World of Jamaican Music

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Aswad

Band. Reggae

Active
1975-present

Aswad were the first British reggae band to sign with a major label and, over four decades, the most commercially successful. The name is Arabic for black.

The group formed in the Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Grove area of west London in 1975, out of the Caribbean community around John Kelly and Holland Park schools. The original quintet was Brinsley Forde on vocals and guitar, Angus "Drummie Zeb" Gaye on drums and vocals, Donald "Dee" Griffiths on lead guitar, George "Ras" Oban on bass, and Courtney "Khaki" Hemmings and Tony "Gad" Robinson on keyboards, with Bunny McKenzie on harmonica. Forde, born in Guyana, had worked as a child actor on British television.

Island signed them in 1976. The debut single "Back to Africa" topped the UK reggae chart, and the self-titled album that followed dealt directly with the conditions facing London's West Indian population. Hulet appeared in 1979. Hemmings left after the first album, and Robinson, now the band's only keyboard player, took over the bass as well when Oban departed around the turn of the decade. In 1977 they backed Burning Spear on his British dates, and Island released his Rainbow Theatre show as a live album; Gaye drummed on Bob Marley's "Punky Reggae Party" and devised the drum pattern of Janet Kay's "Silly Games." After Forde's lead role in the film Babylon (1981), the band started its own Simba label with Johnny Osbourne's "13 Dead (Nothing Said)," on the New Cross fire.

The early records are hard roots reggae with soul, funk, and jazz worked into the arrangements, and A New Chapter of Dub (1982) turned the same material over to the mixing desk. From 1980 a horn section built around Michael "Bammi" Rose on alto saxophone, Eddie "Tan Tan" Thornton on trumpet and the Jamaican trombonist Vin Gordon gave the band its edge on record and on stage, most powerfully on "Warrior Charge," the 1980 twelve-inch featured in Babylon. The Rough Guide calls them for most of a decade the foremost roots band in Britain, a top session band as well, and finds on New Chapter (1982) memorable melodies, inspired horn arrangements and mellifluous vocals over rhythms ranging from steppers to lovers rock. From the mid-1980s the band moved toward pop, and in 1988 their version of "Don't Turn Around," a Diane Warren and Albert Hammond song first issued as a Tina Turner B-side, went to number one in Britain. "Shine" was a further hit in 1994.

Critical opinion has always divided over which Aswad matters more, the roots band or the crossover act. Forde left in 1996, leaving Gaye and Robinson to continue as a duo. Oban departed in January 2022 and Gaye in September of the same year. Robinson has kept the band touring.

Last updated November 1, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. uDiscover writes that in 1976 Aswad "became the first British reggae band to sign with a major label" and calls them "Britain's most successful reggae band, in terms of both popularity and longevity"; it also glosses the name: "Aswad," artist biography, uDiscover Music, updated November 8, 2021, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/artist/aswad/. Bradley notes that Island signed both Steel Pulse and Aswad: Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 453.
  2. Bradley has Aswad "rumbled out of Ladbroke Grove" in 1975: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 429. Barrow and Dalton place the band's formation, in the same year as Steel Pulse, "in the Westbourne Grove area of West London": Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 391. On the schools, "Aswad," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswad.
  3. Katz names Forde, Oban, Hemmings, Griffiths and Robinson, with Bunny McKenzie on harmonica, and says Robinson "was absent when the group convinced Island Records' Richard Williams to sign them," the band being "too big to allow for two keyboardists." David Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary," Guardian, September 8, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/08/drummie-zeb-angus-gaye-obituary. Wikipedia and uDiscover leave out Robinson: "Aswad," Wikipedia; "Aswad," uDiscover Music. Barrow and Dalton give the band's "nucleus" as Forde, Oban, Tony "Gad" Robinson, and Gaye: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391. Campbell also names Robinson among the original members: Howard Campbell, "Aswad's Drummie Zeb Dead at 62," Jamaica Observer, September 2, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/09/02/aswads-drummie-zeb-dead-at-62/.
  4. Bradley calls Forde Aswad's "lead singer and former child TV star": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 452. On his birth in Guyana and his work as a child actor "on the BBC," "Aswad," uDiscover Music.
  5. On the single's reaching number one on the UK reggae chart, "Aswad," uDiscover Music. Barrow and Dalton date "Back to Africa" to 1976: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391.
  6. "Aswad," Wikipedia. Bradley names Hulet among the leading British roots albums: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 434. Katz dates Hulet to 1979; Wikipedia gives 1978. Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary."
  7. Wikipedia says Hemmings left shortly after the 1976 debut album and that Oban left in 1979: "Aswad," Wikipedia. Barrow and Dalton say Robinson took over the bass "after Oban left in 1980": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391. Katz says Hulet "saw Hemmings replaced by Robinson." Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary."
  8. Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary," which also says Gaye played for Augustus Pablo and Robbie Shakespeare during the band's Jamaican visit.
  9. Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary."
  10. Barrow and Dalton describe A New Chapter of Dub as the "later companion album" to New Chapter, Aswad's first album for CBS, in 1982, mixed by Michael "Reuben" Campbell and Gaye: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391. Wikipedia dates New Chapter to 1981: "Aswad," Wikipedia.
  11. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391.
  12. Barrow and Dalton date the band's first pop chart success to "Chasing the Breeze" in 1984 and call "Don't Turn Around" "chart-topping" in 1988: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391. On the writers and the Tina Turner B-side, "Aswad," uDiscover Music. Wikipedia names the A-side as "Typical Male": "Aswad," Wikipedia.
  13. uDiscover calls "Shine" a "Top Five hit": "Aswad," uDiscover Music.
  14. Barrow and Dalton write that the pop records "lost them part of their original following": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 391. Bradley credits Aswad with making "the tricky shift into pop" while keeping their roots catalog going: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 489.
  15. Wikipedia dates Forde's departure to 1996, "for spiritual reasons": "Aswad," Wikipedia. uDiscover says he "left the group in 2000": "Aswad," uDiscover Music.
  16. Campbell reports that Gaye "died in London September 2 at age 62": Campbell, "Aswad's Drummie Zeb Dead at 62."

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