UB40’s Robin Campbell by Reflex Recordings ©
Grammy-nominated musical group UB40 has been one of the most successful reggae bands in the UK for a very long time now.
Formed in Birmingham in 1978 and named after a UK government’s unemployment benefit form, UB40 sold over 70 million records worldwide and topped British charts with songs like Red, Red Wine and the popular ballad (I Can’t Help) Falling in Love with You.
UB40’s cover of Jamaican hit Kingston Town, released in 1989, sold over a million copies, and the band’s participation in the 2005 charity concert Live 8 was just as memorable as their performance at the legendary Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Tribute Concert held in London in 1988, which also featured Dire Straits and was broadcast to 600 million people.
UB40 founding member Robin Campbell answered the following questions on behalf of the rest of the band, whose lineup has constantly changed over the years after former frontman Ali Campbell left in 2008 and band founder Astro and saxophonist Brian Travers both died in 2021.
Robin, what achievements are you most proud of?
We have so many achievements to choose from over the last 40-plus years that I could write a list, but I guess our greatest one is just that we are still going after all this time, with as much or more enthusiasm than ever. And as long as we can keep playing live at this same level of enjoyment, we don’t want to stop.
Are there any memories of Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Tribute Concert in 1988 you would like to share?
The disappointment for me was that there were artists there solely for the commercial boost it gave their careers. I remember Whitney Houston’s team insisting that a large Coke banner [her sponsor] had to be prominently displayed for the TV cameras, which meant it covered the Mandela backdrop while she was on stage. It was a much more satisfying experience playing our own concerts in South Africa after Mandela’s release, his election as President and the outlawing of apartheid. I believe we still hold the live audience record there, 210,000 people over three nights.
Are there any artists you would like to collaborate with?
We did a collaboration album called Bigga Baggariddim, which was released in 2021, where we have worked with reggae artists we’ve met from around the world, including from countries such as New Zealand, India – of course – Jamaica, and the UK; some are long-established artists, and others are up and coming. It was a hugely enjoyable experience, and we were very excited to hear the fans’ reaction.
What is the future of reggae?
One can’t know the future of any genre of music, but I believe reggae will continue to develop and inform all types of dance and pop music as it has done for the last fifty years. We travel the world over, and every country has its own homegrown reggae artists, so its global acceptance and growth are assured.