Step into the pulse of the early ‘80s, as “Caribbean Kings: The Other British Invasion” peels back the breakthrough journey of Black British men whose Caribbean roots powered a musical movement that influenced the global music landscape. From reggae to pop and R&B, hosts DJ Sir Daniel and Jay Ray explore how artists descended from the Windrush generation reshaped the US soundscape, blending cultures and genres in unforgettable ways.

This episode dives into:

• The pivotal influence of the Windrush generation and the Caribbean diaspora on British music
• How Bob Marley opened the door for Black men to become international pop superstars
• Musical Youth’s historic MTV debut, predating Michael Jackson, and rewriting what was possible for Black artists
• Billy Ocean’s chart-topping anthems, from R&B gems to global pop ballads, and the story behind “European Queen?”
• The legacy of Eddy Grant, Junior, Maxi Priest, and Shabba Ranks in changing the game for UK-to-US crossover hits

Hit play, share with fellow music lovers, and let Queue Points drop the needle on the untold stories behind the songs that changed history!

Chapter Markers

00:00 Intro Theme

00:16 Introduction and Host Greetings

01:16 The Windrush Generation and Caribbean Influence

02:37 Bob Marley: The Gateway to Caribbean Music

06:37 The Rise of Caribbean Kings in the 1980s

09:05 Billy Ocean and the Caribbean Pop Explosion

21:42 Maxi Priest, Shabba Ranks, and the 90s Caribbean Wave

29:43 Outro Theme

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Sir Daniel: 00:00:16

Greetings and welcome to another episode of Queue Points podcast.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:19

I am DJ Sir Daniel

Jay Ray: 00:00:22

And my name is Jay Ray, sometimes known by my government as

Jay Ray: 00:00:26

Johnnie Ray Kornegay III and Sir Daniel in the early 1980s, you could not tell

Jay Ray: 00:00:32

me that it having a British accent as a Black man wasn't the coolest thing ever.

Jay Ray: 00:00:38

It was a whole mood.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:39

It certainly was.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:41

We are about to talk about the other British invasion, but not just the British

Sir Daniel: 00:00:46

invasion, a Caribbean, British invasion.

Sir Daniel: 00:00:50

Jay Ray, we talking about Caribbean Kings on this episode and um, oh, I

Sir Daniel: 00:00:56

just, I've left a great opportunity to start singing there on the table,

Sir Daniel: 00:00:59

but we're not gonna do that because I know we wanna get to the conversation.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:03

But Jay Ray, I think.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:06

What this generation is missing is the smooth tones of a

Sir Daniel: 00:01:11

Caribbean, um, born singer.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:16

So Jay Ray, You and I. Benefited from the fruits of the Windrush generation

Sir Daniel: 00:01:23

as kids growing up in the eighties.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:25

And if you're not familiar, we talked about the Windrush generation on this, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:01:30

podcast before, but they are a generation of Caribbean immigrants that landed in

Sir Daniel: 00:01:37

England, London, England starting in 1948.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:41

There was an influx of people from Jamaica, trinidad and Tobago, Barbados,

Sir Daniel: 00:01:46

Guyana, uh, Grenada all over that went over to England like most immigrants.

Jay Ray: 00:01:53

Mm-hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:01:53

To go to this country, to, um, better their lives seeking

Sir Daniel: 00:01:58

employment, seeking, um, other freedoms, but mostly to make money and to become,

Sir Daniel: 00:02:05

you know, to gain employment and to send money back home, of course, to

Sir Daniel: 00:02:09

their families that couldn't make it.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:11

But Jay Ray.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:13

What we got from this Windrush generation was an amazing, amazing

Sir Daniel: 00:02:18

history of Black music that I don't think anybody really taps in or

Sir Daniel: 00:02:24

talks about in this music atmosphere.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:28

And Key Points is the only show doing it.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:30

So take that everybody.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:32

Um, and so we're gonna start, we can't.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:35

Not talk about the Caribbean Kings.

Sir Daniel: 00:02:37

And there's um, there's four in particular that we want to highlight, but we can't

Sir Daniel: 00:02:43

start without talking about Bob Marley who debuted in 1965, uh, with the Whalers

Sir Daniel: 00:02:51

as a, in a group, but then he became an international superstar and one of his

Sir Daniel: 00:02:56

stops, of course, was London, England.

Jay Ray: 00:03:00

Yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:03:00

So, uh, I do think, uh, Bob Marley is kind of the gateway

Jay Ray: 00:03:05

to opening the door for, uh.

Jay Ray: 00:03:08

Popular culture.

Jay Ray: 00:03:10

And when I'm saying popular culture, in this case, I do mean white folks

Jay Ray: 00:03:13

to be exposed to, um, in Bob Marley's case, reggae, but more expansively,

Jay Ray: 00:03:21

uh, music of the Caribbean because I feel like, um, reggae is just kind of

Jay Ray: 00:03:26

this, this box, but I feel like what Bob Marley and, and Bob Marley and the

Jay Ray: 00:03:29

Whalers were doing was a little bit of rock and roll, a little bit of soul.

Jay Ray: 00:03:33

With the reggae, uh, uh, uh, foundation.

Jay Ray: 00:03:36

But yeah, Bob Marley is, is kind of the gateway.

Jay Ray: 00:03:39

And so when Bob Marley goes solo, he becomes an international superstar.

Jay Ray: 00:03:48

And when I was growing up, so man.

Jay Ray: 00:03:54

There was, um, a moment, and I think I talked about this on our

Jay Ray: 00:03:58

Bob, uh, our Bob Marley show, where you would see a Bob Marley concert.

Jay Ray: 00:04:03

Like they would air it on tv 'cause I wasn't as familiar, I think, and I was

Jay Ray: 00:04:07

super young 'cause I think he, uh, he died in like 1981, but they showed this Bob

Jay Ray: 00:04:12

Marley concert and it was packed to the gills with people and he was performing

Jay Ray: 00:04:18

this music that I was at that point.

Jay Ray: 00:04:21

Unfamiliar with, but the size of the crowd was amazing.

Jay Ray: 00:04:26

But what I think Bob Marley did was it gave a way to the possibility

Jay Ray: 00:04:33

of Black men being pop superstars on the international stage.

Jay Ray: 00:04:40

And that's what I think, uh, Bob Marley was able to do for,

Jay Ray: 00:04:43

for this, for this group of men.

Jay Ray: 00:04:44

I think he really did open the door for that

Jay Ray: 00:04:46

possibility.

Sir Daniel: 00:04:47

He absolutely did and what he did, so if you remember, um, at their

Sir Daniel: 00:04:52

inception, so in 1965, we're still on.

Sir Daniel: 00:04:55

You know, as far as stylists concerned, we're still coming off the tail

Sir Daniel: 00:04:59

end of the fifties where a lot of musicians are, are suited and booted.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:04

They're, you know, in well tailored suits.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:07

Um, hairs cut.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:08

Everybody is coiffed and looks very mainstream and palatable for various

Sir Daniel: 00:05:14

audience, different, different audiences.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:17

So if, when you fast forward to the end of the sixties, um, they went

Sir Daniel: 00:05:22

from, they went from, um, that.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:25

Um, buttoned up style.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:26

Then they went to mod the mod style of dressing.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:30

Then we get into the hippie era.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:32

And so what you find though is that Bob Marley, um, delves into his,

Sir Daniel: 00:05:37

the, the Rastafari culture and grows out his hair, grows out the locks.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:43

Then the Rastafari, um, culture literally.

Sir Daniel: 00:05:47

Takes over London like a lot of those British kids, even the,

Sir Daniel: 00:05:52

the, the white kids that were into the, into hippie culture, and they

Sir Daniel: 00:05:57

gravitated to that, to that raaf um, culture, the way of dressing.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:04

And if, you know, and there is a line Jay Ray, and that's a, this is a whole nother

Sir Daniel: 00:06:07

topic, but there is a line between, um, Rastafarian Jamaican culture and um, sky.

Jay Ray: 00:06:15

Scott Punk.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:17

punk and also to the skinheads, which is really

Jay Ray: 00:06:22

is really wild, but you are right.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:25

There's a through line there.

Sir Daniel: 00:06:26

Yes.

Jay Ray: 00:06:27

There's a through line there.

Jay Ray: 00:06:28

And so that's so interesting that you do draw this line because I do think,

Jay Ray: 00:06:33

uh, for the, for the, uh, gentlemen that we're about to talk about, right?

Jay Ray: 00:06:37

So as we get into, uh, the mid to late 1970s, and I love that you

Jay Ray: 00:06:42

called it at the top, the, the other British invasion because.

Jay Ray: 00:06:48

What we find in kind of the, the, the, I think the first big breakout, uh, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:06:53

star of this group who actually become, takes over the 1980s as well, um, is.

Jay Ray: 00:06:59

Billy Ocean kind of starts on the r and b side of things.

Jay Ray: 00:07:03

You know, Knights Baby Funky r and b Knights is still just

Jay Ray: 00:07:08

like an amazingly funky track.

Jay Ray: 00:07:11

And, but then, you know, as the 1980s move, as the 1980s move

Jay Ray: 00:07:17

on, you know, pivots into like this pop superstardom, but.

Jay Ray: 00:07:23

There's Black artists that come, came from the uk, ended up on the r

Jay Ray: 00:07:29

and b charts in the US and it just kind of became this phenomenon.

Jay Ray: 00:07:35

But it's a phenomenon that that oftentimes we just kind of overlook.

Jay Ray: 00:07:39

But it was really important to how Black artists in the US even

Jay Ray: 00:07:44

began to make music later on.

Jay Ray: 00:07:46

So these, these men are like really pivotal.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:49

They're very pivotal and important.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:51

Um, but I just wanted a little footnote.

Sir Daniel: 00:07:53

I don't want to forget musical youth because

Jay Ray: 00:07:56

Oh, can we talk about them please?

Sir Daniel: 00:07:58

Who, who like, uh, uh, literally a boy

Sir Daniel: 00:08:02

band out of London, England.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:06

Um, huge.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:08

I mean, and when I say boys, I literally mean

Jay Ray: 00:08:11

boys.

Jay Ray: 00:08:11

They were boys.

Jay Ray: 00:08:11

These are the children.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:12

These are children, um, who saw stardom at a very early age

Sir Daniel: 00:08:17

and what, like, became so huge to the point that it, um, you know, their,

Sir Daniel: 00:08:23

their careers, it affected them.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:25

You know, clearly.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:27

Um, but they are part of that, uh, what that imagination, what America could

Sir Daniel: 00:08:33

see as with Black men becoming the front men of these huge international

Sir Daniel: 00:08:40

bands and even solo artists.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:42

So they are part of that foundation because if you don't have Bob Marley and

Sir Daniel: 00:08:48

the Whalers, you don't have musical youth.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:50

And if you don't have musical, then you don't have.

Sir Daniel: 00:08:54

Your Billy Oceans and your junior Griscoms that were all, you know, that

Sir Daniel: 00:08:59

all came along and became huge pop stars in the mid eighties, the early eighties.

Jay Ray: 00:09:04

The early eighties.

Jay Ray: 00:09:05

So fun fact, I I I, I, we give Michael Jackson a lot of love for

Jay Ray: 00:09:15

how he kind of kicked to open the door on like the MTV side of things.

Jay Ray: 00:09:18

So I think there's just something that I wanna make sure we bring

Jay Ray: 00:09:21

into the conversation too.

Jay Ray: 00:09:22

Um, music video made it easy for this trans.

Jay Ray: 00:09:27

Made it easy for this transition to happen, right?

Jay Ray: 00:09:29

Because first of all, music video in Europe and in the UK in

Jay Ray: 00:09:34

particular was kind of a medium that folks were really familiar with.

Jay Ray: 00:09:38

Um, because bands, if we think back to Bohemian Rhapsody, like Queen did a

Jay Ray: 00:09:42

music video in like 19 74, 75, right?

Jay Ray: 00:09:45

So it was something that people were familiar with.

Jay Ray: 00:09:47

So it made it easy to kind of like have this visual to go musical youth.

Jay Ray: 00:09:53

Actually predated Michael Jackson on MTV.

Jay Ray: 00:09:56

So when we talk about Black artists being played on MTV, which was Rock and

Jay Ray: 00:10:02

Roll centered musical youth, predated Michael Jackson by several months.

Jay Ray: 00:10:09

Uh, they, so musical youth is actually the first Black artist that MTV played.

Jay Ray: 00:10:14

It wasn't, we give Michael Jackson a lot of, a lot of love 'cause it was huge.

Jay Ray: 00:10:18

But it was actually musical youth that cracked open

Jay Ray: 00:10:20

that door.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:22

And see, once again, nobody's talking about this, this

Sir Daniel: 00:10:26

British invasion, um, that happened.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:29

You know, Billy Ocean is, um, most of everybody knows everybody.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:34

Most of these groups are Jamaican from Jamaica.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:37

Billy Ocean is Trinidadian and, um, which is, which was huge at the time.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:43

And like you were saying, his, the music was super r and b.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:47

Like you see Knights is right behind me and stay the night.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:51

Those are like major r and b, big r and b records that you can play.

Sir Daniel: 00:10:58

In any cool eighties RB set to this day, I mentioned Junior

Sir Daniel: 00:11:02

Griscom Griscom, who I found out.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:04

So he's, he's British, born and raised, but of course he has Jamaican parents and

Sir Daniel: 00:11:11

we all know Junior from, um, mama used to say, which was a huge, huge record.

Jay Ray: 00:11:16

can hear it right now on classic r and b radio, somewhere in this country.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:20

absolutely it's, um, sampled, been sampled.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:23

In positive case.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:24

I got a man.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:26

Um.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:28

So much to say about junior gifts and I don't think he gets a lot of love that,

Sir Daniel: 00:11:32

the love that he should, but again, he's someone that pushed that pop envelope so

Sir Daniel: 00:11:37

that you can get, so that room can be made for an Eddy Grant who is out of Guyana.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:46

Which is, I, I have to represent for Guyana.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:48

That's where my, um, my mother is from and our family and is from Guyana.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:52

And I didn't even know that until I became an adult that Eddy Grant was Guyanese.

Sir Daniel: 00:11:57

And that's such a huge deal because there aren't, there aren't any.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:01

Any other major, major pop stars from Guyana that you can

Sir Daniel: 00:12:06

pop, that you can point at?

Sir Daniel: 00:12:08

I mean, there's lots of different, um, bands and whatnot, and there

Sir Daniel: 00:12:11

are people of Guyanese descent.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:13

There's some MCs that are of Guyanese descent, but, uh, we're talking

Sir Daniel: 00:12:18

Eddy Grant, if you don't remember, rocked us down to Electric Avenue.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:24

That song is still to this day, is a monster.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:29

Is a monster jam.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:30

It marries rock.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:32

It is marries punk.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:34

It marries, ska.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:35

Um,

Jay Ray: 00:12:36

wave.

Jay Ray: 00:12:37

It's all in there.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:39

all in there and he continues that Rastafarian, um.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:44

He brought that Rastafarian culture with him as well because he was very, he

Sir Daniel: 00:12:49

represented in the music videos of funny.

Sir Daniel: 00:12:53

Jay Ray was telling me a very funny story about how that that video freaked him

Jay Ray: 00:12:57

freaked Electric Avenue.

Jay Ray: 00:13:00

So I was a MTV kid.

Jay Ray: 00:13:01

Um, and so I remember when Electric Avenue was playing on MTV, I was

Jay Ray: 00:13:07

fortunate in that we had cable early.

Jay Ray: 00:13:09

I. I remember when Electric Avenue was playing on MTV as like a new

Jay Ray: 00:13:13

song, and it was something about the colors, the, the, the, the

Jay Ray: 00:13:20

amalgamation of sounds and there was like a water theme that freaked me out.

Jay Ray: 00:13:29

'cause he like falls into the water and then ends up on the beach.

Jay Ray: 00:13:31

I don't know why that video scared me so much, but as a kid it really did.

Jay Ray: 00:13:35

But I wanna lift up something that.

Jay Ray: 00:13:37

You mentioned going back to that amalgamation of sounds.

Jay Ray: 00:13:40

First of all two things Eddy Grant produced, wrote, and produced that record.

Sir Daniel: 00:13:45

That whole

Jay Ray: 00:13:46

And Guyana like, so, like this is like squarely, I think in Guyana.

Jay Ray: 00:13:53

Don't quote me on that.

Jay Ray: 00:13:53

Y'all let me, let us know in the con in the, in the, the chat.

Jay Ray: 00:13:56

But I really do think he like went back to Guyana and like did this record.

Jay Ray: 00:13:59

So it's really kind of, uh, uh, a self, it's self produced.

Jay Ray: 00:14:03

Self written, which is great for Eddy.

Jay Ray: 00:14:05

Grant, you got a huge hit off that bro.

Jay Ray: 00:14:08

I want, I hope you're still collecting your checks, but it married.

Jay Ray: 00:14:15

All of these things that were kind of like catnip.

Jay Ray: 00:14:18

So those striking keyboards, the, the, the, the, the, the big guitar, the,

Sir Daniel: 00:14:25

Mm-hmm.

Jay Ray: 00:14:25

what I'm saying of for rock and roll, and then you get the

Jay Ray: 00:14:29

little, the little whispers of the, the reggae happening, um, as well.

Jay Ray: 00:14:33

So it's, it was literally catnip and that particular song became

Jay Ray: 00:14:38

just like it was everywhere.

Jay Ray: 00:14:41

Now he did have, um.

Jay Ray: 00:14:43

Which you, which you reminded me of, romancing the Stone, which was apparently

Jay Ray: 00:14:48

supposed to be closely associated with the film, ended up not happening.

Jay Ray: 00:14:53

So there's like a song Romancing The Stone by Eddy Grant that was

Jay Ray: 00:14:57

supposed to be attached to the film, romancing the Stone, but they

Jay Ray: 00:15:00

ended up somehow getting separated.

Jay Ray: 00:15:02

But Eddy Grant in the, the, the early 1980s in the US was one of those

Jay Ray: 00:15:08

artists that came out of this canon.

Jay Ray: 00:15:10

Who, uh, was groundbreaking?

Sir Daniel: 00:15:13

So speaking of romancing the stone, shout out to Billy Ocean again,

Sir Daniel: 00:15:18

who also had a major hit with the go when the going gets tough for the, which

Sir Daniel: 00:15:24

appeared on the sequel of Romancing the Stone, which is jewel of the N. Correct.

Jay Ray: 00:15:30

Yep.

Jay Ray: 00:15:30

Yep.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:31

So, uh, that to have for both of these gentlemen to have songs

Sir Daniel: 00:15:36

associated with these major motion pictures, still huge moves, and, and

Sir Daniel: 00:15:43

pushing the pa, pushing the envelope.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:45

For more men of Caribbean descent to come on the scene and, you know, we can't

Sir Daniel: 00:15:52

get away from Billy Ocean's hits though.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:55

Like we talk about the pop standards.

Sir Daniel: 00:15:57

We, you talked about, we had the RB standards that he came

Sir Daniel: 00:16:00

out with that were super funky.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:02

Then he, he went into this pop direction that we could not escape from Caribbean

Sir Daniel: 00:16:09

Queen, first of all, on a, on a, on a musical side, Caribbean Queen.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:15

Um, blends in with, um, Michael Jackson's, Billie Jean Marvelously.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:20

So all you DJs out there, that's for you.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:23

You're welcome.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:24

Um, Caribbean Queen and Billie Jean, they rhyme and they sound good when you

Sir Daniel: 00:16:29

blend them together, but that song was on the charts forever, so we had that.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:34

But can we, we talk about the ballads.

Sir Daniel: 00:16:38

He had that Ballad rivals anything that Lion Lionel Richie had on the radio

Sir Daniel: 00:16:44

at the time suddenly was everywhere.

Jay Ray: 00:16:46

everywhere it, so I think the thing, and this is something that Quincy

Jay Ray: 00:16:52

Jones used to talk about a lot, um.

Jay Ray: 00:16:54

Is ear candy

Sir Daniel: 00:16:56

Mm-hmm.

Jay Ray: 00:16:57

Caribbean queen, and suddenly were like ear candy.

Jay Ray: 00:17:03

They had like these repeatable sing songy, uh, things that you just

Jay Ray: 00:17:09

couldn't get outta your head, like literally Caribbean queen to this day.

Jay Ray: 00:17:14

It plays in my head, it looks and sounds like summer of 1984.

Jay Ray: 00:17:21

Like it look like when I hear it, it's like I'm suddenly, uh, uh, seven.

Jay Ray: 00:17:27

I'm suddenly seven.

Jay Ray: 00:17:29

And um, oh, real quick, sir. Daniel, and this is a tangent, but I'm gonna go here.

Jay Ray: 00:17:34

I love how we say Caribbean and Caribbean.

Jay Ray: 00:17:37

I don't know what.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:38

Oh,

Jay Ray: 00:17:40

but no, I'm saying that it depends on where you, and that's

Jay Ray: 00:17:44

what I was, had to get in my head.

Jay Ray: 00:17:45

I'm like, oh, it depends on where you from.

Jay Ray: 00:17:47

It is how you say it.

Jay Ray: 00:17:48

But I always thought that was funny.

Jay Ray: 00:17:49

I'm like, I don't know which way to do it.

Jay Ray: 00:17:51

Right.

Jay Ray: 00:17:51

And I'm guess like they're both right.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:53

say both.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:53

Yeah, they're interchangeable.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:55

And this is somebody who is of Caribbean descent.

Sir Daniel: 00:17:58

Like I've heard it all, both, all my life.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:00

Caribbean and Caribbean.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:02

It just depends on who's saying it to you, but shout out to, um,

Sir Daniel: 00:18:06

Keith Vincent who produced that song also from Trinidad and Tobago.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:10

So this is, this whole thing was in-house.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:12

All of these hits were in-house, um, made.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:16

Um, there was something else I was going to make.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:18

Oh, speaking of Caribbean Queen, Jay Ray, we discovered and I

Sir Daniel: 00:18:22

actually saw the record myself.

Jay Ray: 00:18:24

this is hilarious.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:25

once.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:26

Did you all know that Caribbean queen was such a major hit that, Hmm?

Sir Daniel: 00:18:33

That the record labels insisted

Jay Ray: 00:18:36

Consistent.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:36

that Billy Ocean created, um, different versions for different

Sir Daniel: 00:18:42

countries or different, um, continents.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:43

So there is in fact a version called European

Jay Ray: 00:18:47

There is a European queen.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:51

Is so in this kind, in this climate that we're living in today

Sir Daniel: 00:18:54

is very telling and, and problematic.

Sir Daniel: 00:18:58

Um, but we're not gonna, this is a fun show, we're not gonna delve into that,

Sir Daniel: 00:19:02

but there's a reason why they probably insisted that he make a Caribbean Queen

Jay Ray: 00:19:07

oh yeah.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:08

and I'm Sure

Jay Ray: 00:19:09

it.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:10

Go ahead.

Jay Ray: 00:19:11

No, no, no.

Jay Ray: 00:19:11

I'm like, oh, you know, they were sitting there like, okay, so Billy, but you

Jay Ray: 00:19:16

know this, so there's a, a, a European queen, and I didn't know this either

Jay Ray: 00:19:19

until I was getting ready for this show, but there's an African queen too, but

Jay Ray: 00:19:22

it's specifically for South Africa.

Jay Ray: 00:19:24

So South Africa needed their only their own version of Caribbean Queen.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:30

which South Africans, but go

Jay Ray: 00:19:31

know, you know exactly which South Africans that was for, 'cause we

Jay Ray: 00:19:35

were still in apartheid at that point.

Sir Daniel: 00:19:37

Hmm.

Jay Ray: 00:19:39

And yeah, so,

Sir Daniel: 00:19:42

But anyway,

Jay Ray: 00:19:42

right.

Jay Ray: 00:19:43

So that song, um, it was, it was set up to be an international crossover success.

Jay Ray: 00:19:53

So they set that song up and Billy Ocean.

Jay Ray: 00:19:56

So I have this up, sir Daniel, because.

Jay Ray: 00:19:59

I didn't know this.

Jay Ray: 00:20:01

Uh, this is according to the Wikipedia, but uh, Billy Ocean won the ASCAP Pop

Jay Ray: 00:20:10

Awards seven times between 1986 and 1989.

Jay Ray: 00:20:15

Seven Caribbean Queen Lover Boy suddenly.

Jay Ray: 00:20:19

There'll be sad songs to make you cry.

Jay Ray: 00:20:22

Listen, that is like a classic sixties, like, oh my God, when the

Jay Ray: 00:20:28

going gets tough, the tough get going.

Jay Ray: 00:20:29

Love is forever, and I think his last big pop hit.

Jay Ray: 00:20:34

Get Outta My Dreams.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:36

and get into my car,

Jay Ray: 00:20:38

that was a hilarious title.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:40

my dream.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:41

And of course, you know, that made that, made it to, um, wall Street and

Sir Daniel: 00:20:44

was in car commercials and everything.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:46

So y'all, we know Billy Ocean is that man like Billy OSHA pretty.

Sir Daniel: 00:20:55

If we gonna think about it, Billy Ocean gave all the brothers here in

Sir Daniel: 00:20:59

the eighties a run for their money.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:00

I'm telling you, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson,

Sir Daniel: 00:21:04

uh, Billy Ocean was giving them a run for the money big time.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:08

And Jay Ray, we don't if we, so like you said, um, what year was that?

Sir Daniel: 00:21:13

That, um, get out of my

Jay Ray: 00:21:15

Get

Jay Ray: 00:21:15

outta my dreams.

Jay Ray: 00:21:16

Get into my car.

Jay Ray: 00:21:17

Let me see when that was released.

Jay Ray: 00:21:18

That was released in 1988 and produced by Mutt Lang.

Jay Ray: 00:21:26

I'm sorry, written by Oh yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:21:27

Produced by Mutt Lang.

Jay Ray: 00:21:28

Written by Billy

Jay Ray: 00:21:28

Ocean and Mutt Lang.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:30

Hmm.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:31

So fast forward, so 88.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:33

So it took about a good four years before we had another.

Jay Ray: 00:21:41

Another British

Sir Daniel: 00:21:42

Another British invasion of Caribbean descent with Maxi Priest.

Jay Ray: 00:21:49

Yes.

Sir Daniel: 00:21:50

and Maxi Priest literally came along and was like, when he

Sir Daniel: 00:21:55

came, when he came through with close to you, it, it felt so familiar.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:01

It was like, it, it literally, it, it felt like Billy Ocean

Sir Daniel: 00:22:05

was still singing on this.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:07

Like, we can hear Billy Ocean, we can hear, um.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:11

Uh, Bob Marley and those, and then the way Maxi Priest presented Rastafari Eye.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:18

Super long locks.

Sir Daniel: 00:22:20

But this song was so tender and so beautifully produced, um, that gave us

Sir Daniel: 00:22:25

that, that nice, um, I call it the Soul to soul groove, the Nelly Hooper kind

Sir Daniel: 00:22:30

of groove behind it, which made it very palatable to us here in the United States.

Jay Ray: 00:22:35

So close to you for me once again.

Jay Ray: 00:22:38

Um, much like, uh, uh, Caribbean Queen.

Jay Ray: 00:22:43

Smells and feels like 1990, like it's a summertime.

Jay Ray: 00:22:48

It's a song that reminds me of a specific period of time.

Jay Ray: 00:22:52

I don't know if the memory that I'm about to share is true, but

Jay Ray: 00:22:55

it's the memory that I feel the most when I, when I hear that song.

Jay Ray: 00:22:59

So by then I am 12 or 13.

Jay Ray: 00:23:06

So the way I would go to sleep.

Jay Ray: 00:23:09

Is I would play the radio, so I always had like a, the radio next to

Jay Ray: 00:23:12

my bed and so I would play the radio and typically overnight on, uh, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:23:17

radio At the time it would be Soul Jams, miss pretty much, and relaxing

Jay Ray: 00:23:21

music all night long during the week.

Jay Ray: 00:23:24

And I remember on like the Quiet Storm, on Power 99, first hearing

Jay Ray: 00:23:30

this song and it was just like.

Jay Ray: 00:23:33

This, what is this?

Jay Ray: 00:23:35

This is beautiful.

Jay Ray: 00:23:38

It just felt so soothing in a time when hip hop was taking over everything.

Jay Ray: 00:23:46

You had this song kind of sneak in and had this beautiful melody and,

Jay Ray: 00:23:53

um, and, and still that hook to this day just kind of sends me to a place.

Jay Ray: 00:23:59

It is an absolute gorgeous song.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:02

It is.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:03

And again, because when you write a song like that, when you produce a song in

Sir Daniel: 00:24:08

that nature, that way it's timeless.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:13

That like I, I, I can play that song.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:17

It came out in 1990.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:18

I can play that song today in a new Jacks swing set.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:23

Uh, uh, a slow jam set and it goes off people still and it

Sir Daniel: 00:24:28

still resonates with people.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:29

It's beautiful.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:31

And so shout out to Maxi Priest, um, who I believe also did a duet with

Sir Daniel: 00:24:37

the last brother that we're gonna talk about, which is Shaa ranks,

Jay Ray: 00:24:41

Yes.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:43

I think she ranks might have been the last.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:49

Might have been the last Caribbean invasion.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:52

Caribbean super mega superstar.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:55

That we saw.

Sir Daniel: 00:24:56

I mean, we had, you know, you had your boogies and whatnot o over that, but I

Sir Daniel: 00:25:01

think Shaba ranks had an impact in the United States that was unlike anybody

Sir Daniel: 00:25:06

else, because in the, in nine, that period between 90 to 93, 94 sha ranks

Sir Daniel: 00:25:13

was on fire when tingling came out.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:18

There was people that had never been to Jamaica, had

Sir Daniel: 00:25:21

never even had a Jamaican beef.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:23

Patty were singing that song, tingling Like it was this.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:26

I mean, it was a fantastic song, but Shaba Ranks had also had mega

Sir Daniel: 00:25:32

crossover appeal with ballads.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:35

This, y'all need to, y'all gotta put some ballots out guys.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:39

The ballots are what will take you over and will give you longevity, but Mr.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:43

Lover Man.

Jay Ray: 00:25:44

Yeah.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:45

Was Shabba.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:47

I mean, it also made, it also gave us comedy gold because they lampoon

Sir Daniel: 00:25:52

that on, um, in living color.

Sir Daniel: 00:25:54

But yeah, so Shaba Ranks came around and lemme tell you something,

Sir Daniel: 00:25:59

when Shaba performs today crazy, the response is still just as

Sir Daniel: 00:26:05

crazy as it was in the nineties.

Jay Ray: 00:26:08

yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:26:09

You know?

Jay Ray: 00:26:10

I'm so glad we get a chance to just kind of lift up, uh, Shaaba ranks

Jay Ray: 00:26:13

because yeah, he um, he took all of this stuff that had come before and mixed

Jay Ray: 00:26:21

in the dance hall piece 'cause we were by now in that, that moment in time.

Jay Ray: 00:26:26

Um, so it still felt familiar, but it also felt like really new and.

Jay Ray: 00:26:33

Shopper ranks spawned the then, uh, uh, uh, American need to

Jay Ray: 00:26:40

have like a reggae rhyme on like every album in the early 1990s.

Jay Ray: 00:26:47

So you were either doing, you either had a reggae influenced song, or you

Jay Ray: 00:26:52

were doing a rap, or somebody was doing a rap that kind of reminded

Jay Ray: 00:26:57

you of what Shabba Ranks was doing.

Jay Ray: 00:27:00

Um, he had a huge, huge impact.

Jay Ray: 00:27:02

On the moment.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:04

Huge impact.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:05

Kick down the doors and then like you were saying, then you got, you open

Sir Daniel: 00:27:09

the door, then we can get a SuperCAT, we get a ou, we get a red rat.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:13

We get all these people that, like you said, show up on these remixes,

Sir Daniel: 00:27:17

especially a lot of hip hop remixes.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:20

Then you have everybody doing hybrids, mad Lion.

Jay Ray: 00:27:23

Yep.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:24

Um, and then you get re reggae remixes of hip hop songs, and then you

Sir Daniel: 00:27:28

get reggae remixes of, uh, r and b songs.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:31

So again, these brothers came in and changed the game in their own lanes.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:37

So as we wrap up, um, we don't wanna.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:40

I know you're probably thinking like, how can you not talk about loose ends?

Sir Daniel: 00:27:44

We can't.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:44

We haven't.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:45

We didn't forget about Carl McIntosh from Loose Ends.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:48

I couldn't con, I couldn't, um, confirm his descent, but I'm

Sir Daniel: 00:27:53

willing to bet dollars to donuts.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:54

There's some Caribbean connection in there.

Sir Daniel: 00:27:57

There's some Caribbean blood clanking around in those veins.

Sir Daniel: 00:28:00

But shout out to Carl McIntosh.

Sir Daniel: 00:28:03

And the, um, loose ends crew who is still doing his thing in the uk.

Sir Daniel: 00:28:07

Um, again, another impactful group on, uh, r and b and here in the United States.

Sir Daniel: 00:28:14

So, so that was your, um, lesson, kids on the British, the Caribbean,

Sir Daniel: 00:28:19

British invasion of the early eighties into the nineties.

Jay Ray: 00:28:23

yeah.

Jay Ray: 00:28:24

Go back and play these songs, y'all, all of them be bopping.

Jay Ray: 00:28:27

So, uh, in fact, we should put out a playlist so that y'all can, uh,

Jay Ray: 00:28:32

check out, uh, some of the joints.

Jay Ray: 00:28:34

Um, but

Sir Daniel: 00:28:36

the going gets tough.

Jay Ray: 00:28:38

duh, when is, listen, Billy OSHA was killing the game, so, um.

Jay Ray: 00:28:45

Make sure that you subscribe.

Jay Ray: 00:28:46

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Jay Ray: 00:28:48

are, subscribe to the show.

Jay Ray: 00:28:49

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Jay Ray: 00:28:51

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Jay Ray: 00:28:55

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Jay Ray: 00:28:57

You could do a whole bunch of stuff over there.

Jay Ray: 00:28:58

You can listen to our archive of shows, which are dope.

Jay Ray: 00:29:01

You can subscribe to our newsletter.

Jay Ray: 00:29:03

You could get over to our substack because we have a whole bunch of

Jay Ray: 00:29:06

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Jay Ray: 00:29:08

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Jay Ray: 00:29:10

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Jay Ray: 00:29:12

All right.

Jay Ray: 00:29:13

Also, you could shop our store@store.queuepoints.com.

Jay Ray: 00:29:17

Excuse me.

Jay Ray: 00:29:18

We appreciate y'all.

Jay Ray: 00:29:19

We love y'all.

Jay Ray: 00:29:20

Thanks for

Jay Ray: 00:29:20

hanging out with us,

Sir Daniel: 00:29:21

We certainly do, and as I say in every episode

Sir Daniel: 00:29:23

in this life, you have a choice.

Sir Daniel: 00:29:24

You can either pick up the needle or you can let the record play.

Sir Daniel: 00:29:28

I'm DJ Sir Daniel.

Jay Ray: 00:29:29

and my name is Jay Ray.

Sir Daniel: 00:29:31

And this has been Queue Points podcast, dropping

Sir Daniel: 00:29:34

the needle on Black music history.

Sir Daniel: 00:29:36

We will see you on the next go round, Shaba.

Jay Ray: 00:29:40

Peace.