Listening to the most recent Chart Music podcast, I was surprised to hear Al Needham having a go at Ali Campbell of UB40 for singing in a cod Jamaican accent. Now, I’ll grant you, I’m just a Murphy McMurphface from Paddyland, but all I ever heard was a nasal (red, red) whine and that thing people from areas with strong accents often do which is deliberately try to blandify their singing voice because going “full Brummie” just wouldn’t do. (Although, c’mon, how cool would it be doing a duet with Cher in the Mark Williams “We want to be together” voice?). To be fair, Im not totally deaf to this – I did own most of the early singles by The Police and thought there was something odd about the vocal.. But Al spoke with the certainty of someone from the midlands and his guests agreed without hesitation, so maybe I need to take the potatoes out of my ears..?
The bigger question, really, is how much does it matter?
Obviously, in this case there is the question of racial sensitivity and appropriation. Again, as Al pointed out, UB40 are a mixed race group and, apparently, none of Campbell’s » Continue Reading.
