♪♪ ♪♪ Man: I remember a time when, as young people, we knew what it was like to be wrapped in a warm embrace.

It was a feeling like no other.

♪♪ This is a story about our music and the way we were back in the '70s and '80s.

♪♪ We were the rebel generation.

Many of us came in the 1960s, while just as many were born here.

♪♪ What brought us together was reggae music from Jamaica, which gave us an identity.

With this music, we created our own unique genre that became known as Lovers Rock.

♪♪ Man: [ Chuckles ] Okay, people.

This is Lovers Rock.

Dig it.

♪♪ ♪ Remember when ♪ ♪ When we were young ♪ ♪ When we were young, girl ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ I watched you as you hurried by me ♪ ♪ Mm, baby ♪ ♪ On your way going to school ♪ Evans: Lovers Rock is significant because it was in our youth.

It came out of our youth.

It came out of... you know, a certain freedom that we got as we became older teenagers, being able to go out with a girl, having your money to go to a club, having money to go buy clothes.

You know, Lovers Rock was a style.

It was being in love.

I think it's a part of our expression of our dreams, our desires.

I mean, a lot of it's Lovers Rock.

See, it was about love, looking for love, losing love.

We were the first generation from the Caribbean who had gone to school here.

So it was about making a mark in a way.

I just love the way it makes me feel.

I'll relax.

Nothing matters.

It just makes me feel good.

Let's face it.

When you hear it, you say, "Ooh, where the men at?"

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ Hunnigale: Are you ready to roll the dice?

Okay.

♪ So come on and be, baby ♪ Listen.

♪ If I could give the world to you ♪ ♪ Heaven knows that I really would, now ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're like the morning sun that shines so bright ♪ ♪ In my life ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ So, girl, I bless the day that I met you ♪ ♪ Because I found my happiness in you ♪ ♪ I want you to know that my feelings are true ♪ ♪ Just for you ♪ Just, like, the recipe of reggae, of Jamaican music.

To me, Lovers Rock is the ingredients that's been put in by we here in the UK.

This is our contribution to the recipe of reggae.

It's a music, right, that speaks to the heart, the soul and the mind.

It's a language.

It's a way of life.

It's a culture.

And if I'm honest, right, it is a music that God gave us.

It's not just an industry, because if it was an industry, if it had been finished long time ago.

We don't have an industry.

It was part of reggae that had been missing.

I mean, everybody knew the reggae sound and they knew the roots, but that really catered for the men, you know?

The girls in England, they come to party and they want to hear some nice, lovely dub tunes that they can dance with the men, too.

You know what I mean?

And so it filled that market.

♪ I want you to be my baby ♪ ♪ Let me hear you say ♪ ♪ I want you to be my love ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ I want you to be my lady ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Want you to be my baby ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ I want you to be my lady ♪ ♪ Be my ♪ ♪ Won't you be my love?

♪ The thing about Lovers Rock is that it has that magical chemistry of bringing people together.

And once it brings people together... sometimes, you know -- because sometimes as a young man, you might not have the right words to say to the young lady.

You played a tune.

You play the tune... That's right.

Saturday night is [indistinct] again.

In terms of tush.

What?

And to me, it always seemed to have answers for every kind of solution, you know?

If you know he was dealing with a little dutty girl down the road and you know that your missus is gonna find out, it was "Sixth Street."

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

If you didn't -- If the girl really moved, you was hopelessly in love, you know?

And if she catch you, I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

There was different variations of music at the time, just like there's different variations of music now.

The only difference is, is that even man, even the wickedest man with the biggest scar, murderer, when him hear Lovers, he might look a girl for dance with, too.

It was quite significant, Lovers Rock, because it gave us a voice as young Black people in this country.

We were experiencing a lot of racism -- racism from school, racism by being stopped by the police -- and difficulties at home with our parents.

Our parents really didn't understand the system and what was going on.

So Lovers Rock was like an escape for us.

♪♪ Lovers Rock -- unique music history.

What made it supreme?

The dance.

What made the dance warm?

Hot?

The paraffin heater.

Not an ordinary heater.

This is an Aladdin G127 top of the range paraffin heater.

Many of you will remember it because before you went.

to that dance, you'd have to have your hair pressed into the heater.

Some of you before you even go to dance, you'd cook a little food, put pot on top.

And those of you that wanted to go out and your parents stopped you, this come in handy when you dash it [indistinct].

The days of Lovers Rock, man, it reminded me of when I felt romantic, when I felt love for the first time.

♪ Hopelessly in love ♪ That was Carol.

Yes, I'm hopelessly in love.

Black man won't sing about feeling hopelessly in love nowadays.

Nah, man.

All dem wanna do is just root up the girl, shoot up the girl.

Put them this way, put them that way.

It was about love, man.

It was about love.

It was about Black British people expressing themselves in a way we hadn't done before.

From the early '70s, Lovers Rock had been around because it was popular in blues dances and stuff like that.

I think what happened was that from Jamaica you weren't getting enough of those type of tunes coming out.

So something evolved over here to give people what they were actually needing for those dances.

♪♪ Really, I would say the first tune that really made a massive impact like that was Louisa Mark, "Caught You in a Lie."

♪♪ Snoopy: The first Lovers Rock record I really got into, even though it wasn't called at the time, was "Caught You in a Lie," Louisa Mark.

Was like the first record I heard when I was 16 that really sort of blew my socks off, really.

Bovell: "Caught You in a Lie" Lloydie Coxsone would sign on his sound system with that song by a singer called Robert Parker.

The intro of the song used to go... [ Vocalizing ] Well, I threw that out the window and came with... [ Vocalizing ] Right, which is something completely different.

Like, it was a new song.

♪♪ And then we got Louisa in to sing the tune.

♪♪ ♪ You ♪ ♪ Said she was your cousin ♪ ♪♪ ♪ But I ♪ ♪ I found out that she wasn't ♪ ♪ That she wasn't ♪ ♪ Two cousins never kiss, no, no ♪ Then Lloydie promoted it heavily on his sound system, and because the leading sound system in Europe was playing that as a kind of like -- a new hot shot and an exclusive dubplate, the audiences got to hear of it and you got to like it.

♪♪ Henry: I remember being in Four Aces Club.

I believe it was Coxsone and Count Shelly, 'cause Shelly was a resident.

I believe it was in 1974.

They was having the exclusive session.

And I remember Coxsone dropped that Louisa Mark's, and it just tore down that place.

I don't really think Shelly had a counter for it.

♪ I even went out of my way ♪ ♪ And treat you nice ♪ ♪ But it doesn't paid ♪ ♪ She wore my clothes ♪ Ife: The women that were singing were singing to us, and they were singing our song.

"I Caught You in a Lie," for example.

I know that we were just singing that song over and over and over because somebody in the group would have found their partner with somebody else.

And that was kind of devastating.

And the music was -- it was a healing -- had a healing element to it, so we could sing along to that and kind of feel better, go through the crying and then feel better through it.

♪♪ Rob.

Huh?

Brings back memories, don't it?

Oh, don't it?

Oh, wow.

Remember your first dance?

Mine was with a girl called Pauline.

She said, "Come here, Eddie.

Let me teach you."

And, oh, it was lovely.

It was so nice.

It was to "Side Show."

Barry Biggs.

♪ Let the side... ♪ You remember yours?

Yeah, but... What happened?

[ Sighs ] I don't want to talk about it.

Why?

No.

What happened, Rob?

Oh, she stopped me.

When?

When the dance finished?

No, no.

During the dance.

You danced with a girl and she stopped you in the middle of the dance?

What did you do?

Were you hurting her?

She said I was rubbing too fast.

Too fast?

Too -- you know?

Oh, no, bruv.

Let me show you how to do it properly.

Excuse me, Bridgett.

Sir?

Sir?

Sir?

Excuse me, sir.

You alright?

Yeah.

Let me show you something.

♪ Baby, baby ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Baby, baby ♪ Ed.

Hm?

Ed.

Hm?

Ed.

What?

You're not actually moving.

I know.

She is.

Oh.

♪♪ Man: From coast to coast, the sound of now!

♪♪ ♪♪ Huh!

Riley: By the '60s, we had sections of the white community embracing ska, so they grew up with Jamaican influences in the pop music boom.

♪♪ Move it!

Groove it!

By the '70s, when I was growing up, this first-generation Jamaican, we had kids at school, white kids at school, that was as familiar with reggae as we were because their parents were into ska.

So by the time we get to the late '70s, we have one and a half generation of Caribbeans and we have a community of white British who are very familiar with reggae.

So Lovers Rock, and that kind of came about late '70s, was a natural evolution for first-generation Caribbeans to take ownership.

By, say, '77... you had a few different people producing records in England, a few labels coming up that were, like, very active.

Dip was essentially the main label.

Bovell: Dennis Harris, the managing director of Dip Records, called me up and said he was building a studio and would I be interested in being the sound engineer and a kind of session musician and producer as well.

♪♪ Now, Dennis was looking for a name to represent what we were doing in that studio.

And Augustus Pablo had had a tune called "Lovers Rock."

And it was at that point that that tune was doing big things in the dance.

Right?

And, you know, that was one of the names just brandished around a little bit like all the other names.

And then he said, "Yeah, that's it.

That's it."

And then took out his thing and drew a heart with an arrow going through it and went, "That's going to be label!"

Kpiaye: I got a call from Dennis Harris at Dip Records saying that he'd set up a studio.

Would I come along as a house musician and do some producing?

And that's how I basically got into producing.

And that's where I met Dennis.

Dennis Bovell.

And his idea was to bring John and myself together to be a force that would produce a different sound because he knew about both our backgrounds.

And in fact, to get me into it, he said to me, "You know, Dennis," because I played the guitar as well.

He said, "You know, Dennis, no disrespect, but your guitar playing is lousy."

He said, "You're a great bass player.

I've got a guitar player.

If you hear him, he'll wipe the floor with you.

He'll show you up it," right?

So I was going, "Oh, yeah?

Bring him along then.

Let's have a look at him."

[ Chuckles ] And then one day he arranged the session where John was playing guitar and I was playing bass, and I was amazed.

I was like, "Wow, I'm never gonna be that good, so I might still stick to the bass."

Kofi: We were asked to come in and do an interview with a record company called Dip to do some backing vocals for T.T.

Ross.

She was released in a single call "Jealousy."

And we went in and we did some backing vocals for her and very excited about that and really enjoyed it.

And I think the interest grew once they heard the backing vocals.

Kpiaye: The first success I had as a producer was three girls called Brown Sugar.

They were very young.

There was one 15 I think.

One was 16.

And I produced a track with them called "I'm in Love with a Dreadlocks."

In fact, I wrote it, okay?

And it was a kind of -- it was an answer to a popular tune at the time, "Curly Locks" by Junior Byles.

And it was like an answer.

In them days, you know, you'd get a lot of these answer tunes.

He wanted us to do it.

I think he tried us all individually as lead vocals and then finally settled on Pauline.

♪ I'm in love with a dreadlocks ♪ ♪ I've never felt this way before ♪ That was the first tune to be released on the actual Lovers Rock label.

And the next two productions -- "Hello Stranger," "Black Pride" -- it was all number-one in the radio charts.

It was -- Didn't really actually hear anything more.

Wasn't told anything more.

I just remember being at school, that this time we had gone into the sixth form.

I had gone into the sixth form, and I remember one of my friends coming up and saying, "I heard your record on the radio this morning!"

I was like, "Eh?"

And she said, "I heard your record on the radio this morning -- "I'm in Love with a Dreadlocks.'"

And she goes, "I really like it!

It's a really great song!"

And I was like, "Okay.

It's released, then."

Yes, it was released and it wasn't long before it hit the number-one spot.

♪ Oh, Lord ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm in love with a dreadlocks ♪ ♪ I've never felt this way before ♪ And that kind of kicked off everybody talked about Lovers Rock, you know?

And I think people would go into record shops and say, "Is there anything new on the Lovers Rock label?"

And, you know, the guy would say, "Yes, they've got one tune, but we've also got a couple of other tunes that are in the Lovers Rock style," you know?

And from that, basically people began to refer to all those kind of genre as Lovers Rock.

We knew that we were creating something distinctively British, right?

It was our kind of local scene, right, where we were hoping one day to be as big as any other genre.

Something that was homegrown written, local musicians, right?

But melodies that could, you know, stand up alongside, you know, any of the great melodies.

What we was trying to do was... ...add more melodic content, you know, and put the rhythm track down and then we had keyboard lines, guitar riffs.

You know, little silence here and there.

A lot of vocal harmonies.

And that had the effect of softening the music, you know, making it much more laid back and more listenable, you know, in a sense, you know?

♪ Black is the color of my skin ♪ ♪ Black is the life that I live ♪ ♪ And I'm so proud to be ♪ MacGillivray: We started producing in the late '70s.

You had quite a few good English artists who'd evolved in their own right, some groups -- Tradition, The Investigators, as Chris was saying.

You had quite a few -- One Blood.

One Blood.

Some good female artists -- Janet Kay, Carroll Thompson, Louisa Mark, plenty of them.

So there was a whole scene going on.

There was a market.

There was a whole style associated with it of coded dressing.

It was like an alternative to the roots music that was getting all the media attention at the time.

The kind of young Black British thing.

Dawkins: ♪ You're my... ♪ ♪ Is there a place in your heart for me, little girl?

♪ ♪ Is there a place in your heart for me?

♪ Listen.

♪ Those fancy guys taking you places ♪ ♪ Pretty cars, phony faces ♪ ♪ Who are they?

♪ ♪ Who are they?

♪ ♪ Who are they?

♪ ♪ Who are they?

♪ ♪ So, hey, girl, what you doin'?

♪ ♪ Hey, girl, what you doin'?

♪ ♪ Hey, girl, what you doin' to me?

♪ ♪ What you doin' to me?

♪ Listen, girl.

Lovers Rock was actually the first genre of reggae I ever heard, ever, because I come from a place called Chester, which is a little city of north, and it has absolutely no reggae scene whatsoever or not many music scenes at all.

But the first song I ever heard of a reggae genre was "Silly Games" by Janet Kay.

My mum really loved Lovers Rock, and that's kind of what sucked me into the genre.

Dennis Bovell, who produced it, had invited me to the recording studio, and he was playing me loads of the new stuff he'd been working, and he'd written this song called "Silly Games," and he was really excited by the drumming.

Angus Gaye had done the drumming on it, and he was really excited by this new rhythm that he'd sort of come up with.

And Dennis sang me the song.

I said, "Oh, that's going to be such a big hit "when that comes out.

And you know, I said, "Who you going to get to sing it?"

And he said, "Oh, a singer, Janet Kay."

Kay: While I was in the studio recording "I Do Love You," I was having problems sorting out some of the harmonies and Dennis was helping me out.

At the end of the session, and he said to me, "Janet, I've got this song.

I want to play it to, and I want you to tell me if you're interested in recording it."

And it was the "Silly Games" tune.

I listened to it.

I thought, "It's alright."

So we made an arrangement to come to the studio and have a go at voicing it.

♪ I've been wanting you ♪ ♪ For so long, it's a shame ♪ Bovell: In the case of "Silly Games," I'd thought that the secret of changing reggae laid within the drum pattern because suddenly the drum pattern would change and then there'd be a new style.

And I thought, wouldn't it be nice to be able to grab the mantle, you know, away from Jamaica, as it were, with a new killer drum pattern, you know, with a, you know, with a nice tune with lots of harmonies and chord changes that were reminiscent of like, I don't know, pop things... but with the new beat?

♪ "How do you do?"

♪ ♪ Would you turn me away?

♪ Bovell: I went into the studio with "Drummie Zeb," played the drums, and I played the bass.

And I remember thinking at the time, when it goes to... ♪ Play your silly games ♪ ...he did this roll.

[ Imitating drums beating ] I thought, "What are you doing?"

You know, "I didn't want you to play that bit there.

I wanted you to keep it straight there."

And then I listened back to it and thought, "You know what?

It's quite magic," that roll in between the chorus thing.

And I thought, "We'll keep that in there.

When we were doing the record, it's like I can tell you every beat of the record, because from the day he started it to he finished it, I was always there.

Dennis made it.

Janet sang it.

I made it into a hit.

♪ "If he makes his move today ♪ ♪ I'll just pretend to be shocked" ♪ There was a new piano out called the Fender Rhodes.

It had a distinctive sound.

And until then, they hadn't really featured in reggae, you know?

So I drafted that in and had the sound of it right up front.

♪♪ All my productions until then had had a memorable introduction.

And then a friend had bought a synthesizer, Roland SH-2000.

And I was fiddling around with it and I came upon this sound that said "Strings."

Right?

It was like... [ Vocalizing ] I thought, "Yeah.

That's it."

And then because I had this really high note in it, I had to look for a singer who could scale that note.

And it was Janet.

♪ Games ♪ Listen!

Princeton, thank you!

Did the tune.

It circulated in the -- in the reggae scene for about six months.

And then it kind of just blew up the pop charts.

I was on holiday, actually.

I wasn't even in the country at the time when it got into the charts.

And I got a phone call from my mom saying, "They want you to come back to England."

I was like, "Come back where?

I'm on holiday."

It's the first time -- you know, I've just spent my money, gone on holiday.

It's the first time I've gone abroad.

Took me ages to get my passport sorted out.

"Come where?

What you mean?"

Anyway, when I got back, it was like probably about number 20 or 15.

They wanted me to do "Top of the Pops," and I was like, "Really?

Me?

'Top of the Pops'?"

So I thought, "Okay."

♪ I've been wanting you ♪ ♪ For so long, it's a shame ♪ ♪ Oh, baby ♪ ♪ Every time I hear your name ♪ I think it was number one for about six weeks.

Number five for five because number two.

on the national charts.

I didn't do any shows.

I didn't do any PAs.

The tune just kind of did its business on its own.

And I kind of feel now, looking back, that that's probably why, 30 years later, this tune is still being played because it wasn't something that was forced or, you know, people spent loads of money trying to make it a hit.

I don't think it was at that.

I think it was just something that people just loved the tune and people still like the tune.

At the moment, it's currently being used to advertise Vicks VapoRub in Italy.

♪♪ Hey, Glenda.

Hm?

You still going out with my boy?

What, like the guys I had when I was younger?

Yeah.

No.

I know you two was on along thing still.

I know.

So, what happened there?

You kind of grow out of it, though, you know what I mean?

I mean, I used to go after him.

My mom never knew for about five years.

You're joking.

Yeah.

You know, them days, you couldn't just, like, bring a man to your house.

Have you seen them now?

The young kids?

15, 13, kissing outside bus stops.

Yep, and they're kissing inside their moms' bedrooms.

In front of them.

No.

No, I could keep him -- keep him under lock.

Remember one time he'd bite me on my neck like, you know what I mean?

And the sun was blasting outside.

I had a polo neck and a scarf.

'Cause he'd bite you, yeah.

Yeah, my -- He didn't bite through it.

Like a rat.

I had to hide -- [ Imitating a rat ] No, I remember my first love.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What was it like?

What was it like?

Don't worry about it.

Don't remember it here now.

Nah, I remember it.

Yeah?

You're starting to sweat.

[ Chuckles ] Yeah.

♪ I'm gonna make you love ♪ ♪ Love me ♪ ♪ I'm going to make you care ♪ ♪ Care for me ♪ ♪ 'Cause you belong to me ♪ ♪ Nobody else ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Boy, I adore you ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You're mine ♪ ♪ My love is gentle ♪ ♪ You're unkind ♪ ♪ Another love like this ♪ ♪ You'll never find ♪ Lovers Rock in those days was my life.

It was in its fresh new stages then.

Actually, Lovers Rock in its new stages, so being a part of something that was just beginning... it was just, you know -- you just find that you put 100% into it anyway.

So all of my life, I mean, everything was -- was, you know, done around my music, around Lovers Rock.

This song here I wrote when I was 14 years old.

14 years old.

And you know what?

I was supposed to be in school.

Can you hear me?

I was supposed to be in school doing a maths lesson.

Instead, I was in the piano room writing this song.

14 years old.

And you know what?

All you guys made this my first number one, and I want to thank you.

Thank you very much.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪ I really do ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ I really do ♪ ♪ Boy ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ I need you ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ I need you ♪ There were a lot of feelings and a lot of issues that women needed to express musically.

And love was always something that was at the forefront of the Lovers Rock, you know, because obviously, it was a feeling of, you know, an affair, heartbroken, you know?

So I think women were quite dominant in the '70s and the '80s, and we still are.

We saw the Supremes and all the other hundreds of other girl groups that were about at that time, you know, which all stems from Motown.

And I think we saw the power that they had, and we wanted that.

Maybe not in the same genre, but in reggae music and... very much felt that, well, okay, if they can do it, so can we.

Thomas: The school that I went to, two the members of Brown Sugar also went there.

And I remember when they came out with "I'm in Love with a Dreadlocks," and I remember them walking around singing it.

And at that time I didn't think, "Yeah, I want to be a singer," but it highlighted that there was a possibility that there was that opportunity for us if we wanted to become singers, there was the avenue, and that's what it highlighted for me as being our music.

♪ Hey, hey ♪ ♪ Trouble seeing ♪ ♪ Trouble ♪ ♪ Ooh, I have visions of you ♪ ♪ Visions of, visions of you ♪ ♪ I have trouble, trouble seeing ♪ ♪ Trouble ♪ ♪ You control my will to ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Take a bow if you want to ♪ ♪ I still can't get myself together ♪ ♪ No, no, no, no, no, no ♪ ♪ No kind of way ♪ From when I was about seven I started singing with my father, doing African music in the universities and the colleges.

That was when the seed was planted.

But I went professional about 13, and I used to be support for some of these groups like Bay City Rollers.

I was a fan.

[ Chuckles ] Gary Glitter.

Then there was a talent competition which John D, this deejay from Piccadilly Radio, had put on.

And my friends, they talked me into doing this.

Won it, to my surprise.

After winning it, I had to go and do an audition, because that was part of the prize, with this all-male group.

And that was really fantastic because there was I, doing all these clubs that I'd never done before because I used to do pubs, you know, and most people were drinking, and they'd go, "Oh, she's got a lovely voice."

But this was like people eating their dinner now.

[ Laughs ] So a step up.

Through that, they introduced me to a bigger world, which was London, at that time from the north.

So we've come down to a club called Gulliver's, right?

Now, that was an experience because Gulliver's was like the elite club where all the artists, right, from anywhere in the world that had come to do "Top of the Pops," that's where they would go to have a nice drink and celebrate their TV whatever.

Anyway, I was the act for that night.

♪ You made a new girl of me, now I feel heavenly ♪ I was there performing, and there was three artists that I did recognize, which was Smokey Robinson, Hot Chocolate.

And although I didn't know a lot about Boney M., I recognized them.

♪♪ And I remember this man, Frank Farian, who was the mentor, coming down to talk to me.

So as a female, you're just not interested, and you just make him know.

So I kind of sent him on his way.

Then two Jamaicans -- Livingston Wright and... Lasel James.

And Lasel James is the one who actually introduced me to Lloyd Charmers, which is the beginning of my Lovers Rock career.

But at that time, he was trying to explain to me about this white man, this German man called Frank Farian, who was very much interested in me as a singer.

And I was like, "Okay."

I finally understood then.

And they were saying, "No, you know, Frank Farian really likes your voice.

He wants you to do your own show before Boney M. and then do backing vocals with Boney M." So I joined Boney M., and that was the beginning really of my international reggae career, because even though they were pop music, the genre was reggae.

♪ Spellbound ♪ ♪ Sugar, you got me, you got me ♪ ♪ You got me, you got me spellbound ♪ ♪ Hooked, spell on my mind ♪ ♪ Hooked, spell on my mind ♪ ♪ You put a spell, put a spell on me ♪ ♪ Yeah, can't you see?

♪ ♪ You must have put a spell on my mind ♪ ♪ Can't you see?

♪ ♪ You must have put a spell on my mind ♪ ♪ You got me going crazy, baby ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Oh, you got a spell on my mind ♪ ♪ Spell on my mind ♪ ♪ Spell on my mind ♪ I think women singing Lovers Rock was important because you knew they were talking about your stuff.

You know, when Louisa Mark says... ♪ I know you're having an affair ♪ ...that is for us to go... ♪ And I know who ♪ ...and all our stuff was coming up.

So the women were representing our story.

And so when the men sang their versions and you're thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Whatever.

We've got sisters singing our songs."

And it felt like there was a majority of sisters that were.

It was probably a lot of women at the time singing Lovers Rock.

I think there was more men singers than there were women.

It's just the women tuned in more kind of like, you know?

You know, "you hurt me" and "why you leave me?"

And that kind of something there.

You know, they were bitter.

[ Laughter ] Serious!

There were bitter, man!

What we were experiencing is first love.

We were teenagers.

Nobody explained to us what love was, what to expect from men.

And really, it was first love and all the lovely things about it.

We were completely engulfed in all of that.

You couldn't really see any negatives until after a while.

And then when that happened, Lovers Rock seemed to become a solution for that, too.

There was nothing wrong with that genre and its predominance of women or women, you know, dominating that genre.

There's nothing wrong with that.

And it was acceptable.

And for most of us, it was that, you know, again, it was almost like a kind of coping mechanism.

You'd wait for that to come on.

So as much as he loved the deejaying and the hardcore and the dub, you would wait for that.

You know, you'd wait for that to come on.

And that would be -- it's -- it's cathartic.

It's a healing experience for you.

And to have a woman's dulcet tones accompanying it, how can it be better?

♪ Sha-la-la, la-la-la, la-la ♪ ♪ La-la ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Sha-la-la, la-la-la, la-la ♪ ♪ La-la ♪ ♪♪ ♪ You made my life such a paradise ♪ ♪♪ ♪ You make it so real to me, boy ♪ ♪ And every time I think of it ♪ ♪ That's when you're so close to me ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Our love grows more and more when we're together ♪ ♪ Although it's like a dream, you make it reality ♪ ♪ Sometimes I sit down and I wonder ♪ See, them songs weren't good really, 'cause, you see, what happened, you sit down and you wonder and you think, "When he comes, I want to kill him."

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

Some of them songs kind of get you -- you know, enough people get [indistinct] I remember my first love.

You had enough, though.

No, no, no, no, no, no, It's one girl.

My first love.

She was a tomboy.

But I remember the father, right?

He frightened me.

Come up on the balcony.

You know, I was in the state, and I'd come up on the balcony.

Father went, "Hehe, who are you?"

I said, "I'm Wayne."

"Oh, you is Wayne?"

And he looked at me like that.

He knew about you.

Yeah.

She talked, you know what I mean?

He said, "Alright, inside."

When I went in there, the brothers are sitting there and the mom's like, "What's your intentions?

You're going to marry my daughter?

I hope you nuh have her all night one of them [indistinct]."

"No, Mrs. Brown.

Of course everything's above board."

You know what I mean?

Eight years.

Eight years we was together.

My first love.

♪♪ Henry: Reggae dancehall, reggae music was central to our identity as Black youth.

Central.

Boys, girls, men, women.

And what used to happen in the dances, why they were central, was they would feature sound systems at various levels of the evolution or progression.

Most of us were involved in sound.

We used to acquire Tannoy's and things from schools.

You know, I'm too big for you to prosecute me now, mate.

But we used to do that and build up our little sounds.

So for instance, in the week we would go to small youth clubs maybe on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, and you might have three little youth sounds competing with each other with the who's got the latest commercial tune, 'cause we never really had money to get specials and stuff like that.

But on a Friday to Sunday, you would go out in a big sounds like Shaka and Neville the Enchanter, Coxsone, any of those big sounds.

♪♪ See, I was maybe a specific part of that growing up because we didn't have nowhere -- we had the youth club then, but we had no entertainment, so we had to create our own entertainment.

I mean, the house parties was how you used to socialize because at the time the streets weren't safe, you know, to socialize, to go to the pub.

It wasn't -- it was a no-no.

You couldn't go to the pub.

That was for English people.

You had to socialize amongst yourself.

And the only way to do that was in house.

And obviously you couldn't put it on one person to have a party every week, so you kind of... made it so that everyone had it all in turns.

which ended up in the blues parties.

The significant the sound system back then was to do what the deejays are doing now, what radio disc jockeys and what the pirate stations are doing for reggae music.

This is what sound system used to do.

The producers used to make the music in Jamaica, and they would send it over here and give it to people like Festus and Lloydie for them to play on the sound system as dubplates, as exclusive dubplates that only that sound system could play at the time to promote the song, to test the ground, to see whether or not, you know, that this song would be a hit amongst the patrons or whether the selectors would really play it as a sound system.

So that was the purpose for it.

For us, I think it was the training ground, which was where we got to learn, really learn how to present yourself to the people because you had to, because if you didn't, they're going to let you know, you know what I mean, right away that, you know what?

That lyric, what you're saying, it's not happening or you're off the rhythm.

You know, you're not sitting on the rhythm.

You need to stop that and come again.

And your brethren them's gonna tell you that.

They're not going to let you fill your head with some force, kind of like, "well, okay, then no matter what, oh, it's Tippa, so whatever he does is good."

It's not like that.

We start playing sound system and stuff like that, and then we decided to, you know, follow in the footsteps of people like Ira, Yurah, Jazz Born all of dem, and we used to flip the B side and deejay and chat and so forth.

And then we'd start singing and we'd get a hurray and a hurray and the people would say, "Yo, yo, yo."

And, you know, it just kind of inspired me to continue to do it.

♪♪ ♪♪ MacGillivray: At that time, the reggae business was a nice, healthy, independent business because you had a network of independent shops that would buy the tunes, loads of different sounds that crave new tunes every week.

So if you hit it right, you didn't actually need radio play.

The sounds would promote your tunes.

At that time, I had two shops as Dub Vendor, and we could kind of work out the sort of music it was likely to sell.

But if you got a few good sound guys in the shop buying and they didn't buy the tunes that you put out, that way you knew those tunes weren't going anywhere.

So, you know, you couldn't get it right.

It wasn't infallible.

We saw the emergence of sound systems, which specialized in Lovers Rock.

That was something new.

People like Sir Lloyd's, you know, and Anthony Brightly and so on.

These were people who recognized that Lovers Rock was more inclusive than other forms of reggae music.

And we saw that trend hosting Lovers Rock nights, sound systems, singers and so on.

And a lot of talent came out of the sound systems.

Lloyd Brown came out of Jah Marcus in East London.

Mike Anthony came from Vikings in South London.

Maxi Priest and Roger Robin from Saxon.

So the sound systems were very important in ensuring that conveyor belt of talent kept going throughout the '80s and into the '90s.

Saxon just kind of took off and it kind of just exploded and we started to travel all over the country.

And then the tapes, them started to circle to New York, to -- into Europe.

And then because of that, now we started to go abroad and then it started to escalate and then labels then became interested.

And Maxi got signed to Virgin.

Levi got signed Island, and Tippa Irie, Colonel, Sandy, Rusty, we all went to Greensleeves.

♪ Hello, darlin' ♪ ♪ Hello, good-lookin' ♪ "Hello Darling" is my biggest pop tune, if you like.

That went to number one.

♪ I was out walking ♪ ♪ With a young girl, I will seeking ♪ ♪ I see a young girl, she started smiling ♪ One of the terms that have evolved over the last kind of three -- three decades when I think about it is a tone-based culture.

And really what we're talking about is that it's the sound of the music.

Reggae had a bottom end, we used to say.

If you can't feel it, it's not really happening.

The bass was prominent.

In the early '70s going into the '80s, this was uniquely a Jamaican sound.

In America and most of the funk, R&B stuff that was coming out, was mid-range.

It was -- It was built or mixed specifically for radio.

In the UK, we weren't on radio anyway, so it didn't make any difference.

So we're mixing for the sound system.

It must sound good on the sound on big speakers.

It must move you physically.

Now, over the years we've assimilated, we've evolved into different formats and you can follow that culture of focusing on the bass within production.

And one way of identifying this history and this contribution to music in the UK is looking at the genre's that directly linked to sound system culture, which has this bass attached to it.

We have the deejay which comes out of Jamaicanism, which is now a popular part of British culture.

We have the remix a lot.

Our current producers will talk about the remix without recognizing the origins.

When I started to deejay on Diamonds (a girl's best friend), and Diamonds (a girl's best friend) was a very significant sound for the promotion of Lovers.

The reason why they were Diamonds (a girl's best friend) is 'cause they had the most women following them I think for any sound I was affiliated with, and their audience was probably 70% women quite easily most of the time.

Because they would play a lot of the Lovers and, you know, the soul and funky tunes and that.

You could know by certain people who, if they were sound girls, they were the boyfriends of the sound.

They had a certain behavior in the inner party that was, like, untouchable, because we actually came with the sound.

The sound meant something, you know what I mean?

We're here till the end.

The bitter end.

We'll sit outside when the boxes are coming out, and we are part of that whole movement.

So they were that kind of hierarchy in terms of girls.

And I remember I did this lyrics... and this ain't politically correct, yeah?

It's not slant, but you know, I'm gonna try and remember it.

You want me to go for it?

Right.

I'm going to try and remember it.

If not, I'll give you something else.

But it went something...

It went... ♪ Nuff ready ♪ ♪ Diamond posse said that Lesley ♪ ♪ Is a queer, true me not ♪ ♪ Dance with girls mi only stand up and stare ♪ ♪ So mi go fi rub down a big fat beef named Clair ♪ ♪ Benji 'fraid of di girl ♪ ♪ True something him hear ♪ ♪ How she hold man tighter than a grizzly bear ♪ ♪ How she bend up Dezzy beat ♪ ♪ And rub her wet and pubic hair ♪ ♪ But true mi is a man ♪ ♪ Seh mi not easy fi scare ♪ ♪ When Benji play di riddim ♪ ♪ That's when me draw near ♪ ♪ She fling her hand dem round me shoulder ♪ ♪ Mi put mi hand dem pon her rear ♪ ♪ When she fling the first whine ♪ ♪ Mi believe what Benji hear ♪ ♪ She take me down slow ♪ ♪ She take me down so low ♪ ♪ That if you never know ♪ ♪ You woulda swear mi disappear ♪ ♪ Di way mi under pressure ♪ ♪ Man mi trousers 'bout to tear ♪ ♪ I try fi come up ♪ ♪ She just a hold mi down there ♪ ♪ Mi pray to massah God ♪ ♪ Fi make mi life get spare ♪ ♪ Mi a wonder when di woman ♪ ♪ Make me come back up for air ♪ ♪ Seh as the dance done ♪ ♪ Mi run, go sit down pon a chair ♪ ♪ I wipe the sweat, I catch mi breath ♪ ♪ Mi drink a cold beer ♪ ♪ Next thing the girl come up ♪ ♪ And she a whisper in mi ear ♪ ♪ You're di first man mi ever rubbed on ♪ ♪ And no feel him hardware ♪ So that's what we used to do, stuff like that.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Roots: Back then, it was a terrible time.

♪♪ It was the time of the sus laws.

And for those who don't know the sus laws, it was just saying that if you were a black man, then all you had to do to be suspicious was to just have black skin.

You didn't need to commit the crime.

You didn't didn't do anything, you know?

And this was the backdrop, you know, that the music was coming against.

So I grew up in that time, when your search for identity was very difficult, because there you are trying to find truth and right, when the system is so much fighting against you.

I couldn't count, but I can remember how many times I had fights with white boys for offering me up.

Getting off busses to help black youths who I saw getting beat up by white boys or white men, defending black sisters who were being accosted and abused by white men.

Harris-German: Racism was about a feeling then.

I remember being in school, one particular teacher told us, I don't know if you're familiar with the theme song for "Hawaii Five-O."

[ Singing theme ] We all used to rock our chairs back in class.

We were youngsters, were messing about, and we used to knock it out on the chairs.

And this particular afternoon, we had a particular teacher, as she came in and she sort of bellowed, "Take your jungle drums back to the jungle!"

We were like, "What's she talking about?"

We were born in Harlesden.

What jungle?

We don't know.

Our parents were from the Caribbean or Africa, but at the time, predominantly the Caribbean.

We didn't know, but we knew what she said was wrong, but we didn't have any way to take that?

I think '81 is the most, 1981 is the most significant date in the post-World-War-II history of the Black experience in Britain.

♪♪ To begin with, on January the 17th, a young girl called Yvonne Ruddock was celebrating her 16th birthday at 439 New Cross Road in southeast London when some racists, some fascists threw an incendiary device through the window of the house, which resulted in a fire in which 13 young blacks lost their lives and 26 were seriously injured.

Within less than 48 hours, without having carried out any forensic investigation, the police dismissed completely out of hand that it could have been a racist arson attack.

They tried to make out it was black-on-black violence.

♪♪ But in spite of that, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee mobilized 20,000 people to protest the way the authorities had dealt with the matter.

♪♪ Then in April of that year, 1981, the police launched in Brixton something called Operation Swamp 81, where they went around harassing and intimidating, stopping and searching black people going about their everyday, lawful business.

Well, that was it.

There was explosions.

There was huge riots in Brixton, and in nearly every other major inner city area in England.

♪♪ Roots: The riots really consolidated the fact that we were alone, that we couldn't rely upon the system or we couldn't rely upon, you know, the police and those that were in charge to kind of come to them with our problems and hoping that they would help us.

We knew we had to rely upon ourselves.

But it was a significant turning point.

It was the first watershed moment, you know, of post-World-War-II history, because it made the state sit up and take note of the fact that black people in this country had some power.

In terms of an identity, we were trying to, on one hand, assimilate our Jamaicaness, whilst being located in Britain.

At the same time, assimilate our Britishness, having no real firsthand knowledge of the Caribbean.

So that dilemma fed through to trying to be creative in what you said, how you expressed yourself, your friends, even when trying to get a job.

♪ See, see, see, my back is against the wall ♪ ♪ Try as they may, you cannot get me to fall ♪ ♪ My desire, I'm going to stand tall ♪ ♪ No matter all the traffic, we not fall ♪ ♪ We'll find a way to end it all ♪ It took us a while to realize that at the point we're just almost accepting our Britishness, realizing that we're totally being ostracized from, rejected from all those things we was aspiring to be.

We were not equal.

We're the generation that had to fight.

♪ Got to find a way, got to find a way ♪ ♪ Got to find a way, got to find a way ♪ ♪ Gotta find a way to get where I've got to go ♪ ♪ Gotta find a way to show what I've got to show ♪ ♪ I gotta find a way ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Baby, I need some time ♪ ♪ To consider ♪ ♪ If I'm to accept your offer ♪ You know what I used to like doing?

When we had a dance to go to, the whole process of getting ready, getting down to Derek Munn's in Brixton, buying my slacks, you know what I mean?

Buying my ballet shoes, you know what I mean?

My Diamond socks.

Remember them little, silky socks?

Them we used to wear?

Cheap socks.

They wasn't cheap socks.

They were cheap.

They were very expensive.

No, you got to go to Scotch House, proper place.

Scotch House?

You've got to go to market and buy your socks.

I remember Scotch House.

Used to buy it from a tailor's, all my clothes.

Dead on, no.

In the barber shop.

Getting my afro done.

Oh, did you have afro?

My afro was bigger than Michael Jackson's.

Not now, though.

Oh, for God's sake.

I lost a bit of it now.

I knew about Lovers Rock, but I could only practice with my bedroom door.

We had to make tapes for it.

[ Laughs ] The bedroom door, the side.

You know, you put the door like this in your chest so you just -- you hold the two handle and you -- You have to be really skinny to do that.

That's right, but that was his situation.

Sometimes I get stuck in the keyhole, but that's another story.

We were dating, because we had a routine.

You go into a club, you meet a guy, you go out with him, and before you know him, he's your boyfriend.

And a lot of those marriages or relationships are still going today.

It was our whole life.

You know, we were intoxicated with it because it was, as I said, we can -- we can come -- we're going to -- from Friday, you know, we used to go -- and from a club, we'd go to a blues.

You know, we'd go -- we'd -- we'd... You know, sometimes the party'd be so crisp, we'd leave in the morning.

[ Stammers ] We'd be leaving at 3:00 in the afternoon.

I really think it's the search for identity, you know, 'cause we here have been listening to Jamaican music, you know, as the expats, you know, as people from Jamaica, you know, made the music popular by playing it into the dancehall.

And then the UK's input is to take it from the dancehall into the house parties.

♪♪ People were in houses having parties and having this very close intimacy.

♪♪ At the time, the popular dance was the rub, or the scrub, as it was then.

And I think this is the catalyst that really made the music popular, because of these house parties where it was very intimate, very steamy.

It would be very passionate in this room.

Couples would be locked together for hours and hours listening to songs that was saying to you about making love and preparing you for actually going home, you know, afterwards with your loved ones.

The thing about the first dance, yeah, is you're not quite sure what dance you're going to do.

You know?

There's the two-two step, two-two step.

There's the one step, one step.

Then there's the grind and the go-down and the... and the come-up.

Yeah, my first dance lives with me to this day, as does my 26-year-old daughter.

I think the first-dance experience -- First of all, it was after a lot of rehearsals, you know, when you had teddy bears and pillows where you would, you know, work out the dance.

First you'd work out the pull, and then you'd turn and get positioned.

And then you had to have a very innocent, like, "I'm not quite sure if I can scrub.

I'll try."

And then you'd do the swing and the whatever, then the music will kick in, and you think, "This is -- We have to slow it down."

And your first dance, it just felt like big-people business, that big people did that.

And it was quite scary, because that dance is quite an intimate dance, when you think about it.

When you think about walking into a dark room and music's playing, you can't see any faces, somebody squeezes your elbow, turns you around, and starts rubbing in front of you.

I mean, when you say it like that, you just think, "What?"

And that's standard.

And, you know, when it was rea-- the dance was really sweet and decide to go up and down and dip and swing and come back, and you think, "Oh, my God, I wonder how you see me."

You would be standing and doing your little two-step waiting for somebody to ask you for a dance.

And if they didn't, you mouth would be pushed up.

But you'd be watching your friend in the corner going up and down the wall, and you'd be just vexed until somebody'd touch your elbow, and you'd think... And get sweet, and you turned into your dance, and you're off, and you're in your own little zone, and you're -- you're gone.

♪♪ ♪ If I had the key to the world ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Girl, I'd give you everything ♪ ♪♪ ♪ If I had the key to your heart ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Girl, I'd make a fire start ♪ ♪ And I'd give you love ♪ ♪♪ Ife: Because the music was so rhythmic, you were getting into a sort of up-and-down movement, and what that meant is that your energies -- my energy and that other person's energy -- was intermixing.

And that created a kind of -- a symbiosis, because you're kind of rhythmic, going forward and backward, and also, that was activating your lower chakra.

I don't know if people know what chakra is, and a chakra is energy points in your body.

And the lower chakra, that deals with sexuality and sensualness.

And what was happening is that people were getting aroused in the dance.

Sometimes you'd get a guy, and it's almost like he was getting turned on, and you'd think, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Connect.

Connect again.

What's going on here?"

Do you know what I mean?

"We're not just going to do this.

I don't know your name."

I remember, I didn't move much.

I was held up against the wall.

I ain't going to tell you what happened, but I did jerk a lot uncontrollably against that wall.

Something happened.

So with the right man and the right music and the right place, yeah.

First time I actually danced with a girl, it was lovely, 'cause I'm watching everybody else, I'm thinking, "Yeah, that's how you do it."

I wanted to do the dip.

So I didn't actually jump in and try and learn first.

So I tried to dip her.

You know, we'd actually go down like this.

You'd go all the way down.

And you're feeling good about yourself 'cause you've made it, your legs haven't locked together, and then I look up and I realize that she hasn't come down with me.

She's looking down at me like, "What are you doing, you idiot?"

And then she steps one little step back, and you topple over, and then after that, you learn to only dip with the girl.

♪♪ ♪ You know, lady ♪ ♪♪ ♪ My love, ohhhh ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Is just the key ♪ Patten: Basically, the way in which you dance it, it was to make a figure-of-eight motion, so the pelvis moves in a figure-of-eight motion.

And the idea, as a man, you would dance with a woman so that when you made the first contact, it becomes one continuous motion where you never actually separate, the pelvis never come from each other.

They continuously rub into each other and kind of... What we would say -- You'd find every corner.

So it was -- When you see it happening, or when you are dancing and you have somebody who dance well, it's like a well-greased car engine when it just taking over and you don't hear a sound.

That was what Lovers Rock was really like.

It's amazing when you really think about it, you know?

You know, you go to a party in Leeds, and you dance with somebody you don't know from Adams.

You don't know if they're pretty or ugly or -- you don't know.

You know, sometimes, the place would be dark.

You don't know what they look like.

But you just want to dance.

[ Laughs ] You know what I mean?

After, you'd say, "Oh, my God!

I did not know you were..." [ Laughs ] You know what I mean?

You could have that reaction.

But, you know, you may have enjoyed a dance.

Sometime the light will turn on, and you see this guy, ugly, looking at you.

You -- "Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

Sorry about that!

Were we scrubbing?

I'm sorry.

My bad."

And then you'd be outside and he'd be, like, following you, like, "So -- So, what?

Can we -- can we...?"

And you're like, "No, no, no, no.

Listen.

Let me break it down.

What was going on in there was in the dark, so let's just leave it there, yeah?"

And you could feel sorry for them, because you would do that intimate dance for half the dance, so therefore, he saw love.

And then we saw the lights.

And we had to stop.

[ Laughs ] [ Drumming ] Patten: The dance itself -- When you look at the origins of it, it's originated from Africa, because, you know, within Africa, there are many dances where you can see similarities in terms of how they use the pelvis.

[ Drumming continues ] The way they move the pelvis, if it's slowed down and you take -- move the body from the 45-degree angle and straighten it up, then it's almost like if -- it can reproduce Lovers Rock.

[ Woman singing indistinctly ] But the direct link is coming from out of the Caribbean.

[ Singing continues ] [ Fast-paced drumming ] So, again, when it's slowed down, you see that the underlying principle within the rub is coming from all of those things.

Dancing was different.

As I told you, there was rubbing and there was scrubbing.

Yeah.

Which one did you do?

I did any of them, depending how I felt.

Did you -- Could you rub them?

Of course I could rub.

You wanna try it?

No, but you wanna have a go?

No.

You sure?

No.

You sure?

No.

See, no one needs to dance with a man, yeah, and a man used to feel like, you know, you know what I mean, coming to -- The singing would be the singing of the song, and then it'd come to the dub wire... [ Both imitating bassline ] And then you'd get a bit closer, and there's a -- Did you used to feel anything?

All the time!

Did you feel good at it?

No.

Wha-- Okay.

No, you're joking.

♪♪ Ahh!

Rob, you know, back in the day, I was shy.

What do you mean?

Scared to ask a girl for a dance, mate.

Okay?

Me?

What?

You see -- [ Scoffs ] How did you ask?

This is how I asked a girl for a dance.

I just did my bad-man walk.

No, bruv.

You didn't walk to a girl to ask her for a dance.

You have to kind of work your way next to her, so if she turns you down, nobody never see, and you never get shamed.

No, no, no, no, no.

Bad-man walk 20 yards... To get turned down.

Not to get turned down.

Then, as you get closer, just... [ Chuckles ] And then just get like a squeeze on the elbow.

What?

You don't ask?

No, I don't.

"Excuse me, miss.

May I have the pleasure of this dance?"

[ Yawns ] Sorry, sorry.

What did you say?

It's like they tell you, that -- that hugging instills confidence.

You know, I didn't even know this.

This is what -- This is what -- You know, this is what -- Psychologists say that, that when a child is hugging and so forth throughout their, you know, their upbringing and so forth, it -- it instills confidence in the child.

I didn't even know this.

And we used to go and get a hug every weekend.

You know what I mean?

Every weekend, we used to go and get a hug, unbeknownst to us.

You know, and -- and -- and you felt good if you had a dance.

You felt nice if you had it, and especially if you found a partner that you and her gelled, you know?

If you found a partner -- And, sometimes, it may not lead to anything.

It may not lead to anything, but the fact that you had a wicked dance -- And sometimes you just glued to that partner that you just -- that you -- your chemistries link.

You just glued there and just go about your business... at the end of the night, you know?

And Lovers Rock... That's Lovers Rock to me.

You can't have Lovers Rock with one person.

♪ Stand up, stop, stand up ♪ ♪ Stand up, stop, stand up ♪ ♪ Stand up, stop, stand up ♪ ♪ Stand up, stop, stand up ♪ ♪ I'm so sorry ♪ ♪ I didn't mean to make you ♪ ♪ I'm so sorry ♪ ♪ I didn't mean to make you cry ♪ ♪ Oh, no ♪ ♪ Whoa, no ♪ ♪ Whoa, no, no, no, no, no ♪ ♪ No, no, no ♪ ♪♪ ♪ It was just, you didn't understand me ♪ ♪ So you weren't sure how to love me ♪ ♪ It's not your fault, it's all mine ♪ ♪ I guess I was a little mixed up inside ♪ ♪ I'm so sorry ♪ ♪ I didn't mean to make you cry ♪ ♪ Oh, no ♪ ♪ Whoa, no ♪ ♪ Oh, no, no, no, no, no ♪ ♪ No, no, no ♪ Within the context of British Black music, reggae, I would argue, is the trunk, is the main conduit through which we as British, be it Black, pink with purple spots, whoever in the UK, experiences Black music.

The media often would have us think that the American Black music influence is more powerful than the Caribbean Black music influence.

But truth about it is, this is simply not the case.

In the '70s in particular, you have the BBC, largely, with the national Radio 1, then you have the local stations.

They have the Capital Radio, supposed to be independent.

The problem is, every time you go to get a record played, they will try to pigeonhole you and say, "Well, look, we don't play that kind -- What is it, reggae?

Oh, we don't play reggae.

You know, we don't play that type of stuff, but we have a program that could do it," and they would, like, try to shunt you off.

The program is more or less on the local network with maybe a couple thousand listeners or something like that.

To try and get, you know, what we thought were our more commercial tunes played by mainstream radio was -- it was just impossible.

They always came up with some sort of excuse not to play the records when you took them up there.

And in the end, we just sort of more or less gave up, didn't we?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's true of a lot of other -- a lot of other good productions from the time and stuff that were bigger hits than any of the stuff that we had at the time.

Only a handful actually made it into the national charts.

I mean, obviously, "Silly Games" is the exception, with Janet Kay.

Trevor Walters had his big tune.

But there were other things with Carroll Thompson that sold phenomenal amounts of records... And Jean Adebambo.

Jean Adebambo.

...that never registered on the charts.

And they should have been national chart hits, if the radio had played some of those tunes.

Yeah, they would've crossed over.

They would've crossed over easily, easily.

Yeah, yeah.

And as well you know, from working in the shop, you'd see the kind of audience that this stuff had.

And it wasn't strictly a West Indian audience at that time.

It transcended that, because kids would go to school with other kids, they'd hear it, they'd like it, they'd come in and buy it.

And it was just never that available for them, you know, outside of London to Birmingham, probably, to actually access the stuff.

Perhaps the reason that it didn't reach the pinnacle that it needed to -- one, we weren't selling the records in vast units on a weekly basis.

They were sold over a period, say, of six months, because -- like the Janet Kay track or the -- Louisa Mark's track or a Peter Hunnigale track.

Unlike the pop music scene, where a lot of units will shift in the first seven days in order for it to qualify to go into the charts, reggae records probably sold more in units over a longer period of time, but it wouldn't get the recognition of entering a chart for two reasons.

One, in order for you to get into that record, the national charts, you would have to have gone through one of those -- How can I put it?

-- chart return shops.

Now, there weren't a lot of reggae companies selling to those chart return shops, and so a lot of the reggae record stores weren't tapped into those chart return figures.

And so you could sell a vast quantity of record in a local record shop around there, but because it wasn't linked to the -- the counting units, you don't get registered as having sold those records, and therefore you don't get onto the radar of then getting onto the BBC playlist or then getting across -- across the nation.

To us as independent artists, to get your name, or the mechanics of how the industry works -- you know, the money, the visual, all of those things that it takes to make a successful song and a successful artist -- we wasn't getting that.

And that is the reason why.

And we were lucky that we had some forthright people who decided to bring in ska, blue beat, and reggae in the way that they did.

Not through the "industry," but through the back door, which gave us the same knowledge.

"Well, we've always come through the back door.

Let's make our own labels and come through the back door."

That's how we did it.

But we are hard workers.

We will take the music and go and perform it in your local bar, in your local club, at someone's birthday bash, and then people see you, and they booked you.

♪♪ ♪ Why don't you stop ♪ ♪ Stop ♪ ♪ And look me over?

♪ ♪ Look me over ♪ ♪ Am I the same girl you used to know?

♪ ♪ Why don't you stop ♪ ♪ Stop ♪ ♪ And think it over?

♪ ♪ Think it over ♪ ♪ Am I the same girl who knew your soul?

♪ ♪ I'm the one you love, and I'm the one you need ♪ ♪ I'm the one who cares ♪ When "Silly Games" was in the chart, I don't think I ever saw a royalty statement.

You know?

But the fact that it had laid the foundation for... You know, it got us noticed.

And, you know, we were, you know, going to go on to bigger and better things, and it opened the door.

It was something that you couldn't possibly have bought.

So I was willing to kind of offset that against the fact that it was not as lucrative as I had hoped it would have been.

At the time, I don't think it was funny.

We were quite -- We were kind of frustrated, I think, 'cause we knew that something's not quite right here, and we're not going to become, you know, rich and famous on £6.50, which is, I believe, what we got for the songs -- Each.

But any time that we were -- or we pushed forward on questions, like, "Well, okay, how does this work?"

-- And we didn't understand anything about publishing and licensing and PRS and MCPS and, you know, Musicians' Union, even.

Didn't understand any about those things.

They certainly weren't being taught to us.

There seemed to be a lot of people with aspirations, a lot of people with some fantastic musical talent that I felt was just going to waste because they were being, you know, drowned in -- in the reggae music business just because of the way that it was run.

You say once you are a producer, you're a thief.

Now, I don't agree with that.

You will have an artist that will -- you have enough to, say, you do four or five records.

You spend your money in order to make those records.

You and them is the best of friends up until then.

We make one record, say the fifth record, and that record just creates a lot of excitement in the reggae market.

All right?

The way I look at it is, you should pay them the money for that and forget about the other four or five that you've done prior.

Yeah, if they're signed to a major company, it's the same principle.

♪ So tell me what's going on ♪ ♪ Why won't you tell me what I don't know?

♪ ♪ Am I the same girl that you fell in love with once?

♪ ♪ Won't you tell ♪ ♪ Why don't you stop?

♪ [ Cheers and applause ] Riley: If we look at what happened in the early '80s, we had bands like UB40, bands like Culture Club coming out, even Police, afterwards.

We had a boom in reggae.

That boom was not some fluke.

It was a process of developing an audience appetite for the format.

So if you like -- What UB40 took and became successful on was set up for them by Lovers Rock.

UB40 at one point outsold Bob Marley internationally to be the most -- or the high-selling reggae band at that period.

♪ Cherry, oh, Cherry, oh, baby ♪ ♪ Don't you know I'm in love with you?

Riley: However, when UB40 came on the scene, they didn't take Jamaican reggae, they took Jamaican songs.

♪ Look how long I've been waiting ♪ Riley: The musical format, arrangement, sound, the rhythmic pattern is Lovers Rock.

♪ And now that we are together ♪ ♪ Please make all my joys come over ♪ One thing you notice with any good Lovers Rock, that was the tuneful basslines -- you know, really melodic basslines.

And we've always said that a bassline says more than 1,000 words could ever say, you know what I mean?

And so, we've incorporated into our music beautiful basslines that run things on their own, whether there's lyrics there or not, you know what I mean?

And so I think that is very much an influence from Lovers Rock.

Their impact on popular music alone has been enormous.

They've had over 50 chart hits in this country.

And yet, when you read histories of reggae music, they're very rarely mentioned.

When you hear or read accounts of -- of British music full stop, they're very rarely mentioned.

I-I don't know why I'm here now.

I don't even like Lovers Rock.

What do you mean, you don't like Lovers Rock?

It just bring back, like, too much bad memories for me, man.

Oh, come on.

No, look at us now.

Look at us now.

I'm the driver.

I'm still here waiting for a man wanting to dance with a girl.

You've got a point, you know, brother.

You've got to look on the flip side of it, now, Quince.

Look at it -- with Lovers Rock, no matter how butters you was, yeah, no matter how hopeless you was at chirpsing, with Lovers Rock in a shebeen, you stand a chance of a hug at least.

Come on.

I ain't going to lie.

I mean, there was some Lovers Rock that was good.

I remember the first record I bought, and I couldn't play it in my house, man, 'cause my dad told me that it sounds too much like Jamaican music.

[ Laughs ] He said, "Boy take that music..." No, my dad wasn't Welsh.

My dad was [indistinct] Shut up.

♪♪ You've had sex to Lovers Rock?

No, but I-I do remember my very first kind of sexual encounter with a-a-a-a-a woman, and...it was quick.

Just like your dancing?

Yeah.

[ Laughs ] What was yours?

Slow.

Just like my dancing.

♪♪ Bovell: Dennis Brown was breaking into the Lovers Rock scene because him and Gregory Isaacs quickly realized that that was where it was at.

And Gregory Isaacs, anyway -- We always referred to him as the Cool Ruler, the love song champion.

So to have those two come in and endorse what we were doing and try and catch onto it, as well, made us know that we were onto something.

A lot of, you know, musicians who were coming over from Jamaica, you know, in the late '70s would start, and they -- you know, would be recording in England, then would say, "Give us that sound, that kind of Lovers sound you got there," you know?

And so they was aware of it in Jamaica, as well.

A lot of people were coming from Jamaica to be a part of the English industry, had seen Dennis Brown, your Gregory Isaacs, your Freddie McGregor, you know, back in the day.

Early Half Pint, Junior Reid.

I could go on for days.

The chords that you play for British Lovers Rock is different from the chords that's played for Jamaican Lovers Rock.

Whereas people would say that the tunes that Gregory Isaacs sings is Lovers Rock, is the Jamaican style of Lovers Rock.

And that's different chords.

That's a four-two-two.

It was originated by the Roots Radics to play those kind of Lovers with Gregory.

But Sugar Minott came over here to record the type of chords that Dennis Bovell and other people had coined to make this Lovers Rock, the sound of Lovers Rock.

So he was instrumental in actually merging that Jamaican sound with the British sound.

♪ Eternally ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Understanding ♪ ♪ Whenever handing me ♪ ♪ The alibi ♪ As Lovers Rock grew and grew and grew, I hadn't realized that it was growing as big as it did internationally until my first appearance in Japan.

♪ The Lovers Rock, yeah ♪ ♪ Lovers Rock ♪ ♪ Lovers Rock ♪ ♪ Lovers Rock ♪ ♪ Lovers Rock, now ♪ ♪ Preach ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Hold on tight, and... ♪ There I found a whole Lovers Rock movement, a multitude of people, sheer numbers, right?

All interested in Lovers Rock and bringing old records that I'd made 20 years ago for me to autograph.

Kay: We're now in the late 1980s, and unbeknownst to me, "Loving You," the rerecorded version I did was released in Japan, but I didn't have any inkling of that.

And apparently it was like spiraling up the charts and I didn't know, and they didn't know who I was either.

And it was through the interview that I did on "The Box" where I talked about the theatre company that I was a member of and other little things.

And they did their little investigation thing and found me through the theatre company and got in touch with me that way and invited me to Japan.

And I was like, "Japan is like a million miles away.

Nobody speaks English in Japan.

Why would they be interested in reggae in Japan?"

Sony had signed Janet Kay, and "Silly Games" had been successful in Japan.

And then came a lot of Japanese Lovers Rock artists.

[ Singing in Japanese ] ♪♪ Sony opened a Lovers Rock label in Japan, and the label was called 15, 16, 17.

Right?

And then they started to do a series called "Relaxing with Lovers."

Now, that series is up to like Volume 12.

"Loving You" was like at the top of the chart, number one in the charts in this country.

Everybody knew -- Well, you know, I go there, do th-- this album was released of mine that was out there.

They knew all the songs, they knew all the lyrics.

They didn't speak English, but they knew the lyrics to this song, and that made me understand that music is actually a universal language.

Even when people don't actually speak the language, they understand the sentiment of the music.

And there were people in the audience crying, and I'm looking at these people, women with tissues, thinking, "Everybody's got a cold in here.

What's going on?"

They were crying, you know, and it's like...

I'd never experienced anything like that before.

It was amazing.

That was the first time I actually got a record deal as well.

The only record deal I've ever had has been in Japan.

I did many albums there that haven't been released here, unfortunately.

But, you know, I did a lot of work out there.

Enjoyed it.

I personally don't know how I got overseas.

Or some of these gigs I've been on from Sumfest.

It amazes me when people say, "Oh, but you a living legend."

And I go...[ Laughs ] Because there's no industry behind me.

There's nobody that made me except my God.

There's pockets of Lovers Rock followings now all over the world.

In fact, in Brazil, in Argentina.

There's a group called Los Cafres in Argentina.

Last year I had a top 10 hit with them, and they're heavily into Lovers Rock.

You know, there's groups approaching me from Venezuela to come there and produce Lovers Rock with them.

You know, Australia, New Zealand, so it's taking hold globally.

♪♪ [ Cheering ] ♪♪ ♪ Whoa, baby ♪ ♪♪ ♪ I want to hear my lady scream ♪ ♪♪ Watch it!

♪ Should I put my trust in you?

♪ ♪ Should I put my faith in you?

♪ ♪ Should I let you stick around?

♪ ♪ Should I let you float around?

♪ I think Maxi was very important on various levels.

He was the first British reggae star to come up through the sound systems instead of bands.

He also had an original style which appealed right across the board and had mainstream appeal.

And very significantly, he became the first reggae artist to ever have a number 1 hit in America.

And that's any reggae artists, including the Jamaicans.

He did it first with that song, "Close To You."

That was in 1990, and that was a very significant achievement.

That was a real landmark in British reggae history, which I don't think that he has fully got the recognition for.

♪ The people used to say ♪ ♪ Our love would never fade, yeah ♪ ♪ Will I be the fool to let you stay here again?

♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Should I let you stick around?

♪ ♪ Should I let you float?

♪ ♪ Float around here ♪ ♪ Should I, should I, should I, should I?

♪ ♪ Tell me ♪ ♪ Float around, stick around, stick around ♪ Come on!

♪ Should I, should I, should I, should I ♪ ♪ Tell me ♪ ♪ Float around, stick around, stick around ♪ We've laid down something that's distinctively made in Britain, and it's taken root, and its fruits are the youngsters actually dipping into that genre and borrowing stuff the likes of UB40 and Police, even, Culture Club, you know?

Well, it just shows that, you know, we've planted good seed.

I feel a great sense of pride, you know, and love as well, because even now, it's still a name that you can say to anybody, you know, all over the world, and they understand Lovers Rock, you know?

And I feel a great sense of pride in that.

It became a popular music, right?

Both east, west, south and north of the world, not just of your area.

America recognizes Lovers Rock.

Jamaica, as far as they're concerned, we put reggae on the map.

UK Lovers Rock became like the catapult for all forms of reggae music.

It's left to us now and all those that come after us now to uphold it.

I think that at the moment, there's a resurgence of Lovers Rock and there's actually younger performers getting into it now.

♪ Can't make up my mind ♪ ♪ About the boy ♪ ♪ Sometimes he brings me down ♪ ♪ Sometimes he brings me joy ♪ ♪ I want him around ♪ ♪ But he's never in town ♪ "Caught You in a Lie," I did a cover of that, and I'll play it, and it's really funny.

People have come up to me after the gig, new, young people, and they'd be like, "I know that tune."

And yet you have older people be like, "Yeah, that takes me back to when I was this age."

And so it's cool.

Everybody seems to get it.

♪ I don't know why ♪ ♪ My baby ♪ I sort of sat back and I said to myself, I don't see anybody doing the Lovers Rock.

and the reggae of, you know, where it's coming from, like Janet Kay and my dad, Alton and Dennis Brown.

I didn't see anyone doing that at my age, and I thought, I find it quite a challenge, and I thought, I'm gonna go for it.

We've really made an impact.

Really, we have.

And you don't realize the impact you've made until years later.

I'm in my 50s now and I'm looking back at the people that Facebook me or space me or whatever, and they're all age groups, all age groups.

And I get fascinated at the fact that it's this time now that people are saying, reggae music -- it's like something's happened and all of a sudden people are discovering reggae for the first time.

It's kind of freaky.

We have this situation where we have the Brit Awards in England, and yet reggae is virtually never represented, despite being a genre that has had 40 years of crossover hits in this country and representing several million people of Caribbean descent who've grown up with that music, as well as all the other people who've also grown up with it now.

That's a very unfair proportion, as far as I'm concerned.

Its importance has been underplayed or... ...understated.

It's a very important part of the history of pop.

And I make that reference, because often we tend to separate things.

Pop simply stands for "popular music" or "popular."

Lovers Rock was an important step on the way to where we are with regards to British popular music, is part of the subconscious memory of those who've grown up in the UK.

Whether you know about it or not, it's part of your memory.

Love is fundamental.

That's why Lovers Rock was such a beautiful art form, because love is fundamental.

You cannot live without love.

And it sounds basic, but psychologically, how, as a human being, could you cope with love?

You can't, and so you'll end up being destroyed.

And I think that is one of the things that maybe could be reintroduced through more exposure to Lovers.

Some of these radio DJs, play some more Lovers.

This business, it's not taking us anywhere.

D.J., put a tune for us.

Turn us a little something, mate.

What?

Who's counting?

Hey -- Yeah, go, go.

No, no.

He's bigger than me.

Alright, then.

Might lick me down good.

[ Laughs ] ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Stuck on you ♪ ♪ Got a feeling down deep in my soul ♪ ♪ That I just can't loose ♪ ♪ Girl, I'm on my way ♪ ♪ I needed a friend ♪ ♪ And the way I feel now ♪ ♪ I guess I'll be with you till the end ♪ ♪ Girl, I'm on my way ♪ ♪ Mighty glad you stayed ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Whoa, whoa, yeah ♪ ♪ Stuck on you ♪ ♪ I've been a fool too long ♪ ♪ I guess it's time for me to come home ♪ ♪ Girl, I'm on my way ♪ ♪ So hard to see ♪ ♪ How a woman like you could wait around for a man like me ♪ ♪ Girl, I'm on my way ♪ I'm 27.

I was conceived to these tunes.

These tunes are bad.

At the same time, we do need to connect with where we come from and, you know, to know where we're gonna be going, basically.

So Lovers Rock has had a great influence in my music.

So yeah, I think we do need to bring it back, because if it wasn't for Lovers Rock, I wouldn't be here.

♪ Whoaaa ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪♪ ♪ I've got a girl ♪ ♪ On the other side ♪ ♪ Of town ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Waiting for me ♪ ♪♪ ♪ To come around ♪ ♪ And lay my body down ♪ [ Reggae music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Reggae vocalists singing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Can't forget the days ♪ ♪ When stepper's music used to rock ♪ [ Singing indistinctly ] ♪♪ ♪ Can't forget the love we used to have in the dance ♪ ♪ This the love I know you get it well in advance ♪ [ Singing indistinctly ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪