"I'm the priest. I'm born in June, a Levi in the Twelve Tribes. It's like ying and yang, light and dark. Priest is my light, ghetto is my dark"

Ghetto Priest has had so many different identities. Some know him as the scary, gold-toothed dread fronting Asian Dub Foundation. Others view him as one of Adrian Sherwood's fellow far-out sonic explorers. Plenty of producers have seen him as a Reggae singer for hire, on their Drum & Bass, Hip Hop, Broken Beat and Trance projects. Yet he's also the voice behind numerous orthodox Roots tunes heard booming out of the speaker boxes at underground soundsystem dances.

The one fragment of certainty is that he's more akin to a voodoo priest than any conventional clergy. The gospel according to Stephen Townsend, AKA Squidley/Levi Judah/Ghetto Priest is magical and esoteric Rastafari; leavened with diverse new age and non-western themes. When I asked questions about his background he told me to be prepared for something that resembled "a kung-fu story".

"I'm a sixties child. All the seventies Roots Reggae tracks, all that education hit me full on - bam . Going to Shaka at Phebes was a ritual. I bet everyone who grew up in Stoke Newington in the seventies went to Shaka at Phebes. I grew up on that, it's in me. But being from the East End I spread my perspective wider than just what's coming out of Kingston Jamaica. Growing up I was listening to Marc Bolan and T-Rex, Slade, the Glitter Band and Showaddywaddy. Wearing tank tops and all that. It's all gonna filter into my creativity."

He was part of a transitional generation. London streets were an embattled space for black youth in the seventies. Transcending their cultural and racial predicament was a struggle.

Ghetto Priest's 2003 album 'Vulture Culture' came to the attention of the mainstream music press. This was largely due to it's eclectic sound. However, some of the promotion focussed heavily on rather lurid descriptions of his life story.

"When I was growing up everyone in Stoke Newington and Finsbury Park were Arsenal supporters. All my mates were Greeks and blacks and we were like the casual boys. Pringle jumpers, Bally shoes, Farah slacks, Gabicci, gold teeth and that. I was a bit of a hooligan as well. But it did piss me off a bit, the way it was taken out of context for the press. This mad Rastaman who used to be a gooner . It got taken and twisted because it was a good story.   The truth is that I was just hanging round with the boys. We grew up together and we done what we done. Some good and some bad tings. I wasn't going to every away game like a fully fledged gooner. It was more about the casual boys. We went to matches and met up at the North Bank side of things. There was a row sometimes, but it wasn't my main thing."

On 'Self Analyses', a track that Ghetto Priest released in 2006, he counsels that you should "analyse, scrutinise, examine yourself".   He has no problem with self disclosure, but would prefer to use it as the raw material for his music than to grab attention.

"I've done a lot of things in my life that I don't choose to brag about. It wasn't about me going out and being a thug. It was freedom and energy, part of the male initiation; how you become a man. If I was in Africa with my ancestors they would have smeared some ochre on me and sent me out in the jungle to find my own way back or something. Unfortunately due to the Atlantic slave trade I grew up in the west. So they make you football hooligans and thieves. That becomes your initiation in the concrete jungle".

In the seventies black youth were engaged in a cultural conflict with the institutions of the British state. Both sides were guilty of confusing healthy dissent with the anti-social. The consequences were serious.

"I did go to prison in about 1979 and did a three year stretch. I was moving around with some boys at the time, doing robberies and blah, blah, blah. My first daughter was born and my wife brought her into the prison with my probation officer. My complete outlook changed and I knew then that I wouldn't be going back to prison. Also music was always there for I. I remember listening to a lot of Sugar Minott and Dennis Brown when I was in jail. That's definitely what started to get me out of that thing of wanting to be hard. A lot of what appeared to be aggression was just a shield anyway. I'm an only child, I ain't got no brothers and sisters to back me up. Growing up in the East End you got to put this shield on to help you get through."

 

When we met, London had been enduring a week of sub-zero temperatures, and Ghetto Priest's home was a refuge from the perilously icy pavements and stinging chill of the wind outside. The flat he shares with his wife in Victoria Dock is amongst a huddle of Victorian terraced houses sandwiched between the bustling Barking Road and the thundering traffic on the A13 Newham Way. It's a typically respectable and hardworking neighbourhood, precariously positioned between the upmarket Docklands developments and Canning Town, which remains among the five per cent of most deprived areas in the UK. Life as a full time Reggae artist is also full of uncertainties. I wondered how it had all started for him.

"In the early eighties I used to deejay although I guess I saw myself as a singjay more than anything. I used to be on a sound called Sabrina. I done a bit on Unity and Sir Lord Emperor as well. I used to be on Jah Tubby's when they played Geneva's. I lived on Manor Road and they used to play right there. No-one was strictly on just one sound at that time. You used to travel round and grab the mike. I used to chat on the mike and I was known as Squidley or Squidley Steve. There was another brother called Culture Steve, so we were the two Steves. We used to go around and enjoy ourselves and everyone had their own crew. Soundsystem was my stuff in the early eighties, but whenever I saw a mike I grabbed it. If there was a talent show down in Cubies - I was on the stage."

I remembered his Kung -Fu analogy and wondered who had motivated the young protégé to study religiously and master a vocal style.

"I didn't see myself as a music person and I wasn't really a deejay. My wife was the one who encouraged me to sing and to make a tape. She showed me the light switch. After prison Sir George linked me up with the Lovers Rock singer Sandra Reid. She said "you can sing, you just need to breathe, it's all about breath". I haven't looked back since. My first release was on Sir George records. They called me 'Stephen Townsend (Squidley)' on the label and the track was named 'What's Happenin' In Stokie'."

 

There have been astonishing changes in both Reggae and the whole music industry since his introduction to the recording business. Anyone with long term plans would have been repeatedly tearing them up and starting from scratch. I speculated that the career of an artist like Earl Sixteen might offer the only plausible blueprint for a Roots Reggae vocalist.

"I've bumped into Earl Sixteen on the battlefield, and yeah, he is the closest. I do admire him. I've been watching him for a long time, from Studio One and all that. He's kept up his profile and that's the key in this business. He's got nothing to prove. As far as I'm concerned he's a brand - Earl Sixteen, that's it."

The Ghetto Priest 'brand' is uncommonly flamboyant for a Roots artist. On a stage where most performers wish to appear authentic and faithful, he seems intense and outlandish. He's not concerned with appearing righteous or upright. His lyrics are personal, almost confessional at times. An example would be 'The Dark Room' which has been given a new lease of life as a seven inch release on the Sama Roots label.

"Everyone has a moment or a series of moments where they go through a dark period in their life. I went through a bad time, I don't mind speaking about it. I got caught up and lost the plot with class A drugs. It was in Hackney in the nineties when Hackney started turning all bad. All the drugs started coming in, all the crack. I don't blame that, I don't make no excuses. I met my Satan, not outside of me, but within me. If we had the power to choose which moment in our life is going to be the turning point, we'd always select something easy. But when judgement a come forward - there's no choosing."

He was saved by the appearance in his life of an influential elder.

"I come from a very Christian background where they pour guilt on you. When you get into a bad position, it's there; the guilt trip. I was going through the valley of the shadow of death, it was absolutely bloody dark. The man I call my master, Ras Simeon (who's passed on now), found me. How he found me I don't know. He came from nowhere and pulled me out...I told you it was like a kung-fu story! He took me to a Rasta temple in the mountains in Jamaica. We both come from the same place, St Thomas. People say it's a horrible place, but it's not, it's a very spiritual place. I detoxed myself, spiritually, mentally and physically. I had been in the dark room and Ras Simeon showed me the light switch. A lot of what I am now is down to him. If I hadn't seen the light switch anything could have happened. If you find yourself in hell keep on walking. It is part of your process. The discovery of yourself lies in the process. "Praying for salvation with a corrupted meditation, I heard a voice say come, there's nowhere to hide, there's nowhere to run". It's not a sin to be in the dark room and I have no regrets, no regrets. The great Samurai said he didn't want anyone in his army who'd never made a mistake. That was my journey - my mistake. Mistakes are blessed things."

 

His story is a parable of the hazards of urban survival. British inner cities risked being overwhelmed by a pathological culture in the eighties and nineties. Hackney, with its infamous 'Murder Mile', income and education polarisation, nihilistic Hip Hop consumer culture and fratricidal violence, displayed some of the worst symptoms of inner city chaos. In the seventies Rastafarianism was essential in the formation of political consciousness amongst black Britons of Ghetto Priest's generation. In the late nineties it was Rasta asceticism and humility that rescued him.

"When we came back we had a Rasta camp. My master and me set up a church called Igziabeher Yim Mas Gan down in Stoke Newington. Just giving praises; doing collections, buying and selling food, setting up shops to be more self-sufficient. People brought their families through and children for blessing; from as far as Brixton and everywhere. Our church gave birth to the Rasites band you know. Dawit Menelik Tafari used to bring his son Kashta. Him and the others used to come to our church as little boys and play drums for us. We put the bass player, guitarist and drummer together, they didn't stop rehearsing and the rest is history."

Music continued to provide healing and inspiration. As his perspectives changed, so did the nature of what he was seeking to articulate. Squidley Steve became the churchical Levi Judah and then grew into the Ghetto Priest that we know today. It's a long way from 'What's Happenin' In Stokie".

"I had an urge to transmit something. Life can't be just for going to jail, being a little bad boy and going through the fucking drugs. I mean what's that? Music is the vehicle through which I get to transform all my pain. I just write it down - no self-censor. I transform all this shit into purity. Transform dark experience, and maybe someone else might hear it and realise that they're not the only one. I've found a way of making it come out melodically, musically. Bonjo Iyabinghi came to the church one day and heard me singing. He said he wanted to take me on tour with African Head Charge. I thought "brilliant, singing!" But he said "No. Go and sit on the drums, play drums". Drums? It is like kung-fu; in the way that they get the apprentice to sweep the place and clean the kitchen. So I was with African Head Charge for about five years and I met Adrian Sherwood through them. We did the 'Vulture Culture' album, Asian Dub Foundation came and asked me to be their frontman and we toured the world."

 

During his 'dark room' period he was oblivious to developments in the UK Roots scene. It was one of the many revelations that followed his discovery of the 'light switch'.

"I was into the shebeens, the Dancehall stuff and all that. I was a real Yardie, not into the UK Roots stuff. I wasn't even aware of the scene and didn't know the various little camps. Then Hughie Izachaar told me that every week he was going to a studio in this white breddas house in Stamford Hill; making music, having a good time. I went with him one time and liked the environment. There was Dougie Wardrop mixing away and giving it large. Barry Issac was there doing his stuff and I thought "Yes ras! This is what music's about, there ain't no hype here". I was actually with African Head Charge when this happened. I was doing tours and then coming back to link with Barry and Dougie. Barry Issacs, I love that geezer, he's a pioneer, one of my favourite artists. I just love his songs and his messages. Dougie loved me already cause I'm all cockney. He grew up down the road from me and supports Arsenal as well. He liked my approach because I just come and do my thing. He wanted to do an album, so we did 'Beyond Flesh'. "

His Reggae On Top and Conscious Sounds connections also lead to tunes being released by the Dubateers, Roots Youths and Meditative Sounds. It has all made for a versatile and original career.

"It goes from the Reggae scene and beyond. But it still maintains the essence and the message d'you understand? I'm still delivering the same message as I am in Reggae. So yeah, let's keep my mind open. Adrian Sherwood, who I call the 'Bishop of Dub', has taken Reggae music and incorporated it with Funk, Rock, Punk, Folk and everything. He goes where others fear to tread. The 'Vulture Culture' album took us five years to finish and it was my mayhem. I thrive on mayhem and chaos; I get my energy out of it. But I've done that . I've also been busy doing all my live stuff but I can't see a vision. I need another album. So I've gone and reasoned with Adrian, we've got the Dub Syndicate in and we've been working on it for the last six or seven months full on. I've got some more vocals to put down. I'm gonna put some cover versions on there as well. Dub Syndicate are playing all the music. I'm trying to get away from all the digi stuff, so it will be more live. It's gonna be called 'Sacred Ground' and will be released in March or April. I'm turning back to the Reggae purists a bit."

The music may take a turn towards orthodox Reggae, but Ghetto priest is adamant that his lyrics will not. New single 'Evolution' is a case in point.

"I was basically thinking about Marcus Garvey who said "Any sane man, race or nation that desires freedom must first of all think in terms of blood". And I thought, there's been so many fucking revolutions going on and it's not getting any better! We're not growing. Then I thought of Darwin".

It's impossible to nominate another Reggae artist who would throw down a challenge to Garveyites, revolutionaries and creationists in a single song. His interest is in the broad and diverse use of the language and symbols of Rastafari. He's opposed to the differentiation of false and true Rasta on the basis of arbitrary dogma.

"There are people who aren't open minded. They don't see me as a proper Rasta because I don't fit the mould. Some of the UK Reggae Roots artists are limited in their writing ability. I think that they could do better, there's a lot more going on. Reggae is not just a black thing anymore. Its world wide and multiracial. Everyone listens to it, so let's get a message going about what we think is going on in the world. Don't self-censor. Rasta is my symbol, but I'm open minded. I'm not into this cloak business; holier than thou.   What I do is personal. I've got no time to keep bragging to people to deal with Jah, d'you know what I mean? There's more to sing about than just Jah. Jah is self sufficient. Jah will exist if you give praise or not. Maybe some people won't like it because they've been listening to all this crap about "bun fire fe dat, bun fire fe dis, judgement pon dem, blah, blah blah". I'm just dealing with a way of life. Whether they think it's freaky or not is their problem. It's my personal ting, I'm not scared. What I go through is not uncommon, so I keep it on that level, just to tell people that there's hope".

It was only as I clicked off the tape at the end of the interview that I realised how absorbed I'd been. There's an energised focus to Ghetto Priest and I was fully immersed. He's unguarded, controversial and you plainly cannot predict what he's going to say next...I can't wait for the new album.

 

   

December 2010

 

Ghetto Priest Myspace: www.myspace.com/ghettopriestholyvoodou