Roland Gift’s London home in Holloway offers few hints of his extraordinary life. Film posters are absent, and platinum records remain packed away, belying the remarkable story of the 59-year-old, who transitioned from being the self-proclaimed “first black punk in Hull” to an internationally acclaimed pop and movie star.
“I’ve always been afraid of getting wrapped up with fame and that glamour world,” Roland Gift reflects. This sentiment rings true even during Fine Young Cannibals’ meteoric rise in 1989 with their second album, The Raw & the Cooked, which topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite the album’s success and their eponymous 1985 debut (both reissued recently), Gift maintained a somewhat uneasy relationship with the trappings of stardom.
At the zenith of his fame, which coincided with his portrayal of Lucky Gordon in the film Scandal, depicting the Profumo affair, and his recognition as one of the “50 most beautiful people” globally, Roland Gift retreated to his hometown of Hull. There, he frequented a working men’s club and took on the unconventional role of a driver for a stripper. “I liked being somewhere being pretty didn’t matter. I never wanted to be in love with my reflection,” he explains. In a bold move in 1990, Fine Young Cannibals returned their Brit Awards in protest after then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appeared via video at the ceremony, stating they “didn’t want to be part of a Conservative party broadcast.” Despite the overwhelming success of The Raw & the Cooked, the band never released another album.
Roland Gift’s journey to fame was unexpected. Growing up as a mixed-race child in 1970s Britain, black representation in media was scarce. “There were black actors in films like Scum or Scrubbers,” he recalls, highlighting the stereotypical roles available, “but that’s the joke … they played characters in prison.” Born to a black carpenter and a white mother who owned secondhand clothing stores, his early years were spent in Sparkhill, Birmingham, one of the UK’s pioneering multicultural areas. “There were no signs in our street reading ‘No Irish, no dogs, no blacks’. Because everyone was black or brown or Irish. To me that was normal.”
Moving to Hull at age 11 was a stark contrast. “A shock – there were only two other non-white kids in school,” Roland Gift remembers. Yet, he never felt ostracized. He immersed himself in Hull’s vibrant punk scene, where his distinctive look – black leather jacket, dark skin, and blond hair – earned him the moniker Guinness. At a Clash concert in Leeds, he even caught the attention of Joe Strummer. He recounts with amusement how, during the gig, Strummer’s trousers ripped, leading to a call for a safety pin, which resulted in a flurry of safety pins being thrown onto the stage.
“I never normally wore them but for some reason I had a nappy pin in my jacket. I yelled: ‘Joe! Joe!’ And he reached down and took it. It felt like the Sistine chapel ceiling where God reaches down.” When asked if it felt like an anointment, Roland Gift laughs, “I don’t know about that, but it was quite a moment.”
This period marked his true calling. He was part of the punky ska band, the Akrylykz, when Andy Cox and David Steele, formerly of The Beat, a prominent multiracial band, recruited him for Fine Young Cannibals. The band masterfully fused rock and soul, propelled by Roland Gift’s unique, tremulous vocals on hits like “Good Thing,” a US No. 1, and “I’m Not the Man I Used to Be.” Their success was particularly significant as they defied industry expectations that a white band fronted by a dark-skinned singer would never achieve mainstream appeal.
“She Drives Me Crazy,” another chart-topper in the US, achieved the rare feat of being played on both college radio and urban (black) stations. “There was so much nonsense about race and music,” Roland Gift laments. “Like ‘blacks have better rhythm’. But Stax had white musicians and lots of Jamaican reggae was produced by Leslie Kong, who was Chinese.”
Roland Gift’s Foray into Film and Reflections on Race and Class
The late 1980s and 90s witnessed increased diversity in British cinema. Roland Gift’s acting debut was as Danny, the charismatic young revolutionary in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi’s follow-up to My Beautiful Laundrette. Despite his eventual casting, the role wasn’t initially guaranteed. “Someone told me later that they asked the women in the office to walk past and give me the once-over,” he reveals with a chuckle. “I got the job.”
His subsequent filmography includes projects ranging from the 1997 TV series Painted Lady with Helen Mirren to the 2017 movie Brakes, featuring Noel Fielding. While occasionally declining stereotypical roles, Roland Gift believes he largely avoided racial barriers in his acting career. “Not on screen … It might be a barrier if you want to create the content.” However, he identifies with Steve McQueen’s observation about race and class on British film sets: “If you want to understand race and class in Britain, you should start by going on a film set.”
“I noticed that with record companies. It suddenly dawned on me: ‘All these people are public schoolboys. They’re the puppet masters.’ Invariably they were a certain colour.”
“We can get hung up on identity,” he muses. “I’m half-white, half-black. So what? We all do the same things.” He recounts a childhood memory of venturing into a wealthier neighborhood with his Irish friends, the Magees, and encountering two mixed-race children who were visibly more affluent. “We looked at each other through the gate, and they were mixed-race too, but I knew I had more in common with the Magees, who were white, than with those kids. Their father ushered them away from us. So it’s not race. It’s class. It’s always class.”
The Demise of Fine Young Cannibals and Roland Gift’s Current Projects
Internal divisions ultimately led to the breakup of Fine Young Cannibals in 1996. “Everyone got inflated after the success. There were squabbles about me being in films and people were telling each of us stuff about the other members. Divide and rule, basically.” The band’s fragmentation was underscored when they all independently turned up for a film music casting call. “And so did Dave and Andy, but we hadn’t mentioned it to each other. We’d always vowed not to be one of those ‘arrive separately’ bands, but suddenly we were.” Roland Gift expresses a hint of regret, “I wish we’d done more together.”
A 2013 invitation to tour with Jools Holland reignited his passion for live performance. During some shows, he experienced an almost transcendent feeling. “Not an out of body experience, but more: ‘Shit, I better not lose touch with the ground.’ It sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it?”
Currently, Roland Gift is immersed in his latest project, Return to Vegas, a stage musical he is adapting from a BBC Radio 4 play that premiered in April. He portrays Johnny Holloway, a musician in a band called The Blacks, who achieves global hits before succumbing to “bad habits,” selling his song rights, and ending up broke and friendless after a prison stint. “It’s what could have been my story, had things been different,” he reflects.
Prior to this creative resurgence, Roland Gift consciously decelerated his career to prioritize being present for his sons, contrasting with his own father’s absence due to imprisonment. “So I didn’t want to be here, there and everywhere, but I didn’t know how to manage that other than the way I did. With hindsight, I could have done things differently.”
Following the passing of his wife, Louise, last year and with his sons now grown, Roland Gift is eager to fully re-engage with his career. He is pursuing further radio writing opportunities and expresses palpable excitement about his current endeavors: “Writing the play feels life-changing, in a way.” Ultimately, Roland Gift wants to avoid being defined by past glories, unlike his character in Return to Vegas who is haunted by the phrase, “You’re not the man you used to be.”
“There’s a recurring daydream where he’s signing on and someone comes up and says: ‘Oh, you’re that guy from … Go on, sing it!’” He winces. “That would be a nightmarish situation for me, but it’s Johnny’s story, not mine. I still feel I’ve got a lot to offer.”
Fine Young Cannibals and The Raw & The Cooked are being reissued on vinyl, CD, and digital on December 18th via London Recordings. A Remix EP of DJ reworkings will also be released on December 18th, and two 7-inch singles by The Blacks are anticipated in the new year.
