English deejay Smiley Culture died today in circumstances that are still unexplained, as police had come to arrest him at his home in Warlingham, south of London, Sky News reports. He is said to have died from wounds he allegedly inflicted on himself with a knife.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said an investigation was under way, led by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. He specified that the police operation at Smiley Culture's home was part of a wider anti-drugs operation.
The deejay (48), famous for his hits Cockney Translation and Police Officer in 1984, was awaiting trial. On 28 September 2010, he had been charged, along with four other people, with cocaine trafficking. The trial was due to begin in the coming days.
Born in London, David Emmanuel, to give his real name, emerged with the Saxon Sound System, alongside Papa Levi, Tippa Irie and Maxi Priest. It was a generation of artists distinguished by lyrics rooted in everyday English life, yet which spoke just as much to the diaspora as to Jamaicans (Papa Levi would in fact be the first foreign artist to have a number 1 in Jamaica).
In 1984, Smiley Culture entered the charts with his very first single, Cockney Translation (Fashion Records), a hilarious track that serves as a Jamaican patois / London patois dictionary and which, to believe Steve Barrow, "propelled fast-chat to the general public". The same year he scored his biggest hit, Police Officer, and even made two appearances on the BBC's Top of the Pops. Soon after, he signed with Polydor and released the album "Tongue in Cheek", which did not enjoy the same success. Later, he hosted a show, "Club Mix", on Channel Four. He also appeared in Julien Temple's film "Absolute Beginners" in 1986.
Last year, he gave an interview to the Guardian, going back over the lyrics of Police Officer in particular: "Police Officer was a true story, the police had taken my weed. It was better than being arrested and I made a hit out of it… I was invited to meet the Queen, who told me she listened to my records." (…) "Although I paved the way for artists like The Streets or Dizzee Rascal, I left music because I wasn't rich".