It is exactly 30 years since the release of "Exodus" by Bob Marley & The Wailers. Regularly cited in rankings of the best albums (Time Magazine even named it album of the century), "Exodus" is now being reissued on CD with a book by Richard Williams, which compiles testimonies from reggae heavyweights and anecdotes about the recording of the album. Among them is Lloyd Bradley, author of the monumental Bass Culture (??), (recently published in French), who looks back at the circumstances that drove Bob and his musicians into exile in London to record "Exodus".
Fleeing Jamaican violence (Bob was attacked at home in 1976), the Wailers settled in London just as the British capital was imploding under the punk revolution. The Exodus sessions did not come out unscathed. Besides the obvious Punky Reggae Party, "this album owes more to Kensington than to Kingston", says Lloyd Bradley, who insists: "Exodus could not have come to life anywhere other than London in 1977". "In 1977, the musical evolution and cultural orientation of young people made the British capital an exceptional setting, one that could only encourage a group like the Wailers to push their limits. Besides this creative freedom, London offered them far more personal space than they would have enjoyed in their homeland". The story is gripping, and when Linton Kwesi Johnson turns to the lyrics, the analysis is brilliant.