For any U.S. readers who may not be familiar with him, Norman Jay MBE is a Black British DJ famous for and indeed recognized by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering role in UK club culture. Jay’s most well-known achievements include a thirty-year stint running his “Good Times sound system” at London’s Notting Hill Carnival, an event to which he personally introduced funk, soul and disco in 1980. You could also point to his key role in the mid-’80s UK rare groove club scene and in the early days of influential radio station KISS FM, his Talkin’ Loud label with Gilles Peterson, bringing Bobby Byrd, The JBs and Co. over to the UK and completely revitalizing their careers, not to mention a life devoted to unearthing and championing beautiful music.
In his 2019 autobiography Mister Good Times, Jay tells his tale non-chronologically, splitting the book up into sections — “Raving,” “Deejaying,” “New York” etc. — that cover various aspects of his life and lifelong music career. The significance of his involvement with London’s Notting Hill Carnival is demonstrated by its place at the very top of his book, with 70-odd pages devoted to what is an extremely important event for London’s Afro-Caribbean community. Originally created as a response to Notting Hill’s racist riots of 1958, carnival is symbolic of the continuing fight for equality, as well as a huge, joyous celebration of Caribbean music, dance, food and culture.
when acid house in the UK exploded at the end of the ’80s, the ease with which it turned to illegal parties was owed — certainly in London — to party pioneers like Norman Jay.
Jay began attending carnival as a child in the early ’70s, until in 1980, fresh back from a New York trip with a suitcase full of new records, he DJed on his brother Joey Jay’s Great Tribulation reggae sound system, up against the baddest reggae sound systems in the country. It was a crucial moment in his career. Describing himself as a “militant soul boy,” Jay, in a completely characteristic move, eschewed the soca, reggae, dub and calypso played by the rest of the sounds in attendance. “They’re all playing reggae and I’m banging jazz/funk and a little bit of disco!” the book recounts.
“There were those who treated it as an affront and stood there cussing us: ‘Wha’ dis shit?’, ‘Tek off dis batty bwoy music!'”
But Jay remained undeterred and returned the following year, the brothers renaming their system “Good Times.” For him, carnival was way more than just a party, it was about “taking over part of London and celebrating yourselves in a way that rest of the city can’t ignore… to show what we were really about in the face of all the racism and problem black people faced.” Jay’s revolutionary selections were an essential part of the celebration: the carnival was a moment of authenticity, so his selections had to be authentic too.
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Over the following years, Good Times became the most successful and well-known carnival sound and one of the biggest annual moments in the capital’s clubbing calendar.
The mid-’80s racism Jay refers to included racist club door policies which regularly prevented him and his mates from getting into venues. “I didn’t start deejaying clubs, because those clubs wouldn’t give me a squeeze” the book recounts. “I started on the street because the Notting Hill Carnival gave me my squeeze. I learned all my skills there, I learned everything about how to be a soul sound system deejay there, about how to entertain crowds.” And I can personally attest both to his DJing skills and his crowd-handling abilities: I once saw Norman Jay DJing at carnival in the very early ’90s, when a fight broke out in the crowd. He stopped the music dead, got on the mic and told the two drunk blokes off in front of the entire fucking carnival. It turns out that it’s impossible to continue fighting someone if one of the UK’s finest DJs is shaming you at full volume over a perfectly tuned sound system, and the pair simply stopped punching each other and slinked off. I can’t remember what he played next. It may have been Eddie Russ “I Heard That,” possibly Maceo & The Macks “Cross The Tracks” or maybe even Jackson Sisters’ “I Believe In Miracles,” all tunes that he’d been championing. But I can remember how every single one of us packed, shoulder-to-shoulder on that hot street corner launched off into the stratosphere as the music came back on, and even now as I write this I’m getting goosebumps.
But — and I say this as someone who counts his 1990s Good Times carnival memories as some of the highlights of a lifetime spent in front of the speakers — Jay made another important contribution to UK club culture, one that I think gets a little overlooked, and that is made clear in Mister Good Times.
The history of the acid house explosion and the growth of rave in the UK used to be told with 1988 as Year Zero, when Paul Oakenfold, et al. returned from their infamous Ibiza holiday after discovering the DJing of Alfredo and ecstasy. No doubt they were influential but Jay’s book shows you exactly how much the UK rave scene owed to its immediate predecessors like Jay. Because when acid house in the UK exploded at the end of the ’80s, the ease with which it turned to illegal parties was owed — certainly in London — to party pioneers like Norman Jay.
In the early- to mid-’80s, unable to attend the night clubs in London’s West End, Jay and others, as detailed in his book, perfected the various arts, skills and techniques required to put on illegal warehouse parties in major UK cities. It started with searching for the perfect venue, ideally an unused warehouse off the beaten track. Next was breaking in with as little damage as possible, moving in a generator and sorting out the electricity, and disseminating location info at just the right point to ensure maximum attendees and minimum attention from the authorities. Then, actually putting on the night, running the door and the bar while keeping the police and council at bay. The same was true for the music as well: they had to learn exactly how to get a sound system installed undetected and then make their music sound good in huge, bare industrial venues. Luckily, they had years of reggae and dub sound clash experience to bring to bear: “…Joey knew exactly how to set it up and balance it so that my music sounded crisp when played out in the open air.”
it turns out that it’s impossible to continue fighting someone if one of the UK’s finest DJs is shaming you at full volume over a perfectly tuned sound system.
Jay and his contemporaries put in the work, tried different approaches, found out what didn’t work and what did and perfected the process so that when acid house broke in the UK in ’88, there was already an illegal party infrastructure in place, along with an existing body of knowledge and experience and a set of techniques to run them.
Norman Jay got his MBE from Queen Elizabeth for services to “deejaying and black music,” not for breaking into warehouses and putting on illegal parties; but actually, doing that was a huge service to deejaying and music in the UK so he kind of did get his MBE for breaking into warehouses and putting on illegal parties.
There’s plenty more in Mister Good Times including tales of the UK’s Northern Soul scene, pirate radio, the birth of KISS FM, Jay’s time supporting his beloved Tottenham and details on the particular shirt and tracksuit brands favored by London’s football casuals in the early ’80s. And as a backdrop to all this is the story of a working class black kid growing up in ’60s and ’70s London, navigating through what were at times difficult circumstances, driven by pure love for music and unwavering self-belief.
Mister Good Times is the story of a DJ who always did things his way, a vital record of a certain period of UK club culture, a fascinating insight into growing up black in London as a child of the Windrush Generation, a book full of the passion that characterizes so many of the records Norman Jay discovered and championed.
5 Mag Issue 219
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VISIONS: Originally published in 5 Mag Issue #219 featuring Hieroglyphic Being, Sunset Sound System founder Galen, Z.I.P.P.O., Flurb and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right now…
