World February 22, 2021 In 1981, The Specials sang about urban decay, unemployment and shuttered high streets in Coventry in their hit song Ghost Town. Some 40 years later, 23-year-old Gambian-British rapper Pa Salieu is addressing the same issues, and the same city, in his viral hit Frontline. “How I describe it is that there is culture and it is intense,” he says over a crackling phone line from a London recording studio. “Just like any other city in England, there is a lot of madness that happens and a lot of good stuff that happens. “Coventry is still a ghost town like The Specials said. Coventry is Coventry. That is exactly how I explain it in my music. Or my side of it. I have seen the segregation between the classes. But this is my ends. You lose friends very early.”