Simon & Diamond and Apache BBC2 Reportage 1991 (Post Handsworth Riots)

A look at how our music united communites after the Handsworth Riots of 1985... When I was 15 and Diamond was 13 we formed our first band. A reggae band called Akai Roots. The band was me on drums, Diamond on guitar, Micheal ‘Diddy’ Carter (ex bass player with Eclipse) on Bass, Lloyd on vocals, Lippy doing backing vocals and moonwalking.. lol :-) and my friend from school Edwin Rowe on keyboards. Edwin was actually a really great drummer in a reggae band called Mystic Foundation, but he played keys for us too. We were hugely inspired by Mystic Foundation as well as other great reggae bands from Birmingham at the time - Steel Pulse, One Heart, Black Symbol, Beshara, Cornerstone, Eclipse and others. We didn’t have proper equipment at that time. I had a decent drum kit which my dad bought in India and had shipped over, Diddy had a decent bass guitar, Diamond had a decent guitar and we had one cheap microphone. We didn’t have a keyboard so we used our grandmother’s harmonium. We had a FAL 100w amplifier head which we bought off our sister’s teacher at Holte School in Lozells. He was the brother of Kevin Roland, the lead singer in Dexy’s Midnight Runners. We had one speaker without a cabinet which we sat on top of the amp. Our grandfather - our Mom’s dad, used to let us rehearse in the attic of his house on Holly Road in Handsworth. This was in 1982. Our grandparents were progressive forward thinking first generation Indians. At that time it was pretty much unheard of for first generation Indian parents and grandparents to allow their children/grandchildren to mix so closely with Afro Caribbean people let alone welcome them into the house to play music. But as I say, our grandfather was progressive and welcomed everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Akai Roots did a couple of gigs and then disbanded. We then formed another band with one one of my school friends. His name was Peter Stephens but he went by the artist name of Peter Culture. We booked some time at a local studio called Delkass to do some recordings. Delkass was part of the Cultural Centre on Hampstead Road, Handsworth - where we used to hang out a lot and jam with other musicians. We arranged for some of our friends from the band Mystic Foundation to come and play on the recordings. Edwin played keys for us again and Errol Smith played trombone and arranged the horn parts. Other members of Mystic Foundation also played on the recordings. Diamond and I wrote the songs with Peter, I played drums and Diamond played guitar I’ll share more about the story of that recording and how it became an album launching Peter Culture as an artist, in another post. I’ll also share the recordings soon. After that we went on to form another band - The Soldiers of Fortune - with our good friend Colin Tait. More about that with audio and video in another post. By 1985 the Handsworth riots were upon us and there was a lot of tension in the air between the Indian and Afro Caribbean communities. A flashpoint of those riots was when a post office on Lozells Rd was torched, killing two people. For a while, our parents owned a clothes shop - Bubblez - next door to the post office and knew the people who died. It was sad and tense time. Something needed to happen to bring the communities together. It wasn’t until five or six years later that something did happen that would begin to unite the communities. We had no idea of the impact our music would have but it undoubtedly played a big role in healing rifts. Music has the power to do that. The release of Movie Over India gave both sides something in common, something they could both own and be a part of. It gave them a shared identity. It brought both communities to the same club nights and gigs. It brought young Asian kids to black record stores to discover more about reggae music and it brought young black kids to the Asian stores to discover more about Bhangra. Soon after Movie Over India was released, we did one of our first TV appearances for a programme called Reportage on BBC 2, which was presented by the now well known travel journalist Rajan Datar. The piece focused on the troubles during the riots and the impact our music had on the healing process. Although we never set out to do it, we are proud to have played a part, however big or small, in bringing people together and healing the tensions that lingered after the riots. Here’s the piece that was shown on BBC 2 in 1991. It features interviews with Me, Diamond and Apache as well as a clip of Bhangra band Achanak, Boy George, some more footage of Don Christies record shop, club Tabasco in Aston and an interview with Apache’s dancers Kim, Parmjit and Suminder.