The "Ranking" moniker is short for "top-ranking" or "high-ranking", and was a titular boast common amongst reggae music MCs.

[2] The son of Jean Baptiste Charlery and his wife Anne Marie, he was of West Indian descent; his mother and father were from Saint Lucia.

Beyond that, Roger was the one whose looseness and humor, great dancing and general presence made the Beat happen on stage.

[9] After the Beat's 1983 break-up, Roger and Wakeling formed General Public with former members of Dexys Midnight Runners and Horace Panter of the Specials.

[11] Roger released Radical Departure, his first solo album, in 1988 which included band members Panter and Fuzz Townshend.

[15] In 1996, he sang back-up and toasting on the new version of the Police's "The Bed's Too Big Without You" on Sting's "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot" CD-Maxi single.

[20] Roger contributed to Walls Come Tumbling Down: The Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge, written by Daniel Rachel and published in 2016.

2013 saw the release of Retrospective, an album of solo work recorded over the 25 years since the break-up of General Public, featuring various artists and producers including Sly and Robbie,[23] and songs such as "Bubbling Hot" (the 1994 hit collaboration with Pato Banton) and a cover of "The Bed's Too Big Without You" (first recorded with Sting for the 1996 film The Truth About Cats & Dogs[24]).

[25] 2014's Pop Off the Head Top consisted of entirely new compositions, including additional vocals and song writing from Ranking Junior.

[26] Rock the Casbah,[27] released in 2015 in collaboration with the charity Strummerville (founded by the friends and family of Joe Strummer to support aspiring musicians and projects that create social mobility through music) is a five-track EP which features a previously unheard version of "Rock the Casbah", which Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash had asked Roger to sing on back in 1981, re-recorded by the Brighton producers Dopegrinders, and using the original stems donated by Mick Jones.

[31] The band continues to tour, as of 2020, and currently features Roger's son Ranking Junior (real name Matthew Murphy), with drummers Oscar Harrison of Ocean Colour Scene and Fuzz Townshend of Pop Will Eat Itself.

The band had just finished recording an album and Roger had written his autobiography, I Just Can't Stop It, published June 2019.

[36][37] Roger had five children, including son Ranking Junior (Matthew Murphy) and daughter Saffren who both featured with their father in a Beat revival band.

[38][39][40] In 2021, Ranking Junior and indie rock band the Ordinary Boys recorded a tribute single to his father called "Legacy".