About Banton Man
Born in Dudley, near Wolverhampton in the 70s, the youngest of three to mom Sue and dad Geoff it wasn’t long before I started to realise I inquisitive nature and my love for both music and creating things. My mother always taught me that when things happen there are always reasons behind them which even today is one of the greatest pieces of knowledge I hold every faith in. My father is an engineer and teacher aswell as talented artist so there was always an easel and various projects and crafts going on around the house.
For me, my parents gave me some of the most influences in who I am today and how I love to make things and improve ideas. Like everyone I know, I love music to the bone. I believe it is the unrecognised religion of humanity that truly does link us all together and is as universal as the spoken word. But it was not long after I left school that I found my unconditional love for reggae music when with a few friends we walked past a shop called Genesis Records on Worcester St in my then home town Wolverhampton… we turned around and went in the store.
Life at this time was all about music now. Reggae music ! When we walked by Genesis, we heard one of the heaviest basslines we had ever experience in our lives. That was ultimately what turned us around and why we stammered at the door and then walked in. Behind the counter was Levi playing some of the stock he had purchased for his radop Djs and customers. We stayed for a good while and talked with him and he toyed with his system and showed us a bit about how it sounded and worked. I owe a big thanks to Levi in some ways as from that day, I and a few friends ended up not only working in the shop but also on his sound system for years. Serving customers and evaluating tunes when we went to JetStar Wholesale in London, constructing the sound system and learning how to set it up and better ways to make it tear up the dancehall, sub stack arrangements, building boxes and more.
Living the sound system and record store life brought me much closer to the heart of reggae music to the extent where I knew every current tune coming out even though I was absolutely shocked at the vast amount of music coming mainly from Jamaica. We did dance after dance and following a 6 month I.T. course where I found I loved to create on computers, one of the tasks I regularly attended to was working with leaflet makers for the dances. This inturn lead to me scripting them and naturally having input in the design of course lead to me trying to make them myself. They were quite basic compared to todays standard but even then, they followed the foundation rules of balance and contrast with a quirk of the eye catching factor fitting the scope of dancehall flyer trends. Of course cost cutting was very important back then but we managed to do it.
It was also during these times when I got my first taste of doing a radio show where I had no idea I was there to actually perform as a Dj but the generous company at the time were kind enough to throw me in at the deep end and give me the mixer decks and then tell me to talk up. Naturally I crapped myself but still rather frighteningly took up the mic and said god knows what to whoever was listening. This was the start of what I refer to as a humble Dj career, where I never considered myself a hype up or even brilliant Dj but I did enjoy it and loved the music so as long as I could get my hands on the tunes and do a show, I rarely turned the opportunity down.
Like it or not, I also found the electronics experience I gained from IT college and toying with the sound system, then found me helping engineer radio stations and supporting where possible to fix problems and put together studio setups and to date if I included the internet stations I have worked with, have amassed experience of working with no less than 17 radio stations over the years. As I write this there are ideas of two more projects on the cards but we’ll see what happens. Everyone wants a radio station these days since all you need is a server, a website and a computer to start running it from. Of course it takes much more than that which is also why many come and go but it is great to see them grow and hold firm pushing the vibes.
I should and indeed will right now pay homage to the vast amount of people out there who do push reggae music for the love of it and never forget the core value and how important it is given the world we live in and the righteousness of where we are indeed all trying go. I give thanks for the life I have been living even though at times things were tough, there were and hopefully will be more good times. I do hope you like my new website and enjoy whatever content I provide. I will spend the next few months building it up some more and also consider further developements aspects and such to widen the sites output angle. I waited years for one of the big BANTON web domains to become available and was so shocked to see this one ready for someone to buy. I personally want to thank those of you who have inspired or motivated or physically helped me learn and put together the site. It has taken me about 11 days and about 100 hours to get the site to the rebuild launch state and as I write this I have about 1-2 days or about 15- 20 hours of things to do for it to be ready for public viewing. So for now I will bid you a wonderful day and leave you with one of my favourite revered speeches from His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, that Bob Marley formed into a song called “war” which is of course about ending all wars.
