Is this love?

Compared to many over-hyped, over directed and over expensive music videos the 1978 video for Bob Marley and The Wailers “Is this love” is a wonderful paean to honesty and simplicity. The honesty comes from Bob’s obvious rapport with the children (including a seven year old Naomi Campbell) in this converted church near King’s Cross and from the fact that the Keskidee Centre where it was shot was not just the a Black cultural centre, at the time it was the only black cultural centre in the city where Bob and the Wailers spent some of their most productive years. It was close to his first London home in Camden so he would have known the area well. 

34 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden, WC1E, was the first official London address of the star in 1972. He later moved with his fellow band members the Wailers to various other locations in London including Old Church Street, Chelsea, and Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-love.html

Now the church in London where Bob Marley filmed the video for his “Is This Love song” has been destroyed by fire yesterday 8^thMarch 2012. About 40 firefighters tackled the blaze at the Christ Apostolic Church in King's Cross on Thursday night. The three-storey building has been severely damaged and 20 people had to be evacuated from adjacent properties.

The 1978 video was filmed at the building which was home to Keskidee, thought to be the UK's first cultural centre for the black community. The Keskidee Centre was founded in 1971. It became known for its theatre productions and toured Europe, the US and New Zealand. As well as being chosen by Bob Marley to shoot his video - starring a young Naomi Campbell - the centre also laid claim to be the birth place of dub poetry, created by its one-time educational officer Linton Kwesi Johnson.  Speaking in a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the venue in 2009 Linton Kwesi Johnson said: "The Keskidee Centre was unique. As a young person growing up and becoming politically and culturally conscious, it was fantastic. There was nowhere else that you could find that kind of ambience to nurture creativity." For many years, it was the only place to experience black theatre in London.

Unveiling of green plaque to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Keskidee Centre.

The centre closed in 1991 following funding problems and the building was bought by the Christ Apostolic Church. Last April, Islington Council unveiled a green plaque - which honours notable Islington residents and places in the north London borough - on the building to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Keskidee Centre.

The Green Plaque, which honours notable Islington residents and places, was unveiled last year by David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham. He said at the time: “As the son of Guyanese parents and one of only a few black and ethnic minority MPs, I am honoured to see the plaque unveiled. It marks a point in our history. The plaque means that long after we’re gone, children will be able to walk past the building and ask their parents about what it means and learn about the important history of the local community.”

Now, sadly, it looks as if another piece of London’s rich multi-cultural history may be lost.

Red, Red, Line

Reggae superstars: UB40, pictured here in 2003 before lead singer Ali Campbell left the band, have sold over 70m records since they formed in 1978. Pictured here (L to R) is Michael Virtue, Robin Campbell, Norman Hassan, Jimmy Brown, Astro, Ali Campbell, Brian Travers, Earl Falconer

UB40, whose name came from Unemployment Benefit Form 40 and who were the standard bearers for the many thrown out of work in Thatcher’s Britain have been declared bankrupt. Their reggae beat has always reflected the background and edgy social activism of the band in its heyday but now they have fallen on hard times. Despite their glittering 33-year career, four leading members of the reggae band have been declared penniless. Saxophone player Brian Travers, drummer Jimmy Brown, trumpeter Terence Oswald (known to fans as Astro), and percussionist Norman Hassan were all declared insolvent.

The Birmingham band have sold more than 70 million records and notched up 50 chart hits in a remarkable 33-year career. But four of its members are now officially penniless after being chased through the courts by tax officials. Their details have been listed by the Insolvency Service. The court order lasts for a year and means that tax officers could seize property to pay off any outstanding debts. The case revolves on the failure of the band's record firm and management company DEP International - and follows a bitter bust-up over band finances which split the group.



At a previous hearing in July, District Judge Richard Musgrave gave liquidators the green light to chase debts and royalty payments on UB40's hits including chart-topping Red Red Wine. He also warned the reggae outfit they would have to pay costs in the case, which already run into tens of thousands of pounds.

At the time the band vowed to fight bankruptcy, solicitor spokesman Adrian Stickland, saying: "If bankruptcy proceedings are issued following this hearing today, the band will vigorously oppose them." But in recent weeks it became apparent that the battle had been lost - ironically at the same time UB40 were honoured with a Performing Rights Society plaque at the Hare and Hounds pub in Kings Heath, Birmingham, where they played their first gig in 1978. Masking their money worries, the band treated 150 fans, including actor Keith Allen and kickboxing champion Kash "The Flash" Gill, to a half-hour, semi-plugged show at the venue.

Former frontman Ali Campbell, the founding member who acrimoniously split from the group in 2008 in ongoing wrangles about the band's finances, was absent after not being invited to the special show. His spokesman said the bankruptcy court case showed Ali was right to quit the band. "It is ironic that the very week they celebrate their first gig they have been declared bankrupt, after administration began in 2006, vindicating both Ali and Mickey Virtue's decision to leave UB40," she said. "Ali did not personally receive an invitation to the Hare & Hounds show and, as such, did not turn it down. He most definitely would have liked to have been invited as it is where the journey began and Ali is proud of the fact that UB40's music has been honoured."

The rest of the UB40 have been keeping tight-lipped about the costly legal defeat. They were understood to be recording a new album at a studio in Redditch, Worcestershire Ali Campbell and keyboard player Mickey Virtue stormed out of the group in 2008. Speaking in July this year, Campbell - whose brother Duncan now fronts UB40 - said he tried to warn bandmates about the impending financial disaster. "This is the very reason why I left the band," he said. "This was my biggest fear when I was with them, that bankruptcy was going to happen and no-one can say I didn't warn them."



He also revealed he no longer got royalties on the group's hits and confessed that they blew much of their cash at the height of their fame. "In the 1980s we were living in five-star hotels and we got through a lot of money," he said. "Why weren't the other guys listening to me when I started to flag these money problems up? "They decided to back the management and not me, I'm still very bitter about it. I was very proud of what I achieved with UB40. It was a band I started, I was with them for 28 years and we made 24 albums. But we were divided and ruled, and this is what happened in the end. UB40 have been asset-stripped by the people around them."

Sadly, it looks like UB40 members may yet be reacquainting themselves with Unemployment Benefit form No. 40 which gave them their name.

The strange case of Smiley Culture

Smiley Culture

Smiley Culture, who died on March 15 aged 48, allegedly from self-inflicted stab wounds during a police drugs raid, produced two of the most influential reggae singles of the 1980s, notably Police Officer, a song about police harassment.

There is a strange feeling about this case. We are asked to believe a man was allowed to make a cup of tea on his own while he was being raided and a house was been combed for evidence in an alleged serious drugs case? Wouldn't it be dangerous to let a man boil hot water if he is being arrested alone in the kitchen? Wouldn't it be dangerous to allow a man to walk into a kitchen filled with knives and all sorts if he was being raided? Would experienced officers allow themselves and potential evidence be put at risk in this way? Would a suspect not be cuffed and taken out of the way as a matter of course? Also isn't it very hard almost impossible to stab yourself through your heart at close range to the point where the knife comes out the other side?



The supposedly autobiographical song ("Everytime me drive me car police a stop me superstar"), reached number 12 in the charts in 1984 and told of his being caught in possession of cannabis but being let off with a request for an autograph when the officer concerned recognised him as a reggae star. It earned Smiley Culture an invitation to meet the Queen who, he claimed, said she listened to his records at Buckingham Palace. He also appeared twice on Top of the Pops, the BBC apparently failing to understand the meaning of the term "ganja". The refrain, "Police officer no give me producer", a reference to a notice to produce driving documents at a police station, became a catchphrase on south London streets.

He was born David Emmanuel in 1962 to a Jamaican father and a Grenadian mother and grew up in Stockwell, south London. He attended Tulse Hill School where he acquired the nickname "Smiley" due to his method of chatting up girls – he would ask them for a smile. As reggae became popular he and his friends would practise "chatting" – rapping staccato lyrics over rhythm tracks.

In September last year, however, he appeared at Croydon magistrates' court, charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine. At the time of his death he was out on bail but due to face trial next Monday. The police raid on his home at Warlingham, Surrey, came after two kilos of cocaine were recovered from a drugs mule who had been apprehended trying to enter Britain – allegedly as part of a separate plot in which Smiley Culture was implicated.



There are a number of things about this tragic death which raise more questions than answers;

• For instance, why would experienced police officers let a person caught in a serious drug-related raid get up and stroll into the kitchen in order to “make a cup of tea”?

• Did David really stab himself in the heart so hard that it penetrated right through his body and came through the other side? Does this seem likely?

• Would the calculated risk of a drug-related potential prison sentence drive a person, described by those that knew him best as calculating, very calm and pleasant really drive him to such a brutal suicide?

• Why are anonymous police sources engaging in a spinning exercise by telling the press he committed suicide when the family of a man (who died in police custody) has not even had their questions answered and the matter is more properly answered by a Coroner’s Court?


The house at Warlingham, Surrey, where David Emmanuel died

Whilst the unexpected can always happen, both those who have been subjected to police raids and actual police officers agree that it sounds at best strange and certainly contrary to procedure for officers to let a person pop out of the room – unsupervised - to make a cup of tea, during a drug bust.

There are very serious questions that require clear and loud answers. This is not to prejudice the result of an IPCC and Coroner's enquiry for people under the influence of drugs (if that is the case) can do strange things. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating events at Emmanuel's house and for the sake of public confidence it needs to fully answer these worrying questions. This is not an isolated incident; no fewer than 104 black and ethnic minority people have died in police custody in the past 16 years.

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