The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah

When I was younger, I was skateboarding a lot. I was listening to music and skateboarding. There were two songs, that are widely different: DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt,” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right.” And I remember skateboarding to them and they made me just stop. And the world felt so cool. I would look a... See more

Perhaps this is the right time to big up my friend Bono, as one of the great singers and improvisers. His ability to transform the direction of a piece of music is really something. Once he gets to that zone, it’s like some other being has entered his body as he challenges the rest of us to rise to that same level of nonthinking, only performing. T

... See more

. I was brought up in a black and white world, and—yes, black and white, night and day, rich and poor. Black and white. And I listened to all kinds of music when I was young. And when I was younger, I always said that one day I was gonna play all kinds of music and not be judged for the color of my skin, but the quality of my work. And hopefully th

... See more

Do You Want More?!!!??! was acid jazz, Illadelph Halflife was a kind of Wu-Tang–influenced hard hip-hop production, and Things Fall Apart was definitive neo soul. We were going into the cocoon again. I wasn’t worried about our audience. They would follow us or they wouldn’t—I was used to losing about half our audience each time and picking up new f

... See more