Click here to watch The Brent Reggae Album Covers Exhibition Trailer In Memory Of Popsy.
Farewell, But Reggae Album Covers Exhibition Honours His Memory
Hundreds of family members, friends and music industry colleagues filled inside and outside of the St Michael the Archangel Church in Wembley, north-west London in early July for the funeral service of Cleveland Deer. He was a well-loved record retailer better known simply as Popsy, who is now buried in his homeland Jamaica, which he left in the early 1960s to settle in the north-west London borough of Brent.
Popsy was a co-founder of Starlight Records, together with former Trojan record producer Desmond Bryan and his brother Sylvan ‘Benup’ Bryan. Established in 1976, Popsy was the friendly face behind the record shop counter until a couple of years ago, when he fell ill. Fifty years on, the shop is still operating as one of the two record shops in Harlesden – the north-west London area known as the reggae capital of the UK.
On May 16 this year, Popsy made a triumphant return to the shop, where family, friends and well-wishers gathered to celebrate 50 years of Starlight. I invited him to attend The Brent Reggae Album Covers exhibition opening a few yards down the same street as the shop at Harlesden Library on June 1, to launch British Black Music Month. I had a surprise for him.
But it was not to be. A few days before the launch, Popsy passed away on May 27. The surprise was to inform him that the exhibition was in honour of him and Roy Forbes-Allen, owner of Hawkeye Records, the only other record shop still going on Craven Park Road, after almost 50 years of trading. Following Popsy’s passing, the decision was made to have the exhibition, which lasts until the end of October, in honour of Popsy’s memory.
Even though I declined The Reggae Tree Ambassador Diane Shrouder-Johnson’s suggestion for me to take a photo with Popsy at the Starlight golden anniversary celebrations – preferring the memories of his smiling face behind the shop counter, the photo taken to promote the exhibition is of me standing by one of the two exhibits featuring albums released by Popsy’s Black Music record label which was produced in the 1980s by Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee.
I’m glad to have honoured Popsy during his lifetime with an International Reggae Day/British Black Music Month award in 2019 at Tavistock Hall in Harlesden, for still retailing records after more than forty years in this digital age. The presentation was jointly made by Melissa Sinclair, the former Gargamel/G Mag publisher.
The exhibition was inspired by Alex Bartsch’s Covers: Retracing Reggae Record Sleeves In London book. Not surprisingly, Brent has the highest number of album covers featured in the book. The exhibition features albums by Jamaican artists such as Al Campbell, John Holt and Shabba Ranks, and home-grown artists like Judge Dread, Big Zeeks and Carroll Thompson. Incidentally, the fur coat worn by Thompson on the cover of her 1981 debut album Hopelessly In Love, is on display at the V&A East’s The Music Is Black exhibition in east London – click here to see it in the exhibition review video.
As curator of the exhibition, I’ve made in-library presentations to mark British Black Music Month, which covers the whole of June-July; International Reggae Day (IRD) on July 1, which was preceded by a reggae walk through Harlesden, and activities around The Reggae Tree, which is opposite the Hawkeye shop, and was planted to mark IRD 2018 by BritishBlackMusic.com/Black Music Congress (BBM/BMC) in partnership with Brent Council. The activities included talks about the local community and the environment, plus performances by artists including Frenchie King, Winston Francis, Zaylon Thompson, son of Dr Alimantado, and Desrene, daughter of Desmond Dekker – click here to watch the IRD in Harlesden video coverage.
The next curator session will mark Jamaica’s First National Hero’s August 17 birthday with The Marcus Garvey Annual Pan-Africanism Presentation speaking to the themes of ‘1916-2026: Marcus Garvey And Black Music Beyond Reggae’ and ‘1916-2026: 110 Years Of The UNIA In The United States’.
The exhibition ends on October 31 with a curator’s in-library presentation entitled It Was Also About Other Black Musics, which marks African History Season in the UK. It will show that among the prevalence of reggae, other musics, like continental African music, also had a place within the Harlesden retail racks. For example, Sonny Roberts, the late Jamaican-born owner of the former Harlesden-based Orbitone record shop, stocked and released continental African music by the likes of the Nkengas, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Peter King.
Popsy was born in Mandeville, Jamaica on May 18 1948. He came to England as a youth and lived in Brent. His wishes were to be buried in Jamaica. Ahead of the burial, family, friends and colleagues from the Brent community and the music industry attended the funeral service and reception held in Brent on July 9 2026. Among them were artists such as Winston Francis, Vincent Nap and Frenchie King, Starlight co-founder Desmond Bryan, reggae historian Mandingo, music promoter Mikee Koos, music publisher Kennedy Mensah, radio presenter JV, and a number of former Jet Star Records staffers including Joy Ellington, and current Starlight helpers Lenford and Chris Bailey, plus The Reggae Tree Ambassador Diane Shrouder-Johnson.