DELROY WASHINGTON, the reggae singer-songwriter, producer, and mentor born in Westmoreland, Jamaica in 1952 and resident of the north-west London borough of Brent died at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington on March 27.

The way of the world today means almost anyone reading this would have heard of his passing through social media. Indeed, when I first saw broadcaster Dotun Adebayo’s Twitter post announcing his death, I responded to him saying that although I was sure he had good sources, I needed to see some corroborative posts, before I’d believe that Delroy has transitioned.

Since then, I’ve seen several posts, and received personal emails and WhatsApp messages confirming the sad news. What follows is a personal reflection, which I’m writing at a time when the fact of his passing hasn’t quite sunk in. Listening to his music on repeat play is helpful as I try to come to terms with the shocking news.

Poorly

Although I had heard that he’d been poorly of late, I had assumed he was on the mend, as he attended last month’s Brent London Borough of Culture launch of the No Bass Like Home reggae map at the Jamaican high commission.

That map is based on a booklet I put together in 2007 entitled Brent Black Music History Project. Looking at Delroy’s listing, I think it provides a fair summation of the musician:

“A highly talented Rasta-imbued, singer-songwriter and guitarist, whose mid-1970s Virgin albums I Sus and Rasta, showed an accessible, funk-infused reggae akin to Bob Marley and The Wailers’ version of reggae. The musician line-up featured members of Aswad.

Jamaican-born, he had lived in Brent since the early 1960s. Whilst working in the Pama record shop he met Bob Marley, and a friendship developed. Delroy released a 1973 Lord Koos single entitled Jah Man A Come, and an earlier version of Freedom Fighters as a 1975 single on his Axum label.

What you would not know is that I’ve known Delroy for some 40 years. I first met him in Ladbroke Grove in the late 1970s, at a time when I was starting out running my own music business. He’d already released his two albums on Virgin Records, which I thought were fantastic.

His albums had the same kind of blues/rock flourishes which helped cross over Bob Marley and The Wailers. Indeed two of the guitarists who produced the Wailers’ blues/rock flavours, Al Anderson and Junior Marvin, played guitars on Delroy’s albums. I believed Delroy had the songs and sound that could transform him into Britain’s equivalent of a Bob Marley.

Transition

I eventually became Delroy’s manager for a short period. At the time, pop newspapers such as Melody Maker and NME were taking reggae seriously, and I couldn’t understand why that transition wasn’t happening. I recall one of the key rock press’ reggae correspondents was down with his music, and I was informed she was in attendance at Delroy’s gig at Bouncing Ball in Peckham.

However, although we used to hang out at Virgin Records’ old HQ at Vernon Yard near Portobello Road in Ladbroke Grove, I never understood why Virgin did not pick up the option for further albums by their only UK-signed reggae artist. With hindsight one could speculate that perhaps the albums did not sell as much as Virgin had hoped.

But if their yardstick was Bob Marley, Virgin neither put a corresponding marketing push behind the albums nor did the company have a reggae champion and visionary like Island Records’ Chris Blackwell. Of course, soon after Virgin started the reggae specialist Frontline label, but this was confined to only Jamaican reggae records.

Our loss is the fact that Delroy never had the opportunity to release further albums. However, I think the best way to remember him, especially as most of us have “extra” time on account of the current coronavirus stay-at-home directive, is to get unto your favourite online platform and listen to his albums – I-Sus (1976) and Rasta (1977).

Re-listening to the albums has reminded me of his great song craft. When I first met Delroy, Rastafari had not yet become as commonplace as it is today.

“Delroy’s music covers socio-conscious commentary that speak to the African British youth experience”

Kwaku

However, within a short period of coming into contact with Delroy, one couldn’t help realising how serious he was about the Rastafari faith. I learnt some more about the faith from his bassist and multi-instrumentalist Bunny McKenzie, who lived near me in Neasden. The herb and the Bible were never far away in the house he shared with his sister Candi, who also sang with Delroy.

So it’s not surprising that Delroy was comfortable composing rootsy, faith-facing songs such as the nyabinghi-chant Chant I, and the self-explanatory Jah Wonderful and Rasta.

Incidentally, when I first met Delroy he was staying in Kingsbury with his uncle, who was a reverend. So I can only imagine a compromise was reached about practising different faiths in the same household.

Surprising

For an African man whose music had him operating in and out of Harlesden and Ladbroke Grove, then hotspots for social unrest, it is not surprising that Delroy’s music covers socio-conscious commentary that speak to the African British youth experience.

In 1977, the only British reggae acts I can think of with albums released on mainstream record labels articulating the generational strife felt by African youths in their homes, unemployment, and police misuse of sus law on the streets, were that of Delroy and his Brent compatriots Aswad.

Songs such as Generation Game, The Streets Of Ladbroke Grove, and Brothers In Trouble, must have resonated with many an inner city youth back in the day, and the lyrics have not lost their punch more than 40 years on.

Lastly, Delroy didn’t just wear African clothes, he wore Africa in his heart, and sang about the continent in songs like ‘Zion’.

Delroy formed a number of reggae support organisations, the last one being FORM (Federation Of Reggae Music). And like me, he was active in championing Brent as the capital of reggae in Britain. FORM and various partners, including Nubian Jak Community Trust and Brent Council, have unveiled plaques highlighting the connection of Bob Marley & The Wailers, Dennis Brown, The Cimarons, and Liz Mitchell of Boney M to Brent.

In recent times I had met Delroy a bit more regularly. He sat on the Brent London Borough Of Culture 2020 (LBOC2020) Harlesden Working Group, of which I’m a member.

In 2018 Delroy, a LBOC2020 youth ambassador and I formed a panel on our local station The Beat London, where we spoke about Brent’s rich reggae history, as part of promoting LBOC2020. And at the close of the year, Delroy, reggae journalist and broadcaster Mandingo and I represented a Brent “posse” on a reggae on radio panel at the University Of Westminster. The panel had one south Londoner, Neil ‘Mad Professor’ Fraser, and was moderated by Mykaell Riley.

It must be said that undoubtedly Delroy not only had huge knowledge about British reggae and black music, but also played a role in some of that history. So invariably, he had a way of not only telling the history but also making sure you knew his centrality, whatever the topic was.

Careers

I recall when I interviewed him for the the ‘Brent Black Music History Project’ (BBMHP), he told me his role in helping several local acts. With Aswad, he said he got Angus ‘Drummie’ Gaye his first drum kit, and the band was essentially his backing band. Certainly a number of the band members played on his albums. He also mentioned that he had a role in moulding the early careers of acts including Brit-funk pioneers Hi-Tension.

Indeed soon after the launch of the BBMHP booklet and DVD, I urged Delroy to hurry up and publish the history he had been talking about documenting for a long time. I do hope his family will find, and at some time, release the vox pops video interviews Delroy and his young assistants filmed, and perhaps there’s a draft or some sort of manuscript that can be completed and published.

It’s so unfortunate that Delroy should pass in 2020. This is because Brent is this year’s London Borough Of Culture, and I’m sure there would have been opportunities for Delroy to recount his first hand local history knowledge within the reggae-focused No Bass Like Home programmes.

Thankfully an internal communication from the LBOC2020 producer has confirmed that a way will be found to honour Delroy Washington within the LBOC2020 programme.

Kwaku is a historical musicologist, and co-ordinator of International Reggae Day UK and British Black Music Month.