Biography

Alex Alphonso Wheatle MBE (3 January 1963 – 16 March 2025) was a British novelist known as the Bard of Brixton, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London. Wheatle spent much of his childhood in a Shirley Oaks Children's Home in Croydon. At the age of 16, he was a founding member of the Crucial Rocker soundsystem; his DJ name was Yardman Irie. He wrote lyrics about everyday life in Brixton, south London. By 1980, Wheatle was living in a social services hostel in Brixton, and he participated in the 1981 Brixton riots and their aftermath.