Christmas in the Levi Roots household used to be a quiet affair. He has few of the happy childhood memories traditionally associated with the time of year and was uninterested in celebrating it as an adult and as a Rastafarian.
Yet the season has taken on a fresh meaning since he became a father again.
“I grew up not really having Christmas like my son, Christopher, does now,” he says. “He’s 13 and because he’s so young, I have had to change my attitude towards it. So I’ve become a lover of Christmas, and now I want to do all the trimmings, cook the food and do the proper thing. But my memory of growing up in Jamaica when I was a child is that Christmas wasn’t actually fun, because back then, everyone was poor and if you were given a present, it was something like a mango that probably came from the tree in your own garden.”
‘Cooking is where I’m happiest’
He’s now very much in charge when it comes to cooking on the big day.
“Nobody else is cooking! It’s always left to me, but that’s where I’m happiest. It gives me a chance to try new things, because every year, we always have a different kind of guest that comes around. I enjoy experimenting with things now and cook like I wouldn’t have cooked before with different foods. And when I’m in the kitchen, I’m a bit like the music man who has his guitar and his keyboards, and I make it like a symphony.”
Levi, 67, shot to fame on BBC show Dragons’ Den as the creator of the now-celebrated Reggae Reggae Sauce, famously pitching to the panel of investors while strumming his guitar and securing £50,000 investment from Dragon Peter Jones.
He had already tasted success as a musician, performing with James Brown and being nominated for a MOBO award in 1998, but Dragons’ Den took the aspiring chef to a different level of fame.
Initial success turned into a multi-million pound brand, changing his life but also, he thinks, having a wider impact on how Caribbean cuisine was perceived in the UK.
“I think people were really inspired by seeing the show, not just in the black community but right across the UK. Now you wouldn’t have to walk too far from your house to find a Caribbean restaurant. Or you go into supermarkets and find Caribbean sauces and other foods there, no longer on the bottom shelf.”
There is a wider message in his Dragons’ Den experiences about aspiration and authenticity, too, he believes.
“Seize the opportunity to be yourself because that’s what I did. I didn’t pretend to be something else and I didn’t leave the guitar at home. I went there and I rocked the place, because that’s what I did as a musician. You know why the Dragons invested? Because that was myself. Me without my guitar is not me. I think that message needs to be given to people who perhaps might think their life is giving them a wrong set of cards.”
Finally, back to the festive season and in 2017 he released a Christmas single. Is another one likely?
“I would happily do another Christmas single. I was supposed to do one this year, but I couldn’t find the time but we do have a song. I think next year I would love to look at that song again.
“You are a product of where you’re from and whoever I am today, it was because of embracing the music my grandmother taught me to; to sing and play and everything like that. So music is always, always there.”
We asked Levi: Who would be your ideal Christmas dinner guests?
“I would invite my grandma and I’d make a version of the original sauce that she cooked for me when I was a kid that inspired me to now have the biggest selling Caribbean product in the country.
“Next, I would have Nelson Mandela, who came to Brixton in 1994 when I was struggling, and my mum said to me, go and see the man. I joined a throng of about 10,000 people walking down towards the recreation centre to see Mandela and Prince Charles. It was Mandela’s birthday, and they wanted somebody to sing, Happy Birthday. So they crowd-surfed me out of the crowd, on to the stage and I stood at the bottom singing, ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President’, a bit like Marilyn Monroe singing to President Kennedy, but without the quivering lips.
‘Peter didn’t make promises. He just gave me the bloody money!’
“Next, I would have Bob Marley because listening to his music really helped me to change and put a few faces to some inspirational black people that he used to sing about. So I found myself when I discovered Rastafari and listening to Bob Marley.
“But at the head of the table, I would have a 6ft 7in man with striped socks, who invested in me in Dragons’ Den. My grandmother told me to do the sauce and it would be fantastic. Mandela gave me all kinds of philosophical stuff. And, of course, Bob Marley was musical inspiration. But Peter Jones didn’t make any promises. He just gave me the bloody money!”
Levi spoke to NTU postgraduate students Lauren Barratt, Dani Fogell, Gaby Shedwick and Athena Williams-Harries on a visit to the university for its public lecture series.
You can also hear him with Business School Visiting Professor Mike Sassi on NTU’s Business Leaders podcast