The DJ and musician, 64, on being black and
British, finding a scene, and why punk’s not dead
Jamaican people love country and western. My first musical memory is sitting at home with my dad, listening to incarnations of what would become reggae on his sound system. But as well as Prince Buster, and Toots and the Maytals, my dad loved things like Welcome to My World by Jim Reeves. It was the storytelling he could relate to.
I know the exact moment I wanted
music to be my life. I was 14 or 15, it was 1971, and I was watching the Who at the Young Vic in London. I went after school, in my uniform, and I could see the whites of Keith Moon’s eyes and Pete Townshend windmilling and that was it. I didn’t know what it was. But it opened a door that I wanted to step through.