UB40 - Dream A Lie

What this video is

Released in 1980 on the Birmingham-based Graduate Records label, 'Dream a Lie' emerged at the intersection of British post-punk austerity and the UK reggae movement. UB40, formed in 1978 from a multicultural Birmingham working-class community — with members of English, Welsh, Irish, Jamaican, Scottish, and Yemeni heritage — crafted a sound that was politically conscious and sonically rooted in Jamaican reggae…

Why it matters

As one of UB40's earliest promo videos, 'Dream a Lie' documents the band at their most raw and politically unmediated, before mainstream crossover success. It is a primary artifact of the UK reggae scene's integration into independent post-punk media infrastructure, and a visual record of how…