Mark Stewart started out in Bristol in 1978 with The Pop Group - an out-there, genre-busting band whose titles (such as "For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?"), political conviction, disrespect for copyright and willingness to collaborate laid the foundations for his later work.

"It was not punk. Punk had already happened. We were a year or two younger than the punk bands. And I'd always loved black music. I'd always gone to funk clubs… so I wanted to play funk. We really thought we were funky, but we couldn't play very well and we played out of time, so people thought we were avant-garde. All these old journalists would come up to you and start talking about Captain Beefheart. I couldn't stand Captain Beefheart. We thought we were like Bootsy Collins or something…"

The Pop Group split in 1981, with Stewart and two other members heading off to London to hook up with the emerging On-U Sound "conspiracy of outsiders" as part of the New Age Steppers.

On-U became a focal point an absurdly diverse set of networks - punks, reggae players from both the UK and JA, free-jazzers, blaggers, nutters... you name it.

Mark eventually hooked up with a line up of:

Charles "Eskimo / Mus'come" Fox on drums (an original member of Creation Rebel, as well as Freedom Fighters back in the 70's),

Evar (sometimes Ever) Wellington on bass (Noah House Of Dread/Playgroup/Singers And Players/Dub Syndicate),

Desmond "Fatfingers" Coke on keyboards,

Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah (Noah House Of Dread/African Head Charge) on percussion.

Adrian Sherwood (production and so much more...)

The original Maffia - where the Mark's Pop Group-era experiments with Dennis Bovell leapt up to another level.
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