Clive Roper was born in Jamaica on the 10th of June 1950. Both Clive’s parents were nurses who emigrated from Jamaica to the UK in 1960 during the labour shortage, and settled in Stoke Newington, near Hackney. Clive was an inquisitive child with big spiritual questions that led him to the discovery of the power of music when, at the age off eleven, he started playing drums for a local Gospel Choir.
In the late 1970s Clive was discovered by Record Producer Mike Durane, who signed him to record on the first ever 45 released by Island records subsidiary: Movers Rockers. Spurred on by the recognition of his new found talent, tempered with his highly developed sense of moral consciousness, Clive decided to go out into the community, and use his music to help others. To his end he spent six months building his own studio, in conjunction with his friend and musical collaborator, Mr. Chas McKay. The R&M studio’s mission was to provide facilities to up and coming musicians in the local area. Clive then applied for a grant from Hackney Counsel to improve it and make it more accessible to young musicians.
Looking at the situation in Hackney in the early 1980s, Clive saw that there was a lot more work to be done. Having successfully gained the support of the local government to help finance one community project, Clive realized that he was in the perfect position to persuade the Council to take more positive steps to help the Afro Caribbean cultural community in Hackney. To this end he collaborated with Steve Marshall to set up the Pyramid Arts Centre. He located a vacant council building, and persuaded them to let him have the use of it. He then approached the Department of the Environment, for a grant to refurbish the building and transform it into a cross-art community centre, with a recording studio, a dance studio, workshop spaces and offices. The Centre was very successful and produced many great artists: MDV (Formally know as ONE STYLE MDV), Clifford Jarvis, Harold Duncan of Lookout, dancer Deborah Badoo, rapper and singer Cleveland Watkiss, and for a time was even the base of operations for Courtney Pine and other members from The Jazz Warriors including Alan Wickes. The centre became a flag ship for Hackney, and in fact, Greater London Arts Authority referred to The Pyramid Arts Centre as the most important cultural institution in the country, and viewed it at a prototype for further developments around the UK.
This was a very prolific time for Clive creatively. He released three records. He was performing live with Pete Nu, Maggie Nichols, with Jah Globe and also leading workshop with Steel and Skin: an educational cultural organisation that went around schools, introducing kids to different African and Caribbean art forms, as well as providing music technology and ethno-musicology training for teacher to continue their good work.
By the end of the decade Clive had become restless and had to find a new creative enivronment so he left London for Salt Ash: a small Cornish town just a short commute over the Tamar Bridge for Plymouth, where Clive got involved in the Plymouth Musicians Cooperative. He continued to be actively involved in the music seen in London, but now was also to be heard playing regularly at music venues in and around Plymouth such as The Cooperage and The China Bar, with such great musicians as, Louisiana born jazz saxophonist, Byron Pope, whom Clive had met in London some years earlier at the Jazz Café. Clive decided to use his community arts experience to set up a cultural organization to help Plymouth: Flagship project Plymouth ltd. which organized the very popular Boonoonoonoos Carnival: a vibrant annual event that ran in Plymouth for five years.
In 2003 Clive moved to Birmingham to forge links with new musical collaborators: pianist Phil Bond and bassist Roger Inis of the Steve Gibbons Band; and violinist Peter Hartley. Clive has recently completed an EP length demo at The Bomb Shelter Studio, recorded Tom Hyland, and containing some superb performances from some of Birmingham’s finest young jazz musicians, including: Ida Hollis, Dan Nicholls, Huw Rees, and Huw Morgan. Clive is currently looking for musical collaborators for his next project. Clive can be contacted by email at: [email protected]