John Creedon leads tributes to Jamaican singer and Cork 96FM DJ, the Man Ezeke
The Man Ezeke at the Cruiscin Lán in Cork. Picture: Billy Mac Gill
The death has occurred of the Man Ezeke, the Jamaican entertainment figure and Cork DJ who also presented shows on BBC radio.
Ezeke – mourned by his wife and two grown-up children - was estimated to be around the age of 80 when he passed away at his home in Jamaica earlier this week.
Born Ezekiel Gray in Montego Bay, he had spent part of his childhood in the UK, and on his return to Jamaica had become involved in the Caribbean island’s burgeoning music scene in the 1960s.
His strong links to Cork came about after John Creedon – then a manager at pirate radio station ERI – connected with him.
“I was so sorry to hear the news of his death,” said Creedon. “I booked him to do his first gigs in Ireland in 1980/82. We became firm friends and I gave him his first Radio show on ERI, The Man Ezeke's Sunsplash Show.”
The RTÉ presenter recalls Ezeke later joining him in 2006 for a Jamaica Day special Creedon Show on RTÉ Radio 1 that also featured Cork band The Naildrivers that went on to win a PPI Award. “He was a dreamer and a lovely man,” added Creedon. “A good cook, he was also a limbo dancer and fire-eater!”
Ezeke also had a chance encounter in the early 1980s with Gene Russell, a local reggae enthusiast who maintained a decades-long friendship with the Jamaican.
“I was on my way down to the family caravan in Garrettstown, and while passing through Kinsale I saw these two Rastafarians putting up a poster for a gig in the town that night,” recalled Russell.
One of those Rastas was Ezeke, and a friendship blossomed that saw Russell’s band Belsonic Sound provide backing for the Jamaican singer on several tours in Ireland.
“He even ended up living with us in my Mam and Dad’s house in the Lough for a while. He was such a generous and brilliant guy,” said Russell, who made a memorable trip to Jamaica with Ezeke in the mid-1980s.
“I remember we were going in to record in Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong studios in Kingston [Bob himself had died a few years previously], and Rita Marley spotted Ezeke, and came over to give him a big welcome. Ziggy Marley was just a kid at the time, and I remember him bringing us in bowls of porridge after we’d been recording all night.”
Like many Jamaicans, Ezeke was a keen cricket fan, and one of his early record releases was the song ‘Who’s Grovelling Now’, released on Richard Branson’s Virgin label in 1976 as a riposte to disparaging remarks made by England cricket captain Tony Greig about the West Indies side. Ezeke and Greig would later put the rivalry aside and link up to record a track entitled We Are The Greatest. The B-Side of that tune was ‘Enoch De Nook’, a jibe at anti-immigrant British politician Enoch Powell.
Back in Cork, on the ERI station, Ezeke’s “Booyaka!” catchphrase was an early introduction for Irish people to the Jamaican patois that would become ubiquitous in popular music in later decades. In Noel and Trevor Welch's history of Cork pirate stations, The Jolly Roger, Creedon recalls how Ezeke was one of the few black men in the city at the time, with a rare other – Lester, a Londoner who worked in the Burgerland fast food outlet – also presenting a show on ERI.
It wasn’t just in Cork that Ezeke brought a bit of diversity to the airwaves – in the early 1990s, he also presented several shows on BBC Radio 1.
In more recent times, Ezeke resumed his connection with Leeside in the early Noughties with a Saturday night slot on Cork’s 96FM. Patients at Cork University Hospital would also have had some sunshine music aiding their recuperation courtesy of his appearances on CUH FM.
Among his former 96FM colleagues paying tribute was presenter Elmarie Mawe: “He took joy in life, love and people and was simply one of a kind.” Stevie G of Red FM also recalled sharing many fun nights at live events with Ezeke. “He really was a larger than life character who lit up the room with his exuberance. We’ll miss him,” said Grainger.
