Forbidden Fruit

Caetano Veloso’s and Gilberto Gil’s "Towards the northern end of Portobello Road there were shops selling records of West Indian, and Caribbean-style, music. (Then, as now, the Portobello Road had markedly different characters. The southern end largely consisted of antique shops and stalls; the northern end was “the sleaziest, most druggy” section, according to Howard Marks, the celebratory hash smuggler and dealer who at this time was living in Lansdowne Crescent.) Gil enjoyed browsing for records, with one of his favourite shops being the incense-infused “Forbidden Fruit” (at 295, between Oxford and Cambridge Gardens, just north of the Westway), a place commonly known as “the Afghan shop” because, in addition to music, it sold clothes and hippyish bric-a-brac."

---