Billy Ocean is Britain's biggest-selling black recording artist shifting more than 30 million albums around the world.

To his credit his success, just like his suits, has been tailor-made by the man himself. Literally.

"I'm a tailor by trade," said the now 62-year-old knowing his admission would be met with surprise.

Greying dreadlocks the only sign the singer has matured over the years, Ocean is fun and full of laughter from his hotel room in Qatar.

"I ended up working in Savile Row in London but it wasn't attractive enough to keep me away from music," he reminisced.

"There are two things I've never done in my career, take dancing lessons or have people telling me what to wear. I cant be fooled in those departments," he laughed. "I never went to a stylist and you can either dance or you can't dance — there are natural moves that go with music."

The Trinidad-born musician is just as independent now as he ever was, in both musical style and views — even after his 15-year sabbatical from the music business, which was slightly longer than he had intended.

Ocean says what he thinks, doesn't mince his words and although a humble man in the most part, his confidence in himself and opinions are set in stone. "The thing is we know better," he said of the collective of musicians from the "good old days".

‘Machine dictates'

"You don't get the same kind of music as you did in the '80s. The machine dictates so much of what's produced now. In the '80s you wrote the song and the rest came along after. Now, the machine dictates. The art of songwriting has gone. It will not survive in the way we're used to, that's for sure. I'm not taking anything from modern rap music, even the ballads, it's what the people know now and what they accept."

From the mid-'70s to the end of the '80s Ocean had a string of hits including Love Really Hurts Without You, Love on Delivery, Stop Me, Suddenly, When the Going Gets Tough (The Tough Gets Going) and the two US No 1 hits Caribbean Queen and Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car.

Having been awarded a MOBO lifetime achievement award, Ocean is far from over but cast your minds back to the 1980s.

His first hit, Caribbean Queen, did remarkably well and peaked at No 1 in both the US and UK charts, earning him a Grammy in the process. Follow up with Suddenly and the music moguls of Hollywood were sitting up and listening. When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going was snapped up as the theme tune to the hit film Romancing The Stone starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and the US welcomed Ocean across the Atlantic.

‘Dreaming'

"I'm one of these sort of people who believe nothing happens before it's time and nothing happens without the say so from the man above," he said. "So to crack America, it doesn't mean I'm the most talented person from the UK. There I was. I was dreaming about having hits in America. I was working like a boxer keeping himself in trim. I was training in the UK and Europe and was ready for the US. I stamped my name there. I just like to make happy music. Happy music makes people happy."

But the pressure proved demanding and, following the death of his mother in 1989, Ocean decided to jump from the music treadmill.

"You hit the nail on the head," he said describing the way the pressure has fallen away since the early days. "I'm just coming out and enjoying the music. There is no pressure. I don't have to try and sell my music to anyone, they have already been hits."

A career spanning more than four decades, Ocean says nothing will top Live Aid.

"I look back at it as something so great now," he said. "Not a lot of people had the chance to participate in something so big. The weird thing about it was I actually dreamt about it before I was even offered it. When we got down to the venue there was a kind of recreation area and I thought ‘flippin heck, this is the place I saw in my dream' so it was quite exciting."

A long pause followed and Ocean was keen to fill the silence. "I was making my own dreams come true," he stuttered slightly. "For that I will always be eternally grateful."

Don't miss it

Billy Ocean plays at Irish Village on Saturday. Ocean will be supported by top Liverpool soul band The Christians. Tickets, priced Dh120, are available at the door. Gates open at 7pm and the show starts at 8.30pm.