Listen "Levi Roots"
Episode Synopsis
Kirsty Young's castaway is the entrepreneur, Levi Roots.His business success began following an appearance on BBC Two's Dragon's Den in 2007. With guitar in hand, he sang about his 'Reggae reggae sauce' which he had been selling for years at London's Notting Hill Carnival. Both Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh invested in the business and within six weeks, his sauce was bottled and on supermarket shelves. Recipe books, TV shows and a restaurant, or 'rastaurant' followed.He is the youngest of five children born in Jamaica. When he was four, his parents went to build a new life in the UK. Each year one of his siblings came to join the family in Britain. When Levi was 10, he left his much loved grandmother behind, never to see her again. Unable to read or write when he started school, he caught up quickly. He became a Rastafarian as a teenager. Following school, he became an apprentice engineer but left that to pursue a career in music. In his late twenties, he went to prison for five years. His time inside would prove to be a turning point for him. Music continued to play an important part in his life and he was nominated for a Best Reggae Act MOBO award in 1998. A father of eight, he lives in Brixton, London. Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
More episodes of the podcast Desert Island Discs
Lee Child, writer
11/01/2026
Margaret Atwood, writer
04/01/2026
Gordon Buchanan, cameraman and presenter
28/12/2025
Sir Salman Rushdie, writer
21/12/2025
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist
14/12/2025
Sally Mann, photographer and writer
07/12/2025
Lorraine Kelly, broadcaster
30/11/2025
Lennie James, actor
23/11/2025
Mary Greenwell, makeup artist
16/11/2025
Ronnie Wood, musician
09/11/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.