3. Bob MarleyExodus
I couldn’t do this without putting Bob Marley in there. I’m sorry, he’s my Elvis. He’s another obvious one. Exodus is the album I grew up with. I actually have my dad’s copy that I stole, and my mum’s; two original copies from the 70s. It was always played in my house. My parents came over from Jamaica as second generation Windrush kids. My mom loved it, my dad loved it, my brothers loved it. That was before mum got religious and would only play music for the Lord. She used to love music and we always had music playing in the house, so for me it’s a childhood memory. He is the black Elvis. This is the guy that we worshipped when we were kids, him and The Jacksons.
I’ll tell you a story, my grandad had a shebeen in Brixton and Bob Marley used to go to it. He’d got pictures of Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali, Peter Tosh. A shebeen is an illegal, underground club, it was in the basement of the house, it had a little bar in the corner, and sold drinks, playing music all night. In those days, in the 50s and 60s black people weren’t allowed into the clubs, the normal clubs. Maybe one black guy dancing on the stage but that’s it, so they used to do their own clubs. So, I was raised in a nightclub; makes sense, doesn’t it? My earliest memories are of sitting on the steps looking down, watching people dancing to Prince Buster. And I know it was Prince Buster because it was the same record every week. When I was 10 it was still Prince Buster.
