ENTITY · GROUP
Steel Pulse
Well supported
Steel Pulse came out of Handsworth in Birmingham, formed by schoolfriends around David Hinds — born there in 1956 to parents who had migrated from Jamaica in the mid-1950s — and were the British reggae band that answered the National Front directly rather than obliquely. Their first Island single, "Ku Klux Klan" in February 1978, was written by Hinds at that party, and the band performed it in hoods; the debut album Handsworth Revolution followed the same year into police violence and a rising far right, reached the UK top ten, and remains the record British reggae is measured by. They played the Rock Against Racism circuit alongside punk bands, which put roots reggae in front of an audience that had not sought it out. With Babylon the Bandit they became the first non-Jamaican act to win the Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
At a glance
- Type
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- Confidence
- Well supported
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