Living Legend Outta SW9 – Brother Culture

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I recently got the chance to sit down with legendary UK MC Brother Culture at the Dogstar Pub on Brixton’s Coldharbour Lane. As the weekly Tuesday night roots session warmed up, Brother Culture shared some memories and opinions about the history of London sound systems, the UK dub scene, and his travels around the world. The following interview was conducted in October of 2007.


How did you get involved in being a musician and what were your early influences?

I started to MC in about 1982, and primarily it was because I loved music, I loved sound systems from when I was in school. My older sister who was nearest in age to me, her name was Sister Culture and she was an MC, and she used to chat on a sound called Jah Revelation Muzik which was the sound of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—a Rastafarian organization—it was international and this was the like London branch. So when I left school and I started to go to a lot of dances where my sister was MCing, people would naturally say “special request to Sister Culture’s brother.” Now, I sort of got the name from people because I’m Sister Culture’s brother not because I’m an MC. And then halfway into 82, you know, I started to rehearse a lot, and get interested in moving with the sound system. The manager of the sound at the time was a guy called Cecil Reuben; he said to me, “can you MC like your sister? Cause you look like an MC.” And so I was glad for this and I took it from there, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I was working with Twelve Tribes initially for about ten years, all over the world, between Jamaica, America, Canada, Trinidad, England, I worked with all twelve Tribes sounds—worked with artists like Brigadier Jerry, Sister Carol, etcetera. And then, about 92, after I’d been MCing for about ten years, I cam back from America, and the whole Twelve Tribes scene had kinda changed in London, and I wasn’t part of the Twelve Tribes sound system anymore. That’s when I stated checking out the UK dub scene which was kind of having an upsurge at that time in the early nineties. You had sound systems like Aba Shanti, Iration Steppas, obviously Jah Shaka, many others, too many to even mention. I started to MC a lot on that circuit because at the time—in the beginning of the nineties—the actual kinda dancehall Jamaican roots which is where I was coming from had become very kind of, uh—the raga movement had kinda taken over. There was not many spots with spontaneous like MCs, in such dances, but yet there was on the UK dub steppers scene, and I could sort of still go and chat the mic, and as an MC you tend to go where you can do your stuff. So all in all its about twenty, twenty five years, that I’ve been doing this.

Taking it back even before that—you said your sister was an MC—was there a lot of music in your family? What kind of music were you hearing at home growing up?

It wasn’t a particularly music family, put it that way, but I have five sisters and one brother, all older than me, so a lot of it was the music they were listening to would influence me. But when I was really young, when I was, sort of, seven, eight, nine, I was listening to stuff like the Osmonds and Michael Jackson, and David Cassidy, and all these kind of artists, you know what I mean it wasn’t like a purist reggae kind of upbringing. But the first time I started to really get into my own music, it tended to be reggae music, because the three sisters nearest in age to me were all reggae heads, and they would bring Dennis Brown, or they would bring Dillinger tunes, and Big Youth. But me personally, when I started to by records, I loved MC records—cause obviously I was an MC—and I was really influenced by people like Lone Ranger—an MC called Lone Ranger from Jamaica—I was really influenced by Brigadier The General, Josey Wales, Charlie Chaplain, Clint Eastwood and General Saint—it was a vast range of MCs that interested me. So pon a personal level my house, my father would buy tunes by, um. . . Desmond Dekker for example, my father would have like the whole Trojan “Tighten Up” series compilations—great reggae compilations that came out in the seventies—stuff like that. But it was my sisters that started to bring sort of the more hard core reggae into the house. The Big Youth, and I remember African Herbsman Bob Marley’s album, Natty Dread was a big influence on my development. And then when I was like seventeen-eighteen I started to get into real kinda English Rasta roots like Aswad, and Steel Pulse. Not so much Mutumbi, but I researched Mutumbi later on. Becoming an MC it was a fusion of those influences: Lone Ranger, Bob Marley, Aswad, and then I used to listen to loads of stuff produced by Sly and Robbie, compilations like How the West Was Won. [Joe Gibbs’] African Dub is another album that influenced me a lot, so on and so forth.

You already touched on this a little bit, but could you tell us about Jah Revelation Muzik?

Jah Revelation Muzik, as I said before, was the official Twelve Tribes sound that was playing in London. The sound system actually started in 1979 when Twelve Tribes started in London, and they needed a sound system to represent the organization, pretty much like how Jah Love sound represented the organization in Jamaica and so on and so forth. The sound system was like a platform for the organization. It started off as an amalgamation of several sound systems that Twelve Tribes members owned. There was one called Jah Rastafari, there was one called Revelation the Placid Rocker, I can’t even remember what the other sound was called. But then these sounds came together in 1979 and formed Jah Revelation Muzik, and started playing the Twelve Tribes dances. Twelve Tribes organization used to keep a dance every month, and each dance would be themed on one of the tribes of Israel, so for example if it was April, it would be a Reuben dance, and a brother and a sister from the organization who were born in that month would keep the function, and everybody would wear silver, cause this is the color of Reuben. So you had Reuben, Simeon, Levy, Judah, Isachar, Zebulon, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin, these would be the spiritual twelve sons of Jacob. And each month represented one of the sons of Jacob, and according to the month that someone was born would be the month they—like for example, I am born in the month of March, so I would be a Benjamin, somebody born in January would be a Naphtali. So that’s where the sound used to play these dances, and each month had its color obviously so a Naphtali dance everyone would be dressed in green, Benjamin everyone would dress in black, Zebulon everyone would be dressed in pink no less, Reuben everyone would be dressed in silver, you know. So we used to play these functions as the official sound system of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and they’d have different sections in the dance, like they’d have a section called the “orthodox selection” where for three hours they’d only play music of members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—people like Dennis Brown are members, Little Roy, Freddie McGregor, all of these were quite famous, and Bob Marley one of the most famous. This is where I done my initial MCing. I was very lucky inasmuch as it wasn’t an unknown sound, it wasn’t like I was a youthman and I was chatting on the youthman sound. It was a big established sound already so it helped being among great MCs and a lot of energy and that kind of thing.

What can you say generally about the sound system scene when you were coming up in the eighties and how has it changed since then? What’s changed?

Well, I can talk about the eighties, cause it was the eighties I became a teenager—or sixteen, sorry—and it was there I started to listen to physical sound systems. When I was around, like 81-82—I’m from Brixton so obviously my starting point would b Brixton. Brixton was a place of great sound systems. Sound systems like Sir Coxone Outernational, Frontline International, these were king sounds, but there was many sounds in Brixton. Then you had your West London sounds like Java, One Love, you had your North London sounds like Unity, Fat Man, you had your East London sounds, you had your Nottingham sounds. But I used to listen to Sir Coxone Outernational when I wasn’t with Jah Revelation MCing, if I went out to listen to a sound I’d listen to Sir Coxone; I’d go to clashed with Sir Coxone and Java from West London. Java is the sound that General Levy came out of. Then obviously there was Saxon, I didn’t mention Saxon sound, they were a massive influence on me from an MC point of view. Because, what happened in England, a lot of the sound systems up to the seventies were mostly following what was happening in Jamaica, this is including the MCs. A lot of the early MCs used to listen to MCs in Jamaica like Rankin Toyan, Welton Irie, Brigadier, U Roy, and they would more—I don’t mean imitate in a disrespectful way—but it was more like an imitation thing that was happening, whereas when Saxon came to the forefront between sort of 82 and 86, they brought a new dimension whereas they were all English MCs, and they were very rehearsed. When Saxon played, when you had Tippa Irie, Papa Levi, Rusty, Sandy, Musclehead selecting, Trevor Rankin, it was an organized body of youths. And this really struck me when I was young that this is how I wanna come rehearsed, I don’t wanna come to the dance and just sort of freelance which is a lot of what the earlier guys used to do—off the top of the head stuff—these [later] guys were coming with like really serious compositions that you couldn’t perform unless they were really rehearsed. So I took a lot of inspiration from those guys and developed it in the Twelve Tribes, and really became the main MC in the Twelve Tribes for this kind of innovative style—especially using English style cockney lyrics but on roots themes. Cause Jah Revelation was a Rasta sound, but it had the kinda dancehall element with a Rast edge to it, it wasn’t like a sort of doctrinal Rasta sound like Jah Shaka, it was more like a kinda dancehall development from Jamaica, but was rehearsed. And that’s what made Jah Revelation—in my opinion—stand out of the crown. But he had great dances in Brixton with Jah Revelation and Coxone, all these sounds I’ve mentioned.
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Tell us about your transition to performing at the Dub Club in the early nineties.

This is what I was telling you before, when I came back from America, in 92, a lot of the scene had changed. Funny enough it was the same Cecil Reuben from Jah Revelation that said to me “come to the Dub Club, it’s a roots club, its good, you’ll be able to MC there”. And I started to MC on a lot of UK steppers sound systems, and I struck up at that time a good relationship with the owner of the club—her name was Niki, Culture Promotions—she’s the person that deals with Jah Shaka, and she kinda turned me on to a lot of this kinda European dub scene. I felt comfortable MCing in that scene as well cause I always felt like I was more rehearsed than the others for the reasons I was telling you about before. And the sort of second phase of Brother Culture started from the Dub Club, and I started to go to Europe with the Dub Club—this is in like 94-95—to do gigs in places like Belgium and Ireland which was really exciting at the time, not so exciting now, I wanna go to Hawaii [laughs], at the time it was great. Yea, it was really the Dub Club in the nineties, it was a great club. What she’d done was, there was a kind of upsurgance of—this style of UK dub steppers was already en vogue in the seventies but it had kind of died out, and Jah Shaka had kind of died out, but he continued to play the same kinda music and didn’t change his style, whereas sounds like Sir Coxone and the other sounds moved on to playing sort of more contemporary. Whereas Jah Shaka stuck to his guns, and then, through the help of this Niki—Culture Promotions, she brought this kinda music to a more studenty-based audience and gathered new audiences for this stuff. And so this Dub Club was like a development of the new popular wave of UK steppers, and what she done is it was a good forum for people to come and play sound systems. Some sound systems that were old sound systems that hadn’t played out for a long time would start coming out.

Could you tell us about the tunes and albums that you’ve released over the years?

I’ve got quite a lot of releases, but the notable ones are like the Mungo’s Hi-Fi Meets Brother Culture, its quite a well known album, and the stuff that I’ve done in France on this Hammerbass label, the stuff with Kanka. I’ve been working with Nick Manasseh, got a new album coming out with him. Don’t know if you’re familiar with the Twilight Circus stuff, Ryan Moore, I’ve done quite a bit of work with him; and I’ve got a lot of releases that aren’t reggae releases as well that I’ve done, I worked with a trance producer called Youth, I do some stuff with him. There’s just so many tunes really at the moment I’m doing like a lot of voicing, especially voicing online for people on the European dub scene and beyond, in America as well . . . I’m not very good at talking about my releases man, I forget if I haven’t got them like listed in front of me.

Its alright, well would you say that you have any favorite release or any tune that sticks out?

There’s a tune called “Ing” that I’ve done with Mungo’s Hi-Fi, which was also released on the compilation by a guy called Mr. Scruff, whose a sort of big compilation DJ who works with BBC Radio One. That’s one of my more well-known ones, but to say favorite release it depends really. Some of my favorite releases aren’t reggae releases so no one would really know about them.

So personally you listen to a lot of stuff that’s not reggae? What kind of other music are you into?

I listen to a lot of psychedelic trance, I listen to a lot of ambient compositions and albums, a lot of chill-out stuff. I listen to different music for different reasons you know what I mean? I even listen to pop music to get inspiration as well you know what I mean? I’ve never been like a sort of dogmatic person, and I don’t listen to a lot of stuff that I work with, so therefore like when I’m in my house I’m not gonna just listen to reggae music twenty four-seven. I listen to stuff that I’m working with, tunes that I’ve made to see how I can improve my style or whatever you know what I mean? It depends, if you’re gonna ask me about reggae artists I’m gonna be quite out of date as well, cause I don’t buy music as a sort of enthusiast, you know—I know roughly if there’s something good going on. Current reggae . . . funny enough I like a lot of non-Jamaican reggae at the moment, reggae that I’ve encountered in places like France, and Brazil, in Israel as well. Yea, it’s a bit like that isn’t it?

You wanna tell us a little bit about the people you’ve collaborated with?

I’ve worked with so many people but the ones that I’m sort of still working with are Adrian Sherwood. He’s one of my closest work associates. The first professional tune I ever made was in 1996 with a reggae artist from Jamaica called Little Roy, he done an album for Adrian Sherwood, and I’ve been working with Adrian Sherwood ever since. I’ve worked with Manasseh for seven years, “Darker Side of Town” is a Manasseh tune. I’ve worked with more or less everyone really, I’ve made albums with Aswad, I MC a lot nowadays on European sound systems as opposed to doing PA’s or anything, I go and I’ll do like old-school MC sets on whatever selection they’re playing. Even though I do PA’s, but I still like to stay close to that kinda sound system thing, you know? And I’ve worked with some of the best sound systems in Europe, its hard to know where to start. But the highlight, I MC’d a dance in 1985 in Jamaica called the Khaki Dance. Everybody had to wear full khaki wear to get in, it was a three day dance in Kingston, and Twelve Tribes members from all over the world came for this, almost like a convention. And it was great because, one, it was the first time a lot of Twelve Tribes people from different countries had actually seen each other. And I got to MC with Brigadier General, which is like my teacher, my spiritual leader as an MC—I rate Brigadier General above all MC’s.

Is there anyone that you haven’t worked with that you’ve always wanted to get the opportunity to do so?

I don’t know really its hard to say. I’d love to work with Mafia and Flux, because I love their system of producing riddims. I worked with Zion Train, so I cant say Zion Train , but I like Zion Train’s stuff. Probably to be honest I would have loved to do a song with Lee Perry when he was producing, you know? And the greats, Mad Professor. I’ve sort of worked with Mad Professor but never recorded with him, but I always feel spiritually that I should be working with Mad Professor, he’s a good friend of mine. But yea, maybe Lee Perry, I would have liked to have done a tune with Lee Perry, cause I feel quite an affinity with Lee Perry, I really understand his work, you know, it helps me a lot.

You’ve traveled all over the world performing, so do any places stand out as highlights for any reason?

Israel. Israel, Brazil, Mexico, anywhere outside of Europe nowadays is more meaningful to me. Whereas in Europe, its still alright, I get excited about places I haven’t been to like Poland. I went to Poland this last year and this year for the first time, that was quite good. But I get a bit bored of places like Sweden and stuff like that, you know what I mean? France is quite hard because you never know whether you’re making any impact there. Germany is great, I love to work in Germany, I get a lot of feedback, and Italy as well. I’d say in Europe Italy and Germany are the two countries where my work has really progressed a lot in the last few years. But then again, I toured Brazil, I’m touring Brazil again this year with Adrian Sherwood, I was there last year on my own. I’ve been to Israel two times this year. These places are interesting places to me, reggae music is really taking on in these places. You know, like anyone I like to go to exotic places, as opposed to sort of rainy weekends in Birmingham you know what I mean?

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A lot of UK artists don’t really get a lot of exposure across the Atlantic. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on why that is.

I don’t know but the first album that I ever made was in America, in New Jersey with a producer called Bullwackie, from Wackie’s studio. But going back to your point I think its because America is so big, and its so close to the Caribbean, that the influence is gonna be from the Caribbean, it’s as simple as that. Jamaican artists will be well known in America, and there’ll be lots of homegrown. But then again Americas different, on the east coast is more of like a sound system scene, on the west coast its more of a band scene, there’s loads of reggae bands on the west coast of America, but it tends to be a very inward-looking scene. You have to be someone like Mad Professor, Jah Shaka, I can imagine, can go to America and get a certain crowd. And then you’ve got like the Morgan Heritage, Third World kind of “stadium reggae”. This kind of thing probably goes down quite well in America because its very Americanized anyway in the way its produced. But UK reggae artists, apart from Maxi Priest, I cant think of one that’s sort of made much headway. Papa Levi back in the days—the MC from Saxon—had one tune that was well known in America, Jamaica and England, “My God My King”. Bt really, I don’t know, I think its because Americas so big, and you have to actually be living there. As an English artist I reckon you’d have to be living in America and be on a certain scene in New York, I know there’s a good roots scene in New York, a thriving kinda dub scene. But when I was there I was moving with people like, I don’t know if you’ve heard of like this artist called Jah Malski, he’s an artist used to work with the Zulu Nation, and he showed me a lot of sort of spots in Manhattan and stuff that was playing reggae. But, I don’t know, it’s a mystery . . . I think with the internet it might change though, you might see a lot more movement when it comes to vocals and stuff like that, voicing tunes. I voiced some tunes this week for some Americans, one being Druba, from Brooklyn, and one called Ras Amerlock, from Milwaukee.

Any general comments on the UK reggae scene right now?

Yea, it’s a funny scene, roots scene, reggae scene, dub scene, there’s so many scenes now, its all been genre’d up, you know what I mean? Happily I cover all genre, but, it’s a strange thing, in Europe, most of the big acts that are touring Europe are from London, and in Europe, English acts don’t have the same problems that they have being recognized in Jamaica or in America. You can come from London and you’re seen as authentic, whereas the European acts are struggling to be hired in their own countries. But on the dub scene, there’s like a family of us. There’s Iration Steppas, Mad Professor, Nick Manasseh, Bush Chemist, Jonah Dan, so many that are touring all over Europe, and you see the same names everywhere you go. So I’d say its quite thriving, and plus record sales are down anyway, like right across the board. But the good thing is that our thing is quite live anyway. So when record sales are down it means people are downloading stuff, but that means they want to go and see those artists live, you know, they cant download the live performance, they have to go and watch it. So its good in that respect, it helps smaller artists like me. It doesn’t really matter if I sell 2,000 or 10,000, its not much in the bigger scope of things, but if I can sell 10,000 and gig for the whole year around the world, its better for me. I haven’t got no big management deal, I did everything organically myself, I deal with all my contacts myself, so I’ve sort of gone beyond this stage where I’m competing with anybody out there, I just do my music, and I’ve got my contacts, and we do live stuff. I try and make the live performances sort of so full of energy that it drives people to go and research and buy tunes, and maybe they’ll know you that way, you know what I mean? That’s my opinion, I think that live music is a good thing.

What have you got in the works right now?

Ive got an album coming out with Nick Manasseh that’s gonna be released on a label called Liquid Sound, which is owned by the producer Youth, who is famous for producing groups like Bjork, and The Verve, and Prodigy, groups like that. It’s a great album, been making it for five years with Manasseh, it’s a really melodic album, its gonna change reggae roots in the UK forever [chuckles]. Apart form that I’ve got an album coming out with Aswad, I wrote four of the songs on their new album Aswad Meets the Riddim Riders, that’s actually been released in America already on a label called Liason Records. And I’m doing several tunes with producers in Europe, dub producers in Europe; I’m working quite closely nowadays with Adrian Sherwood, we’re gonna be touring Brazil in November going into December, and I’ve hooked up again with Mungo’s Hi-Fi, who made the album Mungo’s Hi-Fi Meets Brother Culture, we haven’t toured it for one reason or the other, but now we’re gonna start touring it, there’s gonna be a lot of remixes coming out of the good tunes off this album. Yes, there’s quite a lot of releases coming out.

Where can people find your music?

In record shops [chuckles]. Or on the internet, just put a search in for Brother Culture. Its strange actually because I was in Israel and I went to a quite varied record shop, and I found some of my tunes in the trance section, and I found some in the reggae/dub section. But the easiest ones to get are like the Kanka stuff, there’s two albums with Kanka, one called Don’t Stop Dub, one called Alert on the Hammerbass label from Paris, its quite accessible. Mungo’s Hi-Fi, there’s gonna be remixes of the original album plus there should be some reprints of the original album coming out. And there’s a few releases off the Manasseh album, there’s a tune called Supernova that’s actually coming out next week, there’s lots of stuff coming out.

Much thanks to Brother Culture from the entire MNP family.

www.myspace.com/brotherculture
www.soundclash.org/brotherculture/

interview conducted by tristram keefe – special thanks to barrie mcclune for filming the conversation and assisting in the preparation of this piece.

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Posted: October 17th, 2007
at 5:53pm by trizlam

 


Categories: music

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