by many cultures and musics, all of which had a profound influence on my musical education and helped found what can only be described as my rather 'catholic' taste for music of all genres.

On the walls of grimy streets in sixties and early seventies Birmingham were the fly-posts for sound systems, sound-offs and shebeens: hinting at a world we were yet to discover. Rock-steady & Ska [its first incarnation] was our first, adolescent introduction to the rainbow of music drifting our way from Jamaica; an ever-changing and evolving eco-system of bass and off-beat, call and response; always solid, always infectious, always danceable. Then there was Dub: anyone who has experienced a pukka sound system, particularly in a shebeen, will know the magic of this stuff. See you on the other side, brother U-Roy.

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