Don Letts explains how he became DJ at the seminal punk hang out, The Roxy: "I took the job at first for the money. I thought the punks were just a bunch of crazy white people. I didn't really tune into it. When I became the deejay and started meeting them, I picked up on what they were doing. I got the job first, and then got all my black mates to work there. Everybody who worked there, besides Andy (Czezowski), was black. We used to make joints before we went to work to sell to the punks over the counter. The people would come up and say, 'Give me two beers and a spliff. No, make that two spliffs and a beer.' They couldn't roll Jamaican cones."

At the time, in an interview with the fanzine, Sniffin' Glue no. 7, dated February, 1977, Letts explained: "Like, to me, the reggae thing and the punk thing... it's the same fuckin' thing. Just the black version and the white version. The kids are singing about change, they wanna do away with the establishment. Same thing the niggers are talking about, 'Chant Down Babylon'; it's the same thing".

The senior figures of the punk movement, led by Johnny Rotten, prided themselves on their knowledge and love of reggae music and it became de rigeur for punk bands to play on the same bill with reggae acts, or as Burchill 'n' Parsons put it: 'throughout 1978 and 1979 every punk show was preceded by interminable Rasta music'. The Clash formally initiated the punk/reggae alliance when they recorded a version of Junior Murvin's Police and Thieves on their first LP. When Bob Marley heard it, he was sufficiently inspired to write a tune called Punky Reggae Party, which appeared as the flip side of, Jammin' (with a Lee Perry-produced dub version on the collectable 12"). -- http://www.ukcia.org/potculture/77/punks.html