Rhoda

Rhoda Dakar (born 1959) is a British singer and musician, best known as the lead singer of The Bodysnatchers, who were signed to the 2 Tone record label. Dakar, born in Hampstead, London, joined The Bodysnatchers in 1979. Their first single was a double A-side, "Let's Do Rocksteady" backed with "Ruder Than You". It reached # 22 in the UK Singles Chart. The band were invited to appear on Top of the Pops, to tour with The Selecter and to record a session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, but then the group split and several members left to form the Belle Stars. Dakar also collaborated with The Specials. Her duet with Terry Hall, "I Can't Stand It", appeared on the album, More Specials. After The Specials announced their break up in 1981, Jerry Dammers formed a new band called The Special AKA, along with Dakar and John Bradbury. Their first single release, "The Boiler" reached # 35 in the UK Singles Chart in 1982. Dakar performed on The Special AKA album, In the Studio, which featured the UK Top 10 hit single, "Free Nelson Mandela". The album reached # 34 in the UK Albums Chart. Her first solo album, Cleaning In Another Woman's Kitchen, was released in November 2007 on Moon Ska World. It featured new acoustic versions of songs from her Bodysnatchers days, as well as material co-written with Nick Welsh, who attended the same comprehensive school as Buster Bloodvessel, and who recorded under the guise of King Hammond in the early 1990s. Dakar and Welsh released a garage rock album, Back To The Garage, on N1 Records in April 2009. In 2009 she was the featured guest vocalist on the song "On The Town" on the Madness album The Liberty of Norton Folgate. She performed the track with them at their Madstock show in Victoria Park in July 2009.

Links To Peel
Rhoda Dakar as the singer of The Bodysnatchers performed several sessions for Peel's show before the group split in 1980. In 1981 she collaborated with The Specials on their track "The Boiler", which was a controversial song about date rape, featuring part of the track where Rhoda screams as if she was raped. Peel decided to play the track on his show despite BBC Radio One banning the song on their playlist, due to the graphic theme of the song. Rhoda later on became a full time member of the Special AKA, who had their UK Top 10 hit single "Free Nelson Mandela" at number 41 in the 1984 Festive Fifty.

Shows Played
1982
 * 06 January 1982: The Boiler (7”) Two-Tone