‘If there are death threats, don’t tell me’ – how Rock Against Racism fought fascism | Music
‘We had to tell our own audiences that we’d fight them,” says Mykaell Riley, one of the founding members of UK reggae band Steel Pulse. “People had paid to come in and beat you up. So we would make it clear: if you come on stage, we will kick the fuck out of you.”Riley can laugh at how that sounds now but back in the 1970s, when the National Front were marching down streets, playing live music was no laughing matter for black musicians. It didn’t help that popular white artists of the time were fanning the flames – from…