Description
This framed piece comes from the first pressing of UB40’s debut album Signing Off, issued in 1980 by Graduate Records. The sleeve lists the band’s early lineup on a stark black background and prints the full lyrics to “Burden of Shame” — one of the clearest political statements to appear inside any British reggae record of the era.
Visually, it’s minimal: white type, black field, no ornament. But that simplicity is intentional. UB40 wasn’t operating in metaphor; they were documenting the world they lived in — unemployment, racial tension, colonial fallout, and the uneasy role of Britain in global conflict. The inner sleeve reads less like album collateral and more like a page torn from a post-imperial archive.
Framed cleanly, the piece holds quiet weight.
It works in a study, a music room, or any space where you want a reminder that music isn’t just culture — it’s commentary. This particular artifact captures British reggae at the moment when art and politics were inseparable.
A rare early UB40 print, preserved and repurposed as a standalone object of history.
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