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Life -
Roots Manuva and Geospin

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Geospins Diary

 

 

 

 

The setbacks

6 June

The recording was cancelled. Lemmie Small, the man who had put Roots Manuva together had fallen from the top of his house and was now in a coma. The band were devastated. I assumed that the recording would now not happen but the band insisted that they wanted to do it but needed time to look after their friend and colleague.

For the next few weeks we waited. The first week of July came and I knew if we left it till the Summer holidays we would never get all the boys together to make the song. Jean from LH Management rang on Monday 4 July and suggested that we all make it to the studio for Friday 8 July to record Geospin's song. Thursday 7 July the London bombings shattered London transport and mobile phone networks crashed as people spent the day texting friends and family to see if they were ok. Jean called to say that the recording would go ahead as planned and that Rodney was bringing some members of the band along to help make the song. Friday 8 I drove with the baby to Chelmsford again. It took an hour to get round Aldgate, where one of the bombers had struck and I was worried we would be too late to make any sense of the afternoon.

When I picked Geospin up he was wearing trainers and walking much more confidently. He had money for lunch and we stopped for a kebab on route so that when we arrived at the studio, the first thing he did was eat lunch before he sat down to think of lyrics. He had one very clear about the song - he wanted to give children in hospital hope. He wanted to let children know that the doctors do not always have the answers and with will and strength and hope and faith you can get better. It felt particularly poignant because the band now knew that Lemmie would probably never see again and needed much strength and hope to make his own recovery.

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