“If you look at where we are today in England, nothing has changed,” says English singer and songwriter Ali Campbell, best known as the former singer of renowned reggae band UB40. 

Campbell is a founding member of the original multi-racial reggae group UB40, which helped define the genre for a generation, giving a voice to the working-class dissatisfaction of the time.

Their music was a reaction to Thatcherism, racism, global poverty and social injustice.

The singer left the band in 2008 followed by keyboardist Mickey Virtue and was later followed by Astro in 2013 who teamed up with Campbell and Virtue in a new version of UB40.

The cover of Campbell’s latest album 'Unprecedented', showing Astro (right) who died in November 2021.The cover of Campbell’s latest album 'Unprecedented', showing Astro (right) who died in November 2021.

Campbell and UB40 will be playing in Malta this month at the Għaxaq Music Festival as the headlined act. Previous international artists playing at the festival include Boney M, the British pop group Smokie and Johnny Logan of Eurovision fame, as well as Italian artists such as Vincenzo Carni and Marco Vito.

The upcoming concert on July 23 is envisioned as a memorial to Astro who died in November last year, aged 64.

The line-up includes songs from Unprecedented, the fourth and last album recorded together with Astro.

“Astro and I are the band’s original vocalists. We were the singers on all the hits that UB40 had in the ’80s and ’90s, so Astro was integral to the sound of UB40,” Campbell said.

“For this new album, Unprecedented, Astro was doing a lot of the backing vocals for the first time. He loved the album, he loved what he’d done, and he loved the end result. He was in a good place when he very sadly, very suddenly passed away.”

UB40 formed in 1978 in Birmingham, choosing their name as a reference to a form issued to people claiming unemployment benefits at the time.

“If you’d have taken eight young boys off the streets of Balsall Heath in Birmingham, they would have looked like UB40 in the ’80s,” says Campbell, adding he grew up in a very multiracial area.

“All my friends were either West Indian, Jamaican or Asian, so the music I listened to on the streets was reggae – the same as the West Indian and Jamaican kids.”

Campbell believes that reggae gave the band longevity and is the reason they are still around today, positing that UB40 chose a form of music still in its infancy as their genre.

“We chose the youngest form of music that there was,” he says.

“Reggae was only really about 10 or 11 years old when we started playing it, so it’s still cool with the youth – young people still like reggae. It hasn’t outlived its own call, like so many other music genres. So, I think that’s the reason why UB40 is still touring around the world and still successful.”

Reggae music was historically a form of resistance against the dominant culture, presenting itself also as a force for dialogue.

We need more dialogue, and we need sensible people in power

UB40 started off as a reaction to the Thatcherite zeitgeist of the 1980s, at a time when the band’s young members were all unemployed and disenfranchised.

“Do you feel your musical reaction was fruitful?”

“No,” Campbell replies.

“England’s falling apart; it has a dreadful government with politicians running around like a bunch of headless chickens.

“They made a mess of Brexit, they made a mess of the COVID pandemic. We have great unemployment at the moment, and we have the highest rates of inflation in 40 years.

“So no, nothing has changed. And I think it just goes to prove that you don’t change anything by singing about it.”

Asked about the disenchanted musicians of today, who may likewise feel the call to hold the powerful to account, Campbell says that things change very slowly.

Ali CampbellAli Campbell

“We need more dialogue, and we need sensible people in power, and that’s just not going to happen,” he says.

“In England, things change, but things change very slowly. It takes generations to make change, and who knows what the future holds.

“You have to get involved politically to make any change.”

Elaborating on his impression of Brexit, the singer says he believes the main reason that people wanted to leave was because they are against a monopoly of the banks in Europe.

“The socialists in England in the ’70s all said ‘no’ to the European market, or to the EU, or the EEC, as it was called then.

“But now they’ve changed their tune, and they want to remain in it,” he says.

“I don’t understand, really, whether we should be in it or out. We’ve got enough problems of our own… do we need European problems also?”

Asked whether there are any political undertones influencing their latest album, Campbell says Unprecedented is primarily a reggae album for people who love the genre.

“The title track is about the mess that our government made of COVID, but really, Unprecedented is an album for people who love reggae,” he says.

Four of the album’s tracks were recorded in Jamaica with renowned drummer Sly Dunbar along with Christopher Meredith, Robbie Lyn and James Caan, whom Campbell describes as a “reggae dream team”.

The rest of the tracks are by Campbell’s UB40.

“I’m on a journey that I’ve been on all my life,” says the singer.

“We produce everything ourselves and we always have. So, I’m still on the same journey, trying to make reggae music that I would want to listen to.”

UB40 featuring Ali Campbell is playing live at the Għaxaq Music Festival on July 23 supported by Manatapu. All proceeds from the festival will go to Embrace Diversity, a voluntary organisation taking care of youths and children with disabilities. The festival is supported by Arts Council Malta and the Malta Tourism Authority. Tickets are available at showshappening.com

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