Interview: Macka B – Reggae Daddy

April 23, 2012

Macka B (born Christopher McFarlane in Wolverhampton, England) is one of the UK’s hardest working, most widely travelled and outspoken MCs. His career began in the early 80s when his toasting on Birmingham’s Wassifa sound led to a single “Bible Reader” for London’s Fashion Records. In 1986 he underook a fruitful series of collaborations with the Mad Professor commencing with his debut longplayer Sign of the Times. Since then he has issued some twenty albums, including three recordings of his distinctive live shows, which feature careful and often humorous explanations of his chosen topics from a Rastafarian perspective.  The veteran chanter just kicked off his 12 date tour of Germany in Freiburg (April 19th) in preparation for his new album Change The World, produced by himself with guest rhythms from Ironfirst productions and the sweet Studio 1 rocksteady and early reggae revivals of Peckings. Over these the man of a thousand opinions holds forth on everything from gang violence to slavery reparations to musicians who “sell out”. Macka B can be an imposing presence to interview due to the depth of his voice and convictions but on this occasion there were smiles and laughter as Reggaeville entered into a lengthy discussion of his album and his views on the current events that could well populate his next…

You have a new album Change The World due out in June, but it will be available as a limited edition on your German tour. You’re huge in Germany aren’t you? I’ve seen you billed on festivals above visiting Jamaican artists.
I’ve been going there since the late 80s and you could we kind of started a little revolution and got the Germans jumping to reggae. If you ask a lot of Germans of a certain age what was the first live reggae show they went to a lot of them will say “Macka B”.

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