Eddy Grant
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Eddy Grant trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Eddy Grant has had one of pop's more unusual careers. He was a teenage hitmaker in a 1960s London group, walked away from it after a health scare, then returned a decade later as a one-man operation who wrote, played, produced and released his own work. This quiz follows the whole story: the Equals and Baby, Come Back, the solo run that produced Electric Avenue and Gimme Hope Jo'anna, the real events behind his best-known lyrics, the artists who covered his tunes, and the business he built around them. It is pitched for anyone who knows the choruses and wants the stories behind them. The opening questions are friendly to casual listeners, while the later ones reward fans who know the albums, the cover versions and the honours that came his way.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Eddy Grant wrote Electric Avenue in anger at 1981 riots in which London district?
Brixton
Brixton is home to the real Electric Avenue, the first market street to be lit by electricity, which Grant knew from a spell acting at a local Black theatre.
Q 02Eddy Grant wrote Electric Avenue in a hurry in 1982 after what happened to his newest songs?
Lost in airline baggage
Lost in airline baggage as Grant moved to the Caribbean, the songs never turned up, so he had to write a whole new album from scratch.
Q 03Which politician did Eddy Grant sue in 2020 for using Electric Avenue in a campaign video?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump had posted the animated clip online, where it drew more than 13 million views; a court rejected his fair-use defence in 2024 and the two sides then settled.
Q 04In Eddy Grant's anti-apartheid hit Gimme Hope Jo'anna, the name Jo'anna stands for which city?
Johannesburg
Johannesburg stood in for the whole apartheid government, which banned the single on release, though it was widely played in South Africa all the same.
Q 05Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue lost the Best R&B Song Grammy to which 1983 smash?
Billie Jean
Billie Jean, by Michael Jackson, had months earlier pushed MTV to play Black artists, and once the channel aired Grant's video his single climbed quickly up the American chart.
Q 06In which country was Eddy Grant born in 1948, twelve years before he joined his parents in London?
Guyana
Guyana was still the colony of British Guiana at the time; Grant's parents worked in England and sent money home for his schooling until the family reunited in 1960.
Q 07Which Eddy Grant single topped the UK chart in 1982, his first No. 1 since the Equals?
I Don't Wanna Dance
I Don't Wanna Dance came to Grant in a dressing room as he waited to go on stage during a tour, and he has described it as a protest about refusing to go along with an idea.
Q 08Pato Banton took Eddy Grant's Baby, Come Back to No. 1 in 1994 with two singers from which British band?
UB40
UB40 brothers Robin and Ali Campbell sang the chorus while Banton added verses of his own, and the remake held the top spot for four weeks, one more than the 1968 original.
Q 09Eddy Grant wrote the title song for which 1980s adventure film, only for the movie to use it briefly?
Romancing the Stone
Romancing the Stone was announced on American Top 40 as the film's title song, yet the finished picture barely used it; the single still reached No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 10Which punk band covered Eddy Grant's song Police on My Back on the 1980 album Sandinista!?
The Clash
The Clash turned the Equals' mid-paced 1967 soul-pop tune into a full-powered rocker sung by guitarist Mick Jones, and issued it as a single only in Australia.
Q 11To which Caribbean island did Eddy Grant move in 1982, building a recording studio there?
Barbados
Barbados became Grant's base for producing local stars as well as his own records, and in 2024 the island awarded him its Honorary Order of Freedom.
Q 12Eddy Grant sang Gimme Hope Jo'anna in Hyde Park in 2008 at a 90th birthday tribute to which leader?
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela walked on stage himself that night to make a short speech, twenty years after a Wembley concert marked his 70th birthday while he was still in prison.
Q 13Eddy Grant wrote the Equals' biggest hits, but which role did he play while Derv Gordon sang?
Lead guitar
Q 21Which name did Eddy Grant coin in the 1990s for his fusion of every Caribbean rhythm into one style?
Ringbang
Ringbang was meant as a musical common language that no single country could claim, and Grant trademarked the word and asked other artists to put it on their records.
Q 22Which 1982 album, Eddy Grant's most successful, reached the top ten in both Britain and America?
Killer on the Rampage
Killer on the Rampage carried Electric Avenue and was close to a one-man record, with Grant credited on vocals, guitars, synthesizers and drums as well as producing.
Q 23Eddy Grant's album Walking on Sunshine was a hit in which African country before Britain noticed it?
Nigeria
Lead guitar was Grant's job in a line-up that began with three guitarists and no bassist, an arrangement that lasted until Lincoln Gordon switched to bass in 1969.
Q 14Eddy Grant chose a music career after seeing which American rocker play in Finsbury Park?
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry was the idol of the teenage Grant, who by then had learned to read and write music at his secondary school in Tufnell Park.
Q 15Until 2024, Eddy Grant kept his music off which kind of outlet in protest at how artists are paid?
Streaming platforms
Streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music went without his catalogue until February 2024, when he relented so that his songs could reach a wider audience.
Q 16On 1960s television with the Equals, Eddy Grant stood out by sometimes dyeing his hair which colour?
Blonde
Blonde hair, and at times a woman's blonde wig, went with the band's colourful clothes, a look later seen as a forerunner of glam rock.
Q 17Eddy Grant took part in The Grand Knockout Tournament, a 1987 charity show run by which royal?
Prince Edward
Prince Edward staged the televised games at Alton Towers with royal team captains and celebrity players, then stormed out of the press conference when reporters only laughed nervously.
Q 18Eddy Grant called a 1988 album File Under Rock after years of being wrongly filed as which kind of artist?
Reggae
Reggae was the tag writers kept pinning on Grant, although the album is mostly pop rock; it also carried his protest hit Gimme Hope Jo'anna.
Q 19Eddy Grant's album Reparation is named for his call for restitution over which historical wrong?
The transatlantic slave trade
The transatlantic slave trade is the wrong the title addresses, and after making that statement Grant released no new studio album for eleven years.
Q 20Eddy Grant's only live album captures his 1981 performance at which annual British event?
Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival crowds heard the set, and a song from the resulting live record was later paired with one of Grant's 1984 singles.
Nigeria's government then blocked the shipments at the height of demand, leaving Grant with thousands of copies that he and his brother sold to London shops and discos instead.
Q 24Eddy Grant left the Equals after which medical emergency struck him in January 1971, aged just 22?
A collapsed lung
A collapsed lung, together with a heart problem, ended Grant's time on the road; he had already been the worst hurt when all five members were injured in a 1969 motorway crash in Germany.
Q 25While away from the stage in the 1970s, Eddy Grant learned which style of dance and briefly tried acting?
Tap
Tap was one of Grant's sidelines while he built up his studio and record company, and he took the acting work at the urging of the actor Norman Beaton.
Q 26Eddy Grant's 2008 return to the British stage included a set at which major summer festival?
Glastonbury
Glastonbury was one of several UK dates Grant played that summer, after what he has described as twenty years away from the stage.
Q 27Football crowds reworked the Equals' 1969 hit Viva Bobby Joe to salute the England captain from which club?
West Ham United
West Ham United captain Bobby Moore had his name swapped into the chorus of the Eddy Grant composition, which reached No. 6 and spent 14 weeks on the UK chart.
Q 28Which 2 Tone band opened their 2019 album Encore with a cover of the Equals' Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys?
The Specials
The Specials called the Equals their spiritual ancestors, and Lynval Golding said recording Eddy Grant's 1970 song was their way of thanking the band.
Q 29The Equals' chart-topper Baby, Come Back, written by Eddy Grant, was first released in 1967 in which form?
As a B-side
As a B-side to Hold Me Closer it went unnoticed in Britain until it sold well on the Continent, and a 1968 reissue then took it to No. 1 at home.
Q 30Which name did Eddy Grant give the Caribbean studio he opened in 1982, later used by the Rolling Stones?
Blue Wave
Blue Wave also drew Sting, Cliff Richard and Elvis Costello to record there, and Grant reused the name for the closing track of his 1984 album Going for Broke.