Roxy Music didn’t make Phil Manzanera rich. Kanye West did. When a guitar phrase from Manzanera’s obscure 1978 solo song, ‘K-Scope’, was sampled in 2012 by West and Jay-Z on their track, ‘No Church in the Wild’, the one-third share Manzanera was given of publishing and sales revenue proved life-changing. The song featured on a platinum-selling album, and was used in The Great Gatsby and numerous adverts. ‘I would earn more money from a short guitar riff that I wrote one evening on a sofa in front of the telly than I ever earned in the entire 50 years as a member of Roxy Music.’
‘My dad had a habit of turning up in countries just ahead of their revolution’
Prior to the West windfall, Manzanera was hardly on his uppers: he’d experienced the standard industry rites of poor management and dodgy deals. These days he seems to be doing all right.
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