How British ska band The Specials rocked the world of a Hong Kong artist

The eponymous 1979 debut album by British punk-influenced ska-revival band The Specials combined the joyous energy and humour of 1960s Jamaican ska with hard-hitting social commentary on Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Hong Kong-born, Pui O-based contemporary artist Martin Lever describes how it changed his life.

I was 10 years old, living in Baguio Villa, in Pok Fu Lam, and a guy two or three years older than me who was already a ska fan arrived from Birmingham. He played me the album and it made an immediate impression. It’s inspired me in so many ways, and has been an influence directly and indirectly on my art.

Musically, it influenced my work: the energy, the angst, the vibrant colour of that mash-up – although the word didn’t exist then – of punk and ska. It was bouncy, vibrant and it had that infectious, punchy ska beat. So much energy was packed into each track – most of them only lasted about two minutes and 40 seconds – and it left me wanting more.

Like all mash-ups, it takes something that was there before and reinvents it. This appealed to me as an artist. My work is full of contrasts of shape, colour, subject and composition.

I was also inspired by the social commentary in the lyrics – there was a lot of social strife and unhappiness in Thatcher’s Britain – and the everyday poetry cele­brating ordinary life. My first collection, titled “Street”, was also about celebrating the ordinary life that’s all around us.

I loved the haunting vocals of Terry Hall. Then I found out his birthday fell on March 19, the same day as mine, and it felt like I was even more connected to them.