Claude Williams, Sainsbury’s, Harbourside, Bristol

Image: Frankie Stone

I’m struggling a bit at the minute but it’s all good. Everything happens for a reason. I’ve been selling the Big Issue about 10 weeks this time but I’ve sold the magazine before. I started because: 1. I needed some money, 2. I needed to be doing something more active in the daytime and 3. I think it’s a good magazine and I want to promote what they’re doing. I think if you look a little deeper at what the Big Issue does, they are quite helpful and positive people. 

I have done criminal things in the past but I don’t make a habit out of it. I’ve been to jail three times and I came in as a standard prisoner and left as super enhanced. I just get on with it and help the young prisoners coming in. I was asked to speak to other prisoners and I said: “Why me?” They said: “Because you know everybody but you don’t get involved with it.” I was trying to do something positive while in there. I haven’t been in jail since 2022.

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I’m just trying to go to work, meet people and progress. I need to have routine. People just engage. Instead of asking for money, I say: “Good morning, my friend. How are you doing?” and I tell them about the Big Issue. They give me money because they tell me that I exude a positive vibe and they’re helping me and I’m helping myself. I’m thinking of making a short film of myself selling the Big Issue. Putting a camera on my hat to show what it’s like.

I’ve had my issues with drugs and a heroin habit but I play a bass guitar and I read music and I’ve got a passion for it. These are things that I do that totally consume me. When I get on my guitar, it gives me great pleasure which feeds my addiction. I’m a very addictive person unfortunately. 

[Claude was a part of The Wild Bunch who morphed into Massive Attack. He rapped under the name Willy Wee on Five Man Army on Massive Attack’s debut album, 1991’s Blue Lines]. We originally started off as a sound system with three DJs and two rappers and the evolution of music began. The Wild Bunch crew was the name we tied ourselves to for 15-20 years. We ended up playing a lot in London.

When I was in the band I was a manager as well as an artist. It was a sticky situation when I was dispatched. I believe now people were talking behind my back and not really saying what they felt to my face. I was upset, pissed off at the time but I didn’t dwell on it too long. I loved those times. It opened my eyes to so much stuff. I do miss it sometimes and obviously my life has taken a substantially different path. I lived with [Daddy] G for a good couple of years and I used to just stay there for days and spin discs, play music, you know? 

We used to play all-night gigs in the summer, crank up a generator and go to the cash and carry and get a couple of crates of beer and just go on The Downs. We’d got 300, 400, 500 people popping off. It wasn’t just predominantly black people, it was black and white people, just people into music. I still listen to the music from that time.

Every day I wake up and I try and do something good for somebody. It makes me feel good when I do that. Since I’ve been doing the Big Issue I have met some really beautiful people.

Words: Liam Geraghty

Sainsbury's Local, Broad Quay, Bristol, UK