S7, Ep6: Jazzie B, DJ, music producer

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian a podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life because even as a restaurant critic I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:46Hello friends, you find me doing a bit of a home spray tan. I have not got time for a real salon spray tan, which means I'm just going to be sort of orange from my face down to my shoulders. And I will be washing my hands about five times. But rest assured by 7pm tonight, I will have worn orange palm. Now my guest today is Trevor Beresford Romeo, OBE, better known as Jazzy B, British DJ, music producer and founder of Soul2Soul. He's in a taxi, he's en route. I need to get these bits between the fingers, that's what gets me every time. Now this is the time of year, I'm going to admit to you, I get a familiar feeling and I'll be honest, I think it's envy.

1:44Why is Grimmie in Tokyo with Rita Ora and nine other influencers? How did he organise that? I can't get a group of four people to go to Pizza Express without months of diary planning. Even then, one of them will turn up. Now, my wisdom has to be that as ever, comparison is the thief of joy. And let me tell you, that holiday Grimmie's on, yes, it might have cost him thousands. but is he getting the joy that I'll get out of my fridge magnet bought from Longstone Lighthouse visit the centre in Northumbria? I do not think so. Jazzy B and Soul to Soul are credited with putting black British music on the map in the 80s with their slogan, Happy Face, a thumping bass for a loving race, which is also the name of his later memoir.

2:36Their 1989 album Club Classics Volume 1 literally wallpapered the late 80s with Back to Life hitting the top of the charts across Europe and in the US. The DJ and music producer's upbringing in North London as the eighth of nine siblings was rooted in the sound system culture of the 70s. His music career has spanned four decades and taken him across the globe. In 2008, he got an OBE for his services to music at Buckingham Palace. The same year, he was given an Ivan Novello Award, describing him as the man who gave British black music a soul of its own. He'll be here shortly. There are two questions.

3:22What's he eating when he's not spinning the decks? Do you think he's going to notice this orange palm?

3:38Jazzy B, welcome to Comfort Eating. Thank you for having me. I have heard that you have a tortoise. Oh yeah, Reuben. Little Reubes, yeah. They say that pets say a lot about who we are. And I'm wondering, what does Reuben tell us about Jazzy B? This is a creature who hibernates half the year and wears hard armour. there you go snap shed in one it's all of the above um one of the great things about having being around those kind of dinosaurs is that thing about time yeah and i'm a great believer in time and watching reuben circulate even back home where we live we keep turtles and tortoises as well back there and they're incredible creatures do you hibernate him Do you put him in a box?

4:30He doesn't hibernate, no. But when I was a little girl, Blue Peter, he used to always say that you put them in a box and you put them in an airing cupboard. Are you telling me this isn't true? These gatekeepers, eh? Thank God for gentrification. You know what? I guess there's all different species of them. But, you know, we got our one, like, no, Reuben's up and down all the time. His hibernation time is just when he's a kid. but he's as fast as Usain Bolt without a skateboard and very amusing. Every week I ask my comfort eaters to bring me the food that to them epitomises comfort. This is the food that they cook to make them feel at home.

5:16It's underneath here, Jazzo. Let's reveal. Reveal this. Oh. Oh. Oh. Is it custard? This is cornmeal porridge. Oh, oh, it's warm. Mmm, and it's made with coconut. Jazzy, you look really happy. Oh, look. You look happy. When we were kids, we used to call this yellow. We used to call it yellow. It's cornmeal porridge. Oh, my gosh. This is so good. This is like kind of a coconut, tapioca, sago pudding. It's peasant comfort food. It's just so warm and sweet and silky. How do you make it? If I tell you that, then I've got to blow up the room, haven't I? No, it's really simple. I start the base off with water and coconut milk.

6:16Yeah. and then some people soak it a little bit, a bit like oats when you do, you know, making it a bit more creamy. But this has to be a powder that you start with. Yeah, this is cornmeal powder. Yeah, it's like polenta. Yeah. So it's cornmeal. Then in the coconut milk with your specific ground ingredients like cinnamon, nutmeg and stuff like that. I can taste the cinnamon. Vanilla. I like it like that. Just smooth. It's got to be airy. Yeah. You've got to be whipped airily. That way there's no lumps. That's silky, warm, that kind of feeling. I hope I didn't really describe how you make it, but I'll give you the few ideas.

7:04I love that you are absolutely not giving this recipe up. Are you just not? I've asked you seven times, like Jeremy Paxman going at a politician and he's not, no. It's incredibly yellow.

7:25Trevor Romeo, you were born in 1963. You were brought up in Hornsey, North London, with your mum and your dad, Blanche and Rupert Romeo. that came to the UK as part of the Windrush generation. Oh, this is brilliant. This is a big family. What I'm wondering, crowd of nine kids, where do you fit in here? My elder brothers and sisters generation, born and raised here post, let's say, Windrush era. The last lot of terms that my parents would use before they left the house was like, fit in, you've got to fit in. where when we came along it was punk, adultery, all kinds of things going odd. So it's post all of that drama and understanding who you were, questioning your elders and so on and so forth.

8:19Did you question your elders when you were living in that house? Were you the one that gave back chat to your mum and dad? You know what, in a funny way, I guess without even realising it, we were questioning things. Yeah. Who is Auntie Mabel? What is her real credential? And why do we have to call her Auntie? Never mind who is Uncle Patrick and where's his credentials and so on and so forth. So we were breaking down these crazy barriers. Did you ever get those answers? Yeah, we questioned everything, my sister and I, Paulette. Was she the one that you were closest to? Yeah, she was my partner in crime and actually still is to this very day.

9:03Amazing. We got into trouble together and everything. But an incredible household. All of us growing up, mum, dad, sister, brother, all these moody people who were circulating, which we came to find out that most of them were lodgers. And that was a way of our parents paying the rent or paying the mortgage or whatever. And so it was an easier way of them getting by. So there was 11 of you in the house, plus lodgers. Did you have a table in the kitchen that you could sit everyone at once? The kitchen was the hub of the house. Mum's always in control of that area, although my sister, Dagmar, who kind of raised us, she would always be with the kitchen drawers and providing for Paulette and I.

9:55What does she make? What does Dagmar cook? The one that's stuck in my head is tomato soup. And then when it was too hot, she put milk in it. I thought she was mugging us off, you know what I mean, back in the day. Dagmar brings the tomato soup that she's made through the goodness of her own heart. And what does Trevor say to them? Their youth is wasted. Yeah, it wasn't much appreciated at the time. Because there was things like McDonald's had come along by the head. Wimpy was out, you know what I mean? the top of my road at Hornsey we had the pie mash shop you had so many different cuisines going along but the main thing I've just noticed soup cornmeal porridge it's all beginning to join the dots this simple food life isn't it yeah

10:51was western doing food a big thing in your kitchen yeah I mean I didn't realize that it was such a thing west indian food like that because we had it every day and it was stuff that we just totally took for granted my dad used to grow a lot of vegetables as well so we we'd always have that in abundance i remember a time when people shared a lot of stuff provisions and so on probably grown in their own allotment stroke gardens that related to caribbean food so that was always the foundation i remember we'd have a lot of sawfish and and trovers and vegetables green banana um yams pumpkin and it sounds so delicious but we were getting that every day like you know on a weekly basis kind of thing so you know fried dumplings boiled dumplings but yeah all that kind of food and I have fond memories of growing up in Hornsey Road going to Mr Young's shop who would have lots of provisions from the Caribbean it felt like three or four days outside of a Sunday where we'd have traditional food as it were and I was always a double egg and chips man myself against the backdrop of Wimpy I love the fact that you went to the Wimpy though oh we used to have lunch and vouchers coming out of we used to go to the library I lived down the road from the library that's where I probably got involved in music in quite a deep way because growing up in the house there was everything from Inkle Humperdinck I think you're talking about Inglebert him.

12:42Inglebert Humperdinck. My mum loved him. My mother was a massive fan. Tom Jones. Tom Jones, Inglebert Humperdinck, please release me. Then against Bay City Rollers and Shawaddy Waddy. So she played these, did she play Inglebert Humperdinck in the house? No, this is all the different brothers and sisters behind each door was different things going on. Shawaddy Waddy being played in your house and in my house. Cliff Richards and then me mucking about with a little transistor radio that I bought as a kit from RTVC in Edgeware Road. And it was tinkering around with that. And I picked up on AM radio, Invicta Radio.

13:21And my first thing I tuned into was Benny and the Jets. Next morning, I was up at the flash of dawn and off to the library to nick me a copy of Benny and the Jets. Jazzy I thought that maybe you were going to be one guest that came on here and didn't talk about stealing I don't seem to have one law abiding person that's been on this podcast what I was going to ask you was of course you ended up being an international superstar but at this point in your life that we're talking about what job did you have in mind and what job did the school think that you should have? Great questions. Bang on. I really do remember clearly going to the job centre and being offered a job as a milkman.

14:15Imagine if I'd become a milkman. I'd be out of the gig now, wouldn't I? How would you be about people changing their orders at the last minute? They wouldn't be able to do it. It wouldn't be a lad. It wouldn't be a lad. You stick to what you say. You pay for it on the nose. We'll do something like that and say, hello, hello, Trevor. I don't want this milk today, but can I have some yoghurt and some semi-skinned? And do you have eggs? I'll be like, get yourself down to co-op. Get out of here. I've got work to do.

14:53You have played sets here, there, everywhere. you have been a regular on London's radio stations. You have worked with icons of music. But you have said that one of your most important sets, if not the most important set, was at the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. You were 12 years old. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Like anyone who's listening to this that wasn't around at that point. Huge. It was a massive deal. I was a little girl and I remember it felt like the whole country stopped and there was street parties everywhere and, well, flags everywhere and everybody had time off. Without trying to be too sentimental or emotional, it was a time when we had communities.

15:43And I want to say now I'm older and realising it's the fact that the possibilities of the class system helped to induce that and maybe keep that together. Did you just stand up on the day and do it or did you prepare? Oh, preparation is key. I saved up, let me say it again. We saved up for a BSR turntable from the shop on Hornsey Road, Hornsey Electrics at the time. But my brother said it was an opportunity to help with the street party. And I was like, me, me, me, me, me, me. I was always trying to mimic me older brothers and that lot, who all had sound systems and stuff like that. I grew up in a house that we'd get to have, we'd call them blues parties or social parties, rent parties.

16:34The rooms were cleared out and then they'd have a party, like you've got this going on in your living room there. Bit of cool meal, couple chats. So we were always between the banisters, seen and not heard kind of theory. Do you know what I'm going to ask you for people that are listening to this? When you talk about the sound systems, I think your average person right now, they understand the concept of DJs. They understand the concept of joining a band. They understand what you were in Soul to Soul when they saw that on top of the pops. But what is different about the sound system? I'll give you a quick snapshot.

17:17imagine a band guitarist keyboard player drummer singer replaced with a dj a mic man a selector an operator etc etc these are the various components that make up the sound system which is something that came in from the caribbean jamaica specifically and was like a cottage industry of how we would be able to throw a party playing a particular type of music and you were together in usually in Britain in confined spaces but the sound system was like education in terms of what was the music was talking about and it really does illustrate the the idea the community coming together how music is inseparably linked within all our lives particularly growing up as a teenager and you're looking for your tribe you're looking to find you know other people who understand what you're going through i'm getting a sense there's music blasting out people are finding their own tribes but i've got to ask is there any food involved it has at my parties at places like the africa center or the warehouse parties there'll be anything from fried chicken any nibbly type things which will be flavored in a slightly anglo-saxon way that re-erminists the idea of a um what would you call it sort of not finger bowl but you know snacky type thing so is that because you're you're you're busy and you're DJing and you're doing whatever, so you need things you can just eat with.

19:06No, no, no, we're punting this. This is part of the money coming in, isn't it? It's revenue. Right, yeah. Yeah. The sound system helped to feed a lot of people in your community, so we would hire a hall if we could get it. And then we'd do everything from the entrance to the food to the drink to the consumption of whatever you were smoking. Who's cooking the food? Is it? It's all communal. know it's like being my sisters making the chicken and that law you buy be buying you know curry goat and rice and stuff like that how old are you right at this point you're talking about 20s yeah that's when i was doing so everybody else is having an amazing time they are cooking and coming and dancing and drinking but you're you're running this night were you stressed um i only came to understand what that word meant a lot later in life but at the time of what I call our success no because this journey that I was on was far more interesting than what Christopher Columbus could have ever imagined we come from a time where you sent out a signal people were just there I come from a time where you used to go to football matches and enjoy the football matches outside because there were so many racists inside.

20:28I come from a time where we weren't even allowed to go to gigs, not because our parents wouldn't let us, but the doorman wouldn't let us in. So I come from a really interesting time with all that adversity. Use that as a slingshot. And I think, I ain't saying I cracked the code, but I just make everything as simple as the cornmeal porridge. which we both enjoyed earlier.

21:07When you received an Ivor Novello Award, you were called a pioneer and the man who gave black British music a soul of its own. It all begins with the legendary club nights in the Africa Centre in the 1980s, later moving to the Fridge nightclub in Brixton. This club night ushered in what people called the second summer of love in 1988. Politically, it is a huge time. Thatcher has been in power for almost a decade. There's been poll tax riots. People wanted to break away from the greed is good vibes of the 80s. Electronic dance music and soul to soul join hands. the hedonism and optimism of the rave scene peak but what is your one memory of this time that always returns to you probably my experience of going to the far east because by that time i was rubbing shoulders with people in fukuoka i was going to places like korea and i was expanding in my journey in terms of the things that I was seeing and grasping to be inspired probably for the next 10 years.

22:29When you got to the Far East, how did you find the food there? Was that, was it a shock? I've had people on here that the first time they've went away, they've ended up in McDonald's because they've been too overawed by things. Again, I, you know, I've got to thank my parents man I've been traveling for a long time we went to places like France Holland um we were based in the Caribbean my parents never gave up their heritage back home so from the 70s I was there so it's not do you experience culture shock when you get there I think really because I used to go to America and buy records back in the day when you could get a flight for like 50 quid and 99 pounds and stuff like that um i was going i was like in inglewood in california then meeting other members of the family the extended my real family and then going you know to places like new york flatbush and those kind of places is that in the 80s when you go back and go to between the 70s and the 80s if there was one dish that reminds you of going to new york in the 70s and that first time you see American food what is it I guess what they call soul food macaroni and cheese and stuff like that because they probably use 15 different varieties of cheese when they make their mac and cheese and you are seriously in heart attack territory love it what a way to go though oh it's yummy I'm going to talk to you about 89 club classics back to life you can't move for that tune at that point it reaches number one here in the uk and stays for four weeks you're number one in the netherlands the euro chart hot 100 canada the states did you ever see yourself on top of the pops i watched you this morning again because i wanted to remember like i remember watching that i remember how important it was and i went back and watched and I was like how is that man making a keytar look amazing the whole thing was like pulled together everything you've got on the fact that you could properly dance while you were playing it everything about it you're a pop star at that point I mean you know that's probably thankful to I don't know, Osa Bisa, Eddie Grant and the Equals, Bob Marley and the Whalers, Aswad, Steel Pulse and all these other black bands that I would have watched, you know, in the earlys when a black person came on telly, everybody ran inside to see.

25:12Those were all heavy influences musically. And I started off working in the back of the music business. I started off as a T-boy. I rubbed shoulders with the greatest musicians Britain's ever known. Hans Zimmer was the first guy who gave me my break in terms of when I released my first record from Lilliard Studios with Howie B and the guys as I released my first dub play. So the idea of, you know, the keyboard and the moving around and putting it all together, I had peers like Earth, Wind & Fire and Funkadelic.

26:00Did you love that bit though, when you were kind of on top of the pops being, you know, you said you've been in the back for so long and now you're the front, you're on the stage on top of the pops. Did you love that moment being so famous? No, there's a great story at Top of the Pops because Top of the Pops is the thing that made us so famous because when we went to do Top of the Pops, they said we couldn't do it live. And everybody looked at me to make a decision. And I walked out. And we never did Top of the Pops. We did Top of the Pops after the record was successful. All of the stuff that you see today is part and parcel of the adversity that honestly happened.

26:45But it took your podcast to spoon it out of me. Did you feel like you when you were doing this, when you had to walk onto a stage and do that, smile, be cheerful, be happy, be a BBC version of you? Never BBC. I guess this was really a way of me just poking people back by suggesting I didn't have to apologise anymore. most of my life was apologizing to my community because they thought I was a punk rocker or gay or something that they didn't understand and then every day you walk out your house I remember getting arrested and stop and search I remember they threw me into a paddy wagon for having a plug ball coming on Holloway Road um the people in the Caribbean you say work the work Don't let the work work you.

27:40So even though the happiness and the smiling of us is because it's outside, they just cry and broke down. My defense mechanism and my drive is from my mother, who had to deal with so much adversity. And in terms of me being able to hang and deal with it, I never, ever took anything that I was put in a position to do for granted. so for me even coming up in those times it was more about the journey and and everything that came along with it the arguing with the floor manager the misunderstanding with jeremy lascelles the lovely mick cark and keith borton who put me in don taylor who taught me this barry white who made me come back to this country isaac hayes who allowed me to do a duet james brown who was like a big brother to me you started producing so many other artists tina marie cheryl lynn public enemy and they always say don't meet your idols yeah it's true true that some point in the 90s you get a call to work with james brown yeah you help have him inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame you go on tour with him i have heard that you gave him his first can of jolt cola true that true that true that does james brown strictly need jolt cola is the question i'm asking incredible man incredible incredible we had great stories but the going on about the job was because there was a question posed because fella cootie i knew fella as well and they were asking who's the king of fun and when i was with mr brown clearly no doubt mr brown you are the godfather and then because i used to have people like fellow and other great artists around as well i'd always played them off on each other and it was a lot of fun and that night i purposely got him to drink the jolt because i wanted him to perform for me jolt cola as is it times the caffeine of a regular coat cola and the weirdest thing is right straight up homeboy probably drank half of it and went swirling it around and just proceeded to be just normal like it weren't nothing didn't even phase homeboy but i felt so proud that i was able to do this you know remarkable thing with him and it feels like there was a moment that came full circle for you from 1977 your first dj set playing the queen's jubilee yeah it's 2008 when you went and accepted your OBE at Buckingham Palace.

30:34How was that? Was there a garden party? Was there any food there? No, that's the longest day where you literally, you will faint waiting. Like, don't even test that. I was, again, fortunate because I'd done quite a lot of things for Prince's Trust before that. And my work in the community with ex-offenders and just man-to-man off the street. I had a studio at Rochester Place that was dedicated to the Prince's Trust. Lady Di used to come there a lot. And she and, I believe, Prince Charles at the time, they both enjoyed my music. And I remember one time Homeboy coming to an event to do something and, yeah, loving him a couple of CDs out of the boot in my car.

31:20Make sure Di gets there, yeah? Sort it.

31:33In my research for you, trying to get to grips with the inner workings of Jazzy B, the man, I read your lyrics and there it was. In your song, just write, you say Dr. Fish is our favourite dish. Jazzy B, talk to me about Dr. Fish, baked, roasted. So Dr. Fish is my favourite dish. It's one of the fishes that comes out of the ocean. And obviously Antigua is surrounded by incredible waters. When we go to a beach, we go out to sea with the fishermen. And you take this fish, you chuck it literally on burning fire, coal, wood. No grill. If your hands can stand it, you pick it off the grill. This is when it's all charcoal, all covered in life.

32:24This thing is burned. It's inedible. Please tell me you're putting a bit of salt or a bit of lemon. I'm killing you now. You don't even do none of that. We're all sounding very medieval. Very medieval. Guess what you do? I bet you don't even get a fork, do you? No fork, nothing. You drag the burnt up carcass of fish into the sea in your hands and you slowly start taking off the charcoal, the burnt bit. This fish gets infused with the seawater and the burntness of the charcoal. It's the most interesting barbecue flavoured fish that you could only eat with your hands in the middle of the sea. it's amazing it's like oysters sand no sand no you don't eat any of the debris because you're you're like you've got it in your hands in you feels like something you'd eat maybe after a plane crash again i think it brings us right full circle to what we enjoyed earlier on yellow which is so simple and i guess at heart i'm a simple person really jazzy you have had quite the career going from internationally renowned dj to coming out with these tunes that are just timeless and it feels like you've smashed through some glass ceilings and you'll always be in the nation's heart but when heaven forbid no time soon there is no jazzy b here what is the thing that you really want people to remember about you who helped to build the biggest sound system in the world done did you do it not yet getting there still on that journey jazzy bay thank you for bringing that snack and thank you for comforting with me it's been an absolute comfort i hope so

34:39This episode of Comfort Eating was produced by Eva Krisiak and Hattie Moyer. The executive producer is Lucy Greenwell. The music was written by Axel Kukutio. Mixing and sound design was by Solomon King. If you love comfort eating, then go and leave us a review and you can follow or subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

35:07This is The Guardian.