The platinum-selling reggae band UB40 are all about having a good time. “When we play a gig, it’s about music and dancing; it’s about singing along and enjoying yourself,” says founding drummer Jimmy Brown, a big grin spread across his face. “We’re about having a party.”
It might sound odd to anyone familiar with reggae’s deep political roots or even UB40’s back catalogue. The Birmingham-born band’s first single “King” (1980) was a sulphurous censure of American racism written a decade or so after the assassination of Martin Luther King; it went to No 4 in the UK charts, becoming the first ever single to broach the Top 10 without the support of a major record label. Theirs was a sound driven by a powerful alchemy of protest and groove – voices of dissent set to the rolling, mid-tempo lope of 1970s reggae. Even their moniker, a reference to the unemployment benefit form each had signed on leaving school without a job, was an indictment of Margaret Thatcher’s government.
