In the late 1970s, Bob Marley and Johnny Rotten traded places.

The Sex Pistols rocker went to Jamaica to sign reggae artists for Richard Branson's record label.

Marley went to London and hung out on the vibrant Kings Road in Chelsea, joining forces with punk rockers.

He even wrote a song about the movement, namechecking bands from punk rock venue The Roxy: The Damned, The Jam and The Clash.

The unique cultural exchange was a reflection of a broader friendship between "like-minded rebels" — rastas and punks — that gave rise to new a sound.

'The soundtrack to our lives'

Before reggae, there was ska music.

Ska was the soundtrack to a newly independent Jamaica, which broke free from British colonial rule in 1962.

It evolved into a more danceable tempo known as rocksteady — with a vocal style heavily influenced by American soul singers like Curtis Mayfield.

This in turn laid the foundation for Jamaica's most famous export: reggae.

In 1948, Jamaicans began to leave the "island in the sun" on the Empire Windrush for the "mother country", attracted by the promise of better work prospects.

They took their music with them.

In 1968 the Trojan record label was established in Britain to service the growing demand for the sound.

"By then it was the soundtrack to our lives," says Chris Lane, who co-founded London's Dub Vendor record stores and the UK label Fashion Records.

"You heard it in the youth clubs, kids at school were buying reggae. It was everywhere, and where I lived wasn't a black area at all."

Lane was also an original skinhead, and they were among the first white people in Britain to embrace Jamaican music.

"There were two sides to the skinhead look," he says.

"There was a rough look where you'd wear jeans and boots and braces, and a smart look with a nice tonic suit with a nice shirt and tie."

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The rough skinhead look was later highjacked by far-right groups with links to Neo-Nazism and the British National Front.

But Jamaicans, like reggae pioneer Stranger Cole, remember skinheads as the genre's first international fans.

"We thought of them as white people with black skin," he says.

"We thought of them as musical people. All of the skinheads are my friends because they love ska music, and they are my first fans."

An unlikely match

By the late 1970s, a new subculture was forming in London: punk rock, the outlet for Britain's disaffected white youth.

The headquarters for the movement was a gritty underground nightclub in Covent Garden called The Roxy.

'Rebel dread' Don Letts was the resident DJ at punk club The Roxy. ( Getty: Erica Echenberg/Redferns )

Though it was only open for 100 days, it helped launch the careers of bands like The Clash, The Damned and female punk pioneers The Slits.

The man at the centre was English-Jamaican 'rebel dread' Don Letts, who became the venue's resident DJ.

"This is so early in the scene that there were no punk records to play, so I played hardcore dub reggae," he says.

"And lucky for me, the punks kind of dug it too.

"The music had an obvious anti-establishment vibe, so that obviously clicked with them.

"They obviously loved the bass lines, and truth be told they did not mind the weed either."

Influence on punk

As Rastafarians and punks became friends, British bands started to absorb the reggae sound.

"[We were] definitely influenced by reggae. There's so much to reggae, it's still my favourite music," says Tessa Pollitt, the bass player of The Slits.

John Lydon's love of reggae influenced his music. ( Getty: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns )

The punk rocker with the greatest understanding of reggae, according to Letts, was Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon (AKA Johnny Rotten).

"I was brought up on it, ever since the early skinhead days," Lydon said during a radio interview in 1977, where he spoke at length about his love of reggae.

That love would serve him well on his first trip to Jamaica six months later.

'They love John in Jamaica'

By 1978, the Sex Pistols had disbanded; Lydon travelled to Jamaica before returning to London to start his new outfit Public Image Ltd.

Virgin Records boss Richard Branson was looking to build on the relationship between punk and reggae with a new label Virgin Front Line Records.

Richard Branson signed a number of artists to Front Line, a reggae subsidiary of Virgin Records. ( Getty: Bill Rowntree/Mirrorpix )

He invited Lydon over to Jamaica to help sign artists to the label.

"They love John in Jamaica," recalls Letts, who also went along for the ride.

"The thing is Jamaicans love a bad man. Whether it's a James Cagney gangster, or the Terminator, or Clint Eastwood in a Western.

"They didn't really know that much about punk rock music … but they were aware of the sort of tabloid thing around John that he was the UK's number one enemy."

Thanks to a savvy media manager, the Sex Pistols had been the poster boys for punk rock.

They lived up to their image by swearing on daytime television, vomiting on stage, and satirising the Queen's 1977 jubilee with the release of God Save The Queen.

They were even banned from a number of venues on their UK tour in 1977 — ensuring Lydon's reputation as the bad boy of rock preceded his arrival in Jamaica.

Branson booked the first floor of what was then Kingston's Sheraton Hotel, and artists came from all over to meet with the label boss.

"There was an exodus to the hotel trying to get a deal with Richard Branson," Letts says.

"It was insane."

Bob Marley's exodus

Marley, the king of reggae, was notably absent from the gathering at the Sheraton.

Bob Marley discovered punk rock when he moved to London. ( Getty: Peter Still/Redferns )

In the '70s, political violence divided Kingston. Guns were supplied to the downtown ghettos in exchange for their political loyalty to either of the two main political parties.

In 1976, following an assassination attempt, Marley fled to the safety of London.

There, he discovered punk rock, with the help of Letts.

Letts explained to Marley there was more to punk rock than the negative portrayal of the scene in the tabloids.

"You're wrong about this, there's something going on. They [punks] are like-minded rebels."

Marley became more informed about the punk rock scene, and was inspired to write the song Punky Reggae Party.

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Its lyrics reference bands from The Roxy: "The Wailers will be there, The Damned, The Jam, The Clash."

In an unreleased version he also mentioned The Slits, but later removed the lyric.

"Now I wonder why that was," laughs bass player Pollitt.

"Is it because we were female?"

Punk group The Slits were heavily influenced by reggae. ( Getty: Julian Yewdall )

Letts agrees: "The Slits were like these fearsome Amazonian women who took no shit from nobody … and men could not deal with it! The Slits were too out there for even Bob Marley to deal with."

It was during his period in exile in London that Marley would record his masterpiece.

The title track from the 1977 album Exodus called on black people to leave the oppressive state known as 'Babylon', and return to the African motherland as Marcus Garvey prophesied.

This teaching is key to the Rastafarian religion, and Marley was the vessel to bring this message to the world.

Marley would also record his next album, Kaya, in London, releasing it prior to his triumphant return to Jamaica, where he united the leaders of the two warring political parties on stage in front of 32,000 people at the One Love peace concert in 1978.

Hip to the sound

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Many people claim Letts started the punky reggae party, but in his view it's only partially true.

The skinhead movement introduced Jamaican music to punk icons like Lydon and the Clash's Joe Strummer long before The Roxy opened its doors.

"The kids that I actually turned on to reggae in the late '70s were those that did not live next door to black people or have any interaction with black people," Letts says.

"And back in the mid-to-late '70s, that was a lot of f***ing people!

"Every person who came out of the suburbs to The Roxy, and there was a lot of them, they'd never heard reggae before and they're the ones I hipped to the sound.

"But as far claiming responsibility for turning a generation of punks onto reggae … nah, nah, nah. It ain't quite like that. It never is, is it?"

Rick Howe is the host of reggae program Riddim Yard on Melbourne's PBS FM.