Wednesday, 13 May 2015

"Love Music Hate Racism"

"Rock Against Racism" was a British grassroots movement that started in 1976 - at a time nationalist groups such as the far-right white supremacist National Front (one slogan: "The National Front advocates a total ban on any further non-White immigration into Britain, and the launching of a phased plan of repatriation for all coloured immigrants.") were gathering power. It was also a reaction to racist statements by well-known musicians (via and via). A massive concert was held, headlined by The Clash and Tom Robinson, at London's Victoria Park on 30th of April 1978 (via); 42 coaches came from Glasgow, 15 from Sheffield, a trainload from Manchester (via). 100.000 people marched across London to support Rock Against Racism (via). In 2002, Rock Against Racism was revived and renamed Love Music Hate Racism (via). Concerts include several music genres because the organisation believes "that society's diversity is reflected in music" (via).

Mainly, Rock Against Racism was a direct response to Eric Clapton's remarks made during a concert in 1976 (via).
The same Eric Clapton was a big fan of the black blues musician Muddy Waters who highly influenced Clapton's music career (via). The same Eric Clapton called the black musician Robert Leroy Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived" (via). And it was Eric Clapton who had a No. 1 single with Bob Marley's reggae classic "I Shot the Sheriff" which "also helped send his second solo album to the top of the chart" (via). Understanding racism probably requires understanding a very specific logic that is based on a highly selective perception.

"Before Rock against Racism there was a sense that it was OK to be racist."
Gurinder Chadha

Tom Robinson

"Rock against Racism made it cool to be anti-racist."
John Street 

photographs by Syd Shelton via and via and by Chris Steele-Perkins via and by Syd Shelton again via and via and via


  1. Clapton is a xenophobic pudding.

  2. Clapton's music, hahahahaha
    Clapton's thoughts, hahahahaha

  3. Hilarious. Thank you for your brilliant comments, Karen and Derek! :-)