Michael Veal Dub: Soundcapes and Shatered Songs in Jamaica

Dub
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michael e. veal
Dub
soundscapes and shattered
songs in jamaican reggae
wesleyan university press

Middletown, Connecticut
Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
© 2007 by Michael E. Veal
All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
This book has been published with the assistance of the

Frederick W. Hilles Publication Fund of Yale University.
We also gratefully acknowledge assistance from the Manfred Bukofzer
Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Veal, Michael E., 1963–

Soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae / Michael E. Veal.
p. cm. — (Music/culture)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography (p. ), and
index.
-13: 978-0-8195-6571-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
-10: 0-8195-6571-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
-13: 978-0-8195-6572-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
-10: 0-8195-6572-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Dub (Music)—Jamaica—History and criticism. I. Title.
3532.V43 2007
781.646'097292—dc22 2006037669
Cover illustration: King Tubby at the board in his studio.
Photograph by Peter Simon.
While the material invention of instruments was still in the hands of a few, their imaginative
invention and reinvention were profitably and dangerously in the hands of the many who might
expand their significance beyond an inventor’s wildest dreams or even against his wishes.
—James Lastra 2000
It happened like this . . . Because of the development of new recording technology, a whole host of
compositional possibilities that were quite new to music came into existence. Most of these had to
do with two closely related new areas—the development of the texture of sound itself as a focus for
compositional attention, and the ability to create with electronics virtual acoustic spaces (acoustic
spaces that don’t exist in nature). . . . I wanted to suggest that this activity was actually one of the
distinguishing characteristics of new music, and could in fact become the main focus of composi-
tional attention. . . . [I]t was clear to me that this was where a lot of the action was going to be . . .
people like me just sat at home night after night fiddling around with all this stuff, amazed at
what was now possible, immersed in the new sonic worlds we could create. . . . [I]mmersion was
really the point: we were making music to swim in, to float in, to get lost inside.
—Brian Eno 1996
Space is a prime symbol of the aspirations of a people, permeating architecture, music,

and mathematics.
—Marcos Novak, quoted in Moser 1996
Contents
%
List of Illustrations / viii

Acknowledgments / ix
Introduction / 1
1. Electronic Music in Jamaica: Dub in the Continuum of
Jamaican Music / 26
2. “Every Spoil Is a Style”: The Evolution of Dub
Music in the 1970s / 45
3. The “Backbone” of Studio One / 95
4. “Jus’ Like a Volcano in Yuh Head!” / 108
5. Tracking the “Living African Heartbeat” / 140
6. “Java” to “Africa” / 163
7. “City Too Hot:” The End of the Roots Era and the Significance
of Dub to the Digital Era of Jamaican Music / 185
8. Starship Africa: The Acoustics of Diaspora and
of the Postcolony / 196
Coda: Electronica, Remix Culture, and Jamaica as a Source
of Transformative Strategies in Global Popular Music / 220
Appendix: Recommended Listening / 261

Notes / 271
Bibliography / 301
Index of Songs and Recordings / 317
Index of General Subjects / 323
Contents / vii
Illustrations
%
Figures 1–24 follow page 172.

Figure 1. Clement “Coxsone” Dodd at Studio One, late 1970s
Figure 2. Dynamic studio exterior, 2000
Figure 3. Sylvan Morris at Dynamic studio, 2000
Figure 4. Harry J. studio exterior
Figure 5. King Tubby’s studio exterior, 2000
Figure 6. Scientist, Prince Jammy, and King Tubby, 1980
Figure 7. Scientist, early 1980s
Figure 8. Philip Smart, 2003
Figure 9. Bunny Lee in front of his home in Duhaney Park, 2002
Figure 10. Channel One studio exterior
Figure 11. Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare outside of
Channel One studio
Figure 12. Lee Perry at the board of the Black Ark, 1976
Figure 13. The Black Ark studio from the outside, 1976
Figure 14. The Black Ark control room
Figure 15. Clive Chin and Errol Thompson at Randy’s, early 1970s
Figure 16. Augustus Pablo
Figure 17. Errol Thompson on the board at Joe Gibbs’s studio, early 1980s
Figure 18. King Jammy (left) and a friend, 2002
Figure 19. King Tubby at the board of his new studio, late 1980s
Figure 20. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell
Figure 21. Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser
Figure 22. Mad Professor’s Ariwa studio, London
Figure 23. Adrian Sherwood, 2002
Figure 24. Dennis Bovell.
Figure 25. Lee Perry’s Black Ark studio, 2002 / 195
Illustrations / viii
Acknowledgments
%
My first thanks to the two friends who made me aware of dub music back
in 1983, Tony Sims and Willy D. Wallace. I also acknowledge everyone who
was interviewed for this book (their names are listed in the bibliography)
with particular mention of Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell, Clive Chin,
Dave Hendley, Edward “Bunny” Lee, Desmond Shakespeare, and Bobby
Vicious for their assistance at various stages of this project.
Special thanks to Gage Averill, who advised this work through its disserta-
tion stage (2000) at Wesleyan University, and who provided my entry into
academia. I also thank Mark Slobin and Su Zheng. Others at Wesleyan who
proved invaluable: Hope McNeil of the music department; Allison M. In-
sall, Beth Labriola, and Barbara Schukoske of the Office of Graduate Student
Services; and Dianne Kelly, Alec McLane and Randy Wilson of Olin Library.
Colleagues and friends at various institutions who provided feedback, an
exchange of music, ideas, or other valuable information at various stages of
this work: Carolyn Abbate (Princeton University), Kofi Agawu (Princeton
University), Tahmima Anam (Harvard University), Harris Berger (Texas
A&M University), Franya Berkman (Lewis & Clark College), Lucia Cantero
(Yale University), Eric Charry (Wesleyan University), Michael Denning
(Yale University), Paul Gilroy (Yale University), Lori Gruen (Wesleyan Uni-
versity), Jackson Lears (Rutgers University), Peter Manuel (CUNY), Alon-
dra Nelson (Yale University), and Marc Perlman (Brown University).
I thank my colleagues in the Department of Music at Yale University,
and in the Department of African-American Studies at Yale, especially
Ellen Rosand, Patrick McCreless, Sarah Weiss, John Halle, Paul Gilroy,
Vron Ware, Hazel Carby, John Szwed, Robert Farris Thompson, Alondra
Nelson, Elizabeth Alexander and Kellie Jones. I appreciate the efforts of
the administrative staff in the Department of Music: Elaine Lincoln, Lin-
ette Norbeau, Melissa Capasso, Mary-Jo Warren, and Sharleen Sanchez;
Acknowledgments / ix
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Introduction
%
1.
[T]his is the kingdom of post-civilization, the disintegrated, post-

kingdom kingdom in which everything is falling apart, fragmented into
atomic bits that look like evidence—clues stacked, sorted, and organized
in some purposeless microanalysis. . . . It rather serenely contemplates the
moment of civilization’s passing away, or its cyclical sinking into a si-
multaneously pre- and post-literate swamp of representational decay
where the center no longer holds, the image no longer holds, language no
longer holds . . . this world of disintegration and ruin which also con-
tains an implicit possibility of recombination, renewal, and rebirth . . .
is both tarnished relic and anticipatory sign. [The artist] will regain his
lost selfhood . . . through a cataclysmic reversal of Western history . . .
—Thomas McEvilley, “Royal Slumming”1
If you take as your cultural polarities Africa on the one side, and North
America on the other side, you have two extremely heavy cultures balanc-
ing each other. And there’s this one little, tiny connection between the
two, in which you can see both. And that connection, I think, is Jamaica.
You have a huge quantum of cultural energy on each side, and one
small connection that’s glowing red-hot. That’s Jamaica, glowing like a
red-hot wire.
—Filmmaker Perry Henzell, director of The Harder They Come2
With Time magazine voting Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Exodus as the
“album of the 20th century” and with veteran producer Lee “Scratch”
Perry receiving a Grammy award in 2003, Jamaica is beginning to be recog-
nized for its influence on world popular music.3 Like Cuba, Jamaica is a
small island culture of the Greater Antilles that has exerted a tremendous
influence on the development of post–World War II popular music glo-
bally. But even though Jamaica has been making its musical presence felt in
Introduction / 1
mainland American music at least since Louis Armstrong’s 1927 recording
“King of the Zulus,” the structural innovations of its music—unlike those
of Cuba’s—have yet to be widely acknowledged.4
This book is a historical, analytical, and interpretive study of the sub-
genre of Jamaican reggae music known as dub, which was pioneered by re-
cording studio engineers such as Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock (1941–
1989), Lee “Scratch” Perry (born 1935), Errol “Errol T.” Thompson (1941–
2005), and others. Dub music flourished during the era of “roots” reggae
(approximately 1968 through 1985),5 and its significance as a style lies in the
deconstructive manner in which these engineers remixed reggae songs, ap-
plying sound processing technology in unusual ways to create a unique pop
music language of fragmented song forms and reverberating soundscapes.
Today, the sounds and techniques of classic dub music have been stylisti-
cally absorbed into the various genres of global electronic popular music
(such as hip-hop, techno, house, jungle, ambient, and trip-hop), and con-
ceptually absorbed into the now commonplace practice of song remixing.
Few people are aware that dub, a style built around fragments of sound
over a hypnotically repeating reggae groove, was a crucial forerunner of
these genres and that much of what is unique about contemporary dance
music is directly traceable to the studio production techniques pioneered in
Kingston beginning in the late 1960s. Dub’s “fragmenting of the song sur-
face” has become one of the stylistic cornerstones of popular dance music
in the digital age, and its fluid reinterpretation of song form laid an impor-
tant foundation for the amorphous remix culture that is so central to con-
temporary pop music. It is not overstating the case to suggest that this
music has changed the way the world conceives of the popular song. Thus,
one of my primary aims in this book is to demonstrate that in the same way
that Bob Marley’s themes of exile and spiritual conviction have inspired au-
diences around the world, the production style of Jamaican music has
helped transform the sound and structure of world popular music. Fur-
ther, I intend to show the extent to which this music (despite its creation in
the hermetic setting of the recording studio) is in fact a potent metaphor
for the society and times within which it emerged, and for global culture at
the new millenium.
The Post–World War II Transformation of the

Euro-American Popular Song
If we can speak of a transformation of the popular song at the turn of
the twenty-first century, it is important to acknowledge that the Jamaican
creators of dub were by no means the only musicians responsible. During
the 1970s, for example, the experiments of post–World War II composers
dub / 2
such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, and LaMonte
Young eventually influenced a generation of experimentally inclined popu-
lar groups worldwide, who fused popular rhythms with tape-based and
electronically generated elements, as well as with formal designs inspired
by minimalism and indeterminacy.6 The irreverent instrumental ap-
proaches of British punk musicians in the 1970s aggressively introduced a
variety of pure sound elements into the popular song.7 Brian Eno is an im-
portant pioneer of soundscaping in popular music; his experiments with
atmospheric textures in the 1970s gradually made their way from the ex-
perimental rock underground (via his work with groups such as Roxy
Music and Talking Heads) to the pop mainstream with his production of
groups such as U2 during the 1980s. Eno’s work eventually inspired a
younger generation of electronic composers and the consolidation of “am-
bient” as a recognized genre category.8 Jazz musicians such as Miles Davis
and John Coltrane distilled the harmonic landscape of jazz through their
experiments with modalism in the early 1960s in order to facilitate a new
type of chromatic improvisation, and these modal innovations in turn
formed the harmonic basis for jazz-rock fusion toward the end of the
decade. The fusion of harmonic modalism and electronic textures in turn
influenced a wide variety of popular musical forms.9
In Europe and the United States during the 1970s, dance music produc-
ers in various genres tampered with song form in different ways. Gener-
ally, the goal was to stretch the boundaries of songs beyond their radio-
formatted length of three minutes in accordance with the extended play
requirements of dance clubs and discotheques. Producers of disco and
house music extended tracks through remixing and the construction of
tape loops.10 Hip-hop musicians in New York City did this by creating
“breakbeats,” excerpted rhythm grooves that were elongated by turntable
scratching and later, by digital sequencing and sampling. What these ef-
forts demonstrate is that outside of the requirements of selling and broad-
casting, the duration of commercially recorded dance music is often fixed
within highly artificial limits.11 More important, all of these stylistic
streams contributed to a transformation in the structure of the popular
song from something that had arguably been fairly fixed to something
that—in an age where the remix has become a central compositional para-
digm—has become much more fluid and mutable. Jamaican dub is argu-
ably particularly significant and fundamental in this process. As I will
chronicle in the book’s coda, it was crucial to the formative years of hip-
hop in New York City, while it simultaneously played an important role in
England through its influence on punk and other spheres of the British
popular music underground.
Introduction / 3
Roots Reggae in Global and Local Perspective, 1970–1985
For many reasons, the influence of dub music must be discussed in the
context of the global popularity of roots reggae during the 1970s and early
1980s, much of which is attributable to the influence of Bob Marley. Since
1973, Marley and his band the Wailers had scorched a blazing trail across
the concert stages of America, Europe, and Asia, converting audiences to
the idiosyncratic and completely unfamiliar religious vision of Rastafari
(see section on broader themes) solely on the strength of their music and
Marley’s personal charisma.12 The promotional campaign waged on
Marley’s behalf targeted European and American rock audiences. Marley
was tremendously successful in courting this audience but tragically, he
became terminally ill just as he was preparing to court African American
audiences through a joint tour with Stevie Wonder. Nevertheless his suc-
cess, as well as the emigration of thousands of Jamaicans to American and
British cities after World War II, significantly expanded the market for Ja-
maican music in the major urban centers of the United States and Europe,
and laid the foundation for the structural influence of Jamaican pop on
global dance music.
The stylistic evolution of Jamaican popular music along both local and
transnational lines was a complex and intertwined process; in terms of the
aesthetics of production, however, reggae developed in two general direc-
tions during the 1970s. One direction was represented by musicians like
Marley, Peter Tosh, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, and others: these
were the figureheads anointed by the multinational record industry to in-
troduce Jamaican popular music to the international audience. For this rea-
son, their music was often recorded at better-equipped studios outside of
Jamaica and was marked by high-end production values, more sophisti-
cated chord progressions than were the local norm, and rock/pop styliza-
tions such as electronic synthesizers and lead guitar solos. As with most
pop music, there was a strong emphasis on singing, and specific songs
tended to be associated with specific performers. Song lyrics tended toward
themes of social and political justice filtered through the religious vision of
Rastafari. The biblical undertones of this vision translated onto the world
stage as a universalist sentiment that struck a strong chord with post–World
War II American and European rock audiences.13
Musicians like Marley and Tosh maintained strong followings at home in
Jamaica; stylistically, however, their music gradually grew fairly distinct
from the local dancehall culture.14 Producer/vocalist Michael “Mikey
Dread” Campbell worked as a disc jockey for the Jamaican Broadcasting
Corporation (JBC), and aired Jamaica’s first all-reggae radio format in 1976.
dub / 4
Campbell described Marley’s distance from the mainstream of Jamaican
music, while emphasizing his breadth of vision and ultimate importance:
[Dancehall audiences] weren’t really listening to Bob. They were listening to more
rootsier sounds. They were more listening to Dennis Brown and Gregory [Isaacs]
and whatever—Sly and Robbie and those things. . . . The kind of music Bob Marley
was singing, the rhythm tracks were not like what was currently taking place in Ja-
maica at that time. ’Cause Bob Marley’s music was like, timeless—you don’t follow
the trend or the fad which is going on now. You don’t make music for now, you
make music for all time.15
Although it also came to sell significantly abroad, another direction in

which reggae developed was represented by musicians producing music
largely aimed at the local Jamaican audience, associated during the 1970s
and early 1980s with producers like Bunny Lee, Linval Thompson, Joe
Gibbs, Junjo Lawes, and the Hookim brothers. How did this music differ
from that of performers like Marley and Tosh? DJs—vocalists who rapped
over rhythm tracks—were becoming nearly as popular as singers inside of
Jamaica; in terms of song lyrics, however, the difference was not always so
pronounced. The Rastafari-inspired lyrical themes were shared by both
camps, such as those addressing African repatriation, the benefits of ganja
(marijuana) smoking, the heroism of Marcus Garvey, quotations of Scrip-
ture, or the divinity of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Certain topics
tended to be more prevalent in the local sphere, such as the ever-present
“slackness” songs (generally sung by DJs) focusing on sexual topics, the
“lover’s rock” genre of romantic reggae (which actually had roots in the
music of Jamaican immigrants in England), the songs addressing the polit-
ical violence that was engulfing Jamaica, or songs relating to current events
in general. One clearly important difference between local and interna-
tional reggae was in their respective sites of consumption. As opposed to
attending the concerts staged abroad by musicians like Marley and Tosh,
most Jamaicans enjoyed music in dancehalls and at outdoor dances at
which recorded music was provided by mobile entertainment collectives
known as sound systems.
Possibly the clearest difference between the two types of reggae was in
the sound, and it is the sound of Jamaican reggae that I primarily address in
this book. In contrast to the music aimed at the international market, the
production values and seemingly “virtual” construction of much of the
music aimed at Kingston’s sound system audiences probably seemed down-
right errant to many American, European, and upper-class Jamaican listen-
ers at that time, whose listening tastes were conditioned by the naturalist
values of much rock and roll and soul music.16 This music, in contrast, drew
attention to itself as aDiferencias
recording in a peculiar way. These Jamaican singers did
reggea internacional: banda vs djs y mc;
contexto de reproduccion: enormes conciertos vS dancehalls y colectivos de entretenimiento llamados soundsystms

A nivel sonoro: la virtual construcción de la musica parecia perturba el oido de los americanos lo europeos y las clases altas de
jamaica, cullos valores esteticos estaban condicionados por un naturalismo del rock y el soul
Introduction / 5
not always conform to the chord changes of a song, and sometimes even
sang in a different key altogether than the musicians. Vocalists didn’t even
always sing; many times they casually rapped over the rhythm tracks as if
they were carrying on a conversation in spite of the music underneath. The
vocals also sometimes seemed strangely discontinuous; no sooner would a
singer complete a stanza of a song, before a different vocalist (usually a DJ)
began shouting over the music in apparent disregard of the original vocalist;
the varying fidelity made it clear that these vocalists did not record their
parts at the same time. The music also seemed oddly mixed. The bass
sounded unusually heavy and the equalization strangely inconsistent, as the
sound veered back and forth from cloudy and bass-heavy to sharp and tinny.
The individual instruments didn’t seem to play continuously, but zipped in
and out of the mix in a strangely incoherent manner. At a dance or on the
radio, it seemed as if you could hear the same rhythm track for hours on
end. Reggae historian/curator Dave Hendley, listening from London in the
early 1970s, remembered the reception of this music by British audiences a
few years prior to its global explosion: “Reggae was ridiculed in the early
seventies by the mainstream media as being repetitive, musically impover-
ished, kind of like idiot’s music. That was the kind of perception of it. Be-
cause in those times, you had all of those progressive rock bands. So it was
very much derided. But a lot of the people that had derided it changed their
tune after the advent of Bob Marley.”17
Essentially, the artist-based marketing of Jamaican musicians to the
Euro-American audience by multinational corporations did not prepare
one for the often bewildering complexity of a music that, in its natural con-
text, was multiply elaborated by a multitude of voices moving between the
fluid sites of stage, studio, and sound system. Even within Jamaica, popular
music has moved in and out of phase with radio networks, with music pro-
ducers and radio programmers sometimes holding strongly contrasting
ideas about what constitutes acceptable or appropriate broadcast quality
and/or content. It was these rougher qualities that were sometimes deemed
in need of “smoothing out” by multinational record labels, in their attempt
to market reggae internationally. As such, they are largely absent from the
Jamaican music most familiar to non-Jamaicans. Ironically, however, the
same musical choices that made local Jamaican music sound so “pre-
professional” to mainstream Western ears were simultaneously visionary
and deliberate. The approach Jamaican producers and recording engineers
took to the production of music would make a subtle, structural, and long-
term impact on world popular music in subsequent years, providing open-
ings for new practice in the areas of form, structure, harmony, orchestra-
tion, and studio production. It illustrates that postindependence Jamaica
dub / 6
has been an important source of material and sound concepts for the inter-
national music industry,18 with reggae itself being, in the words of Louis
Chude-Sokei, “a vehicle for the dissemination of larger ideas about sound,
oral/aural knowledge, and technical innovation.”19
2.
“The Half That Never Been Told”
Despite the differences in production values, the locally oriented reggae
held an immediate charm for many non-Jamaican listeners. My own fasci-
nation with dub music dates to the early 1980s, immediately following the
international success of Bob Marley. My epiphanal moment took place one
winter evening in New York in 1983 while hanging out with my friend
Tony, who had just picked up the Wailing Souls’s 1982 LP Wailing, a
“showcase” album containing songs followed by their dub versions.20 Tony
had a state-of-the art sound system, and the room was filled with the ethe-
real Jamaican “country” harmonies of Rudolph “Garth” Dennis, Winston
“Pipe” Matthews, George “Buddy” Hayes, and Lloyd “Bread” McDonald
as they sang “Who No Waan Come Cyaan Stay.” The song’s title translates
from the Jamaican patwa as “Who Didn’t Want to Come Can’t Stay,” and
the elegiac lyric, in which the singer promises to prepare a place for his
brethren in a heavenly African Zion, is a typical Rastafari-inspired theme of
African repatriation, given an obliquely poetic slant:
It’s been long, so long
I’ve been warning you
Yet you’re trying hard not to upset my world
But when the master’s calling
You will find yourself stumbling
I’ll be waiting
by the wayside . . .
Who no waan come cyaan stay

You can stay for I am going
Who no waan come cyaan stay . . .
The song’s mystical message was reinforced by the production style,

which seemed to depict some sort of dreamy, electro-pastoral paradise. Al-
though the drum pattern was stark and heavy, the singers’ voices floated
above a bed of subtly reverberating guitar chords, anchored by a ponder-
ous electric bass pattern, colored with enchanting wah-wah guitar melo-
dies, and thrown into a cavernous soundscape. Yet all this, as it turned out,
was only half of what the music had to offer. As the song faded, Tony
winked at me conspiratorially and said, “Now check this out!” Before the
Introduction / 7
last notes had disappeared, the track abruptly began again, in what seemed to
be a reprise of the song we had just heard. The singers again harmonized the
first notes of the song’s wistful melody; then, just as suddenly, their voices
evaporated into a reverberating void in the mix, to be heard only fleetingly
throughout the rest of the performance. The rhythm section was treated sim-
ilarly: sometimes audible, at other times dissolving into passages of pure am-
bient sound. In this remixed version of the song, reverberation seemed to be
the central compositional element, as the music moved back and forth
between music and echoes of music. Even these echoes were themselves ma-
nipulated until the track seemed at times to lapse into clouds of pure noise.
At this point the mixer would reintroduce the rhythm section, and the music
became once again earthbound. It was as if the music was billowing out from
the speakers in clouds, dissolving and reconstituting itself before our ears.
We had just experienced a “Scientific Dub Mix” as crafted by engineer
and King Tubby protégé Scientist (Overton H. Brown), and from that mo-
ment on I was hooked on dub music. In alternating snatches, dub seemed
to convey the stereotypically optimistic and melodious quality of much
Caribbean music, the improvisational disposition of jazz, the contempla-
tive dreaminess of pop psychedelia, the ominous undertones of black in-
surgence, and the futuristic soundscapes of experimental electronic music
and science fiction. This fusion of dance music, improvisation, and abstract
soundscaping was right in line with my own musical interests, as I listened
avidly to reggae, jazz, and experimental electronic music. Rooted in the
aesthetics and communal imperatives of black dance music, while fore-
grounding the creative use (and misuse) of sound technology, this music
could satisfy all three tastes.
Boston, where I attended the Berklee College of Music in the early
1980s, was a city with a strong audience for roots reggae music. Some of
this interest was traceable to the residual impact of Marley, who had played
the city several times, including a legendary benefit concert at Harvard Sta-
dium in 1979;21 one of his very last concerts was at the Hynes Auditorium
in the fall of 1980. Jazz and popular music were the dominant student inter-
ests at Berklee, but there was also a strong subculture of reggae enthusiasts.
In fact, a number of my classmates joined local reggae bands such as One
People, the I-Tones, and Zion Initation, and others went on to play with
renowned reggae artists such as Burning Spear, the re-formed Skatalites,
and Sugar Minott. But what I remember most is listening to reggae for
hours with my friend Willy D. Wallace, analyzing and dissecting the finer
points of dub mixes by Scientist, King Tubby, and others. In fact, Willy
was studying audio engineering, and had recorded and mixed a song called
“E.T.” which was inspired by Lee Perry’s Black Ark mixing style.
dub / 8
Back home in New York City, the burgeoning Jamaican community
provided a great opportunity to hear and buy this music. Besides seeking
out the classic work of dub luminaries such as Augustus Pablo and Lee
Perry at reggae outlets like VP Records in Queens, Coxsone’s Record Mart
in Brooklyn, or Brad’s Record Shack in the Bronx, expatriate Jamaican pro-
ducer Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes hit a hot streak in the early 1980s, issuing
a stream of dub-influenced recordings from his base in the Bronx. The
spacey B-side dub mixes of innumerable singles were also played nightly as
background for the radio patter of New York–area reggae DJs like Gil Bai-
ley, Clive Hudson, and Earl “Rootsman” Chin. Hearing these fragmented
and collaged-sounding Jamaican songs over the very medium—radio—
that arguably implanted the aesthetic of the sound collage into the public’s
sonic imagination made dub music a powerfully organic reflection of the
sonic culture of our times. A true music of our modern spheres—if those
spheres are understood to be streaked by an infinitude of invisibly compet-
ing broadcast signals,22 intermittently canceling each other out.
Besides the music itself, I found the ethos surrounding it equally intri-
guing. Recording engineers have certainly never been the star personal-
ities of popular music; like the subterranean graffiti murals that graced
subway cars in New York City as they dipped in and out of public view
during the 1970s and 1980s, dub mixes seemed to issue from a subaltern
location in the most literal sense. They seemed to exist as shadow ver-
sions of popular themes: sometimes heard, sometimes not, anonymous-
sounding in their skeletal spookiness. Who was creating this strange
music, and where was it being created? I eventually learned of Lee
“Scratch” Perry, eccentric master dancer/producer/engineer/songwriter,
mentor of Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the so-called Dalí of reggae
who had progressed from funky, soul-inspired reggae rhythms to swirl-
ing, psychedelic soundscapes and (allegedly) on to madness. I learned of
dub’s guiding mystics, Augustus Pablo and Yabby You. The first was an
elusive and introspective Rasta producer and session musician whose
heavy dub rhythms were graced with his wistful melodica improvisations
and whose devout faith imparted to his dub music a feeling of meditation
and devotion. The second, a vocalist possessed by postcolonial visions of
biblical apocalypse, found in dub a sonic complement to his excoriating
sermonizing. I learned of King Tubby, the studio engineer who, in the
back of his home in one of Kingston’s roughest ghettos, had turned re-
mixing into a new and dramatic form of composition that used sound
processing to melt the reggae song form into ambient soundscapes. In
the context of the rapid corporatization and standardization of the popu-
lar song that was taking place during the 1980s, I heard dub music as a
Introduction / 9
radical and refreshingly different conception of what the popular song
could sound like. And although (as I shall discuss in the final chapter)
most of the techniques of dub music have been subsequently subsumed
into the common practice of popular song composition, this music con-
tinues to stand out today as a provocative intervention into the global
conception of the popular song.
Kingston
It was my enthusiasm for dub music that eventually inspired me to write
this book. Part of this project involved getting to know some of the many
Jamaican musicians who had emigrated to New York City and other parts
of the United States. Eventually, I made several trips to Jamaica between
2000 and 2003. The heart of my visits was a personal pilgrimage of sorts to
the Kingston studios (almost all of them now inoperative) in which dub
music was created back in the 1970s: King Tubby’s studio in Waterhouse,
Lee Perry’s Black Ark studio in Washington Gardens, the Hoo-Kim
brothers’ Channel One studio on Maxfield Avenue, Byron Lee’s Dynamic
studio off Spanish Town Road near Three Miles, Harry Johnson’s Harry J.
Studio off Hope Road, and Joe Gibbs’s studio on Retirement Crescent,
where Errol Thompson had worked as chief engineer. Randy’s studio,
where Thompson did much of his earliest work, had been located on the
downtown square known as The Parade, but no longer existed by the time
of my first visit.
“Man, we’re going into the heart of the ghetto!” exclaimed the driver of
my cab as we sped down Olympic Way to Bay Farm Road, toward the Wa-
terhouse district of West Kingston where King Tubby’s studio had been lo-
cated. The name “Waterhouse” is a colloquialism that is not always printed
on maps; the name refers to an area of Kingston 11 just south of Sandy
Gully, bounded by the neighborhoods of Tower Hill on the east, Nanse
Pen on the west, Balmagie on the north, and Spanish Town Road on the
south. The area struck me as somewhat of a tropical war zone: its crum-
bling buildings, debris-strewn lots, and treacherously potholed streets
would be better traversed by a military jeep than a conventional automo-
bile. The area is in fact a literal war zone, one epicenter of a decades-long
struggle between Jamaica’s two dominant political parties, the Jamaican
Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP).23 The for-
merly left-leaning PNP seemed dominant in Waterhouse, judging from all
the graffiti proclaiming socialism and warning visitors that they were now
entering “Moscow.” I was lucky to get a cab at all, as many licensed cabbies
d u b / 10
refused to drive into the area. My cab driver pointed to two indentations
above each of his ears, proud of the fact that he had survived a direct gun-
shot wound to the temple while being robbed in this very area.
Waterhouse is an extremely tough area by American standards, but as
long as the political violence was dormant, it didn’t seem the hell on earth
that many Kingstonians had warned me of. I located King Tubby’s old
home studio on Dromilly Avenue with the help of the cabdriver, but it no
longer evoked the colorful accounts of reggae historians like Dave Hendley
who had visited Tubby’s during its heyday in the 1970s.24 Instead, I found a
typical Jamaican bungalow that seemed empty, save for the dogs and goats
in the front yard. Tubby had been tragically murdered during a robbery in
1989, and his family closed the studio shortly thereafter. On a later visit,
however, I was met outside by a young boy returning home from school,
who lived in the house with his family. “You a tourist?” he asked me as I
raised my camera to take a photo of the famous carved door that still stands
at the studio’s entrance. “Not exactly,” I told him, “I’m writing a book
about King Tubby.” “He died” was the boy’s simple reply.
In a way, that simple sentence became a recurrent theme during my trips
to Kingston. The challenges and occasional surreality of researching a
music that had reached its social, commercial, and stylistic apogee more
than two decades earlier was compounded by the fact that many of its most
important practitioners had since perished in the violent climate of King-
ston. I had the impression that I was sometimes researching in a ghost
town, despite the profusion of life—including musical life—at every turn.
Ironically, this impression was reinforced by the reverberating sound of the
dub music I listened to following my daily travels around the city.
As far back as my aforementioned college years, my friends and I had re-
mained largely unaware that Jamaica of the early 1980s was a very different
place than the Jamaica of the 1970s that had given birth to roots reggae.
Some of us were indirectly aware of the violence that accompanied the 1980
elections as Edward Seaga ousted Michael Manley from office, but our
awareness of Jamaica was primarily developed through its music, and what
we heard was largely Rastafarian-themed music of the roots era. For the
most part, the radio stations in New York continued to play a substantial
amount of Rasta-themed music, and the Jamaican performers who toured
high-profile U.S. venues in the 1980s were the star singers and DJs of the
roots and early dancehall era like Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Gregory
Isaacs, Culture, Bunny Wailer, Yellowman, Eek-A-Mouse, Black Uhuru,
and British performers such as Steel Pulse and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
For those of us judging the country by its music, our understanding of
Jamaica would change dramatically in 1985, when seemingly out of nowhere,
Introduction / 11
the music suddenly went digital, with a sound so radically different from
what had preceded it as to shake the foundations of many assumptions we
had about Jamaica itself. And this re-visioning had as much to do with the
concrete political realities of Jamaican culture as it did the global marketing
of Jamaican music at that time. The truth is, since the late 1970s, Jamaica’s
music had in fact been changing, gradually becoming harder, more urban-
sounding, and more reflective of the harsh social and political realities that
were transforming the country. And this transformation could be felt far
away in New York City, where Jamaican posses were an increasing presence
in the city’s drug trade, and the city’s Jamaican dancehalls were increasingly
plagued by political and gang-related violence.
My point here is that, similarly to my friends and me in the early 1980s,
many Jamaican music lovers outside of the Caribbean have no idea of the
tough climate that spawned the music that so passionately speaks of peace,
love, and brotherhood. A mere roll call of the great Jamaican musicians
who have met violent deaths will make this clear—and for both economic
extremes of the Jamaican music industry. For example, the number of de-
ceased musicians (most never lived to age twenty-five) in Beth Lesser’s re-
cent biography of dancehall icon King Jammy shows that violent death is
a daily reality in a Jamaican ghetto such as Waterhouse. At the other end of
the economic ladder, a skim of the final chapter of Timothy White’s re-
vised biography of Bob Marley shows how regularly Jamaica’s violence
can affect the lives of the most affluent and successful musicians.25 This
book is partially a tribute to the lives and work of these artists, as well as a
reminder to audiences outside of Jamaica of the human toll behind the
music they so cherish.
King Tubby’s Waterhouse legacy can be considered partially inherited
by Lloyd “King Jammy” James, his former righthand man, who now pre-
sides over a musical empire on nearby St. Lucia Road encompassing a re-
cording complex, a leading sound system, and several record labels. Lo-
cated in a depressed area, Jammy’s complex is probably among the biggest
industries in the local Waterhouse economy. Jammy’s studio is a mere few
blocks away from Tubby’s but once inside, you’re in a different world en-
tirely. The brightly lit, air-conditioned lobby is gleaming with white tile,
furnished with a fish tank, and staffed by a friendly receptionist seated be-
hind a stylishly curved office desk. A long couch awaits visitors, who can
kill time by studying the gold records framed on the walls, or the photo-
montage of Jammy (referred to at the studio as “The King”) with the hun-
dreds of top-selling artists he has produced. In fact, King Tubby had also
been producing digital music at his studio during the four years prior to
his death, but did not live to consolidate this new phase in full. So in both
d u b / 12
social and sonic terms, King Jammy’s Waterhouse empire can be consid-
ered Tubby’s most direct descendant, even though the digital “ragga” he
produces there is quite distinct from the psychedelic-sounding dub music
that was issued by Tubby’s studio during the 1970s and early 1980s.26
A visit to Lee Perry’s legendary Black Ark studio was also high on my
agenda. Although Perry has lived outside of Jamaica for some twenty-five
years now, the remains of his studio still stand in the back of his old home,
located at the end of quiet Cardiff Crescent in the Kingston suburb of
Washington Gardens. The neighborhood seems a world away from the
West Kingston ghetto where King Tubby lived and worked, and reflects
the period of affluence Perry enjoyed while he was the producer for such
legends of reggae music as Bob Marley, Augustus Pablo, The Meditations,
The Heptones, The Mighty Diamonds, and others. A legendary eccentric
of Jamaican music, Perry destroyed his studio in 1979; since then he has
created a new career in Europe as what might be considered an artist/pro-
ducer/performance artist. In this new role, he seems to devote as much at-
tention to his eccentric costumes and profuse wordplay as to his music,
which has tended toward collaborative efforts with British-based “neo-
dub” producers, such as Adrian Sherwood and Neil “Mad Professor”
Fraser. The Black Ark studio itself remains a burnt-out, rubble-filled shell
of a building, although the carport leading to it has been refurbished with
outdoor fish tanks, drawings, paintings, and an array of multicolored light
bulbs. For some time, it has been rumored that Perry is on the verge of re-
viving the Black Ark as an actual recording facility; only time will tell if he
will actually bring this to fruition. For the moment, the embers of his bril-
liance continue to smolder in the eccentric trappings that garnish the
charred remains of his studio.27
Basically, the neighborhoods of West Kingston are like many other
places in the world: tough urban spaces populated by people trying to live
their lives with dignity. Both local politics and global economics have ex-
tracted a heavy toll here, and it takes a powerful music to transform the
harsher aspects of this reality. That is exactly what King Tubby, Lee Perry,
and other producers of dub music accomplished during the 1970s. All the
talk of circuits, knobs, and switches can distract one from the fundamental
reality that what these musicians were doing was synthesizing a new popu-
lar art form, creating a space where people could come together joyously
despite the harshness that surrounded them. They created a music as
roughly textured as the physical reality of the place, but with the power to
transport their listeners to dancefloor nirvana as well as the far reaches of
the cultural and political imagination: Africa, outer space, inner space, na-
ture, and political/economic liberation. Nevertheless, this book will focus
Introduction / 13
on those knobs and the people who operated them, in order to develop an
understanding of the role of sound technology, sound technicians, and
sound aesthetics within the larger cultural and political realities of Jamaica
in the 1970s.
3.
Broader Themes
Post-Colonial Jamaica
Roots reggae reflected a unique moment in Jamaican history and, as
such, intersects with a number of themes that shape this narrative on a
broader level. From the period of urbanization that began in the 1930s,
Kingston life had progressively differentiated along class lines. By the
1960s, class distinctions between rich and poor were usually referred to by
the words “uptown” (affluent, elite, Europhile, light-complexioned) and
“downtown” (poor, from rural origins, dark-skinned, and generally of
clear African descent).28 These divisions were reflected in music. While Ja-
maica is now known worldwide for its popular music forms such as reggae
and ska, this music was associated inside Jamaica with the country’s urban
underclass, and largely spurned by the middle and upper classes. This atti-
tude began to change during the 1970s. The charismatic Michael Manley
(1924–1997) and his People’s National Party (PNP) had swept to victory in
1972 with a populist mandate to spread the power and the wealth, to pro-
vide a voice for the nation’s dispossessed, and to acknowledge the nation’s
overwhelmingly African heritage as part of the creation of a new postcolo-
nial Jamaican identity. Manley’s vision defined Jamaica in the 1970s and, in
many ways, roots reggae music formed the soundtrack for the Manley era.
Early in his campaign, Manley had commissioned musicians to write pro-
PNP songs, and he used both reggae and the rhetoric of Rastafari in his
campaign to project his populist vision and empathy with the nation’s
underclass.29 Pursuing a democratic-socialist agenda, Manley opened dip-
lomatic channels with Cuba and courted Fidel Castro for a state visit (all
under the nose of the United States, which grew increasingly uncomfort-
able at the prospect of “another Cuba” in the hemisphere).
Manley’s democratic-socialist experiment ultimately collapsed because
of several factors including fluctuating demand for Jamaica’s exports, in-
creasing levels of social instability, and alleged subversion by the U.S. gov-
ernment. But what was taking place in Jamaica reflected changes in the
world at large. Cultural and political consciousness was on the rise in many
developing countries, inspired by the nearby Cuban revolution, the civil
d u b / 14
rights/Black Power movements in America, and nationalism in other for-
merly colonized areas (especially Africa). Regional political activists in the
Caribbean like Walter Rodney and Maurice Bishop were dismantling the
ideological foundations of colonialism and white supremacy, while artists
and intellectuals like C. L. R. James, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and
other Caribbeans had emerged to articulate the postcolonial condition for
the black world and beyond.
Rastafari
Jamaica has often been characterized as an extremely religious society,30
and one place this religiosity is strongly reflected is in the country’s popular
music—particularly in the strong influence of the Rastafarian faith on reg-
gae of the 1970s. The religion of Rastafari had long been considered a
fringe movement of Jamaican society since its inception in the 1930s and
Rastas, as adherents were known, were generally looked upon with con-
tempt and disdain by the larger society. Nevertheless, the millenarian and
utopian aspects of Rasta theology, heralding the destruction of an evil
world, the ultimate victory of the weak over the strong and of good over
evil, resonated dynamically within the sociopolitical turbulence of post–
World War II Jamaica. From the 1930s, the religion grew substantially in
popularity and influence and began to make inroads among the urban poor
in Kingston, a process that accelerated after leading reggae musicians such
as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh became adherents in the late 1960s.31
Rooted in the epic stories of the Old Testament, Rastafarian belief also
drew on the pan-Africanist ideas of Marcus Garvey, which introduced a
crucial political component into the religious equation. By the late 1960s,
Rastafari began to appeal to those beyond Jamaica’s most dispossessed;
embraced by artists, students, and intellectuals, it awakened a sense of
“communal attachment to a common culture that transcen[ded] social
class.”32 Although the actual number of adherents remained low, Rastafari
and its ideas became the most provocative articulation of Jamaica’s postco-
lonial ethos by the end of the 1960s, and its newly potent place within Ja-
maican culture owed much to the dissemination of its ideals through the
medium of reggae musicians and dancehall DJs.33
Rastafarian belief rejected modern technology in favor of a philosophy
of naturalism typified by a rural (“roots”) lifestyle and the “dreadlock” hair-
style—at that time, the antithesis of “cultured” ideas of style. Rastafari also
held, among other things, that the Old Testament of the Bible was a coded
history of black people, that the Messiah prophesied in the biblical book of
Revelation was the reigning emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (1892–
1975); that Rastafarians were modern descendants of the Old Testament
Introduction / 15
Hebrews; that Western civilization (referred to as “Babylon”) was evil and
doomed to imminent destruction (some prophecies had this taking place
by 1983); that marijuana (usually referred to in Jamaica by its East Indian–
derived name, ganja) was a religious sacrament;34 and that people of Afri-
can descent in the Western Hemisphere should prepare for imminent repa-
triation to the African motherland.
Although there were abundant love songs, novelty songs, slackness
songs, and instrumentals, the Rastafarian influence was dominant in the
popular reggae of the era. Songs such as the Wailing Souls’s “Kingdom
Rise, Kingdom Fall” prophesied the end of Western civilization;35 Horace
Andy’s “Leave Rasta” condemned political persecution and social margi-
nalization of Rastas;36 Johnny Clarke’s “Be Holy, My Brothers and Sisters”
exhorted the faithful to live upstanding lives;37 Sang Hugh’s “Rasta No
Born Yah” advised Jamaicans to seek their true home in the African moth-
erland;38 Burning Spear honored the memory of Marcus Garvey on their
famous album of the same name;39 while Augustus Pablo’s instrumental
“Israel in Harmony” used biblical imagery to appeal for an end to the polit-
ical violence plaguing the island. The gruff-voiced DJ Prince Far I even re-
corded an entire album of himself “chanting” (as he described his DJ style)
Old Testament Scripture over reggae rhythm tracks.40
Peter Manuel believes that the moment when a musical style of the
urban proletariat gains the embrace of all classes of society, is the moment
when a truly national style is born.41 Such was the case with reggae in the
1970s, which consolidated as Jamaica’s national music in the same moment
that Manley preached a vision of inclusion and broadly based empower-
ment, and the previously marginal religion of Rastafari became an attrac-
tive option for a small but influential minority of Jamaicans of different so-
cial classes. Eventually, through the medium of music and charismatic
reggae performers such as Marley and Tosh, Rastafari grew to become the
most globally diffused of all the indigenous Caribbean religions.42
The lyrics of roots reggae songs clearly tie into a broader critique of co-
lonial European, neocolonial American, and upper-class Jamaican domina-
tion. The musical structure of roots reggae, built upon a hybrid of neo-
African and progressively Africanized Euro-American traits, represent a
second component; the hybridized redeployment of European musical traits
in an Africanized musical agenda is encoded with the self-determination at
the heart of the nationalist and postcolonial projects. In this book, I argue
that beyond traditional textual and structural concerns, the additional
transformations wrought by studio engineers in the mixing of dub music
represent a third and, in the long run, profoundly transformative musical
arena. At their most radical, the textural and syntactic qualities of the music
d u b / 16
counteracted the dominance of Westernized musical thinking; ultimately,
they helped transform the culture of popular music within the West itself.
My goal is not to make any concrete claims about such extramusical associa-
tions, but rather to evoke what Raymond Williams would term a particular
“structure of feeling”43 with multiple roots in Jamaican music and history.
The Ganja Factor

As the central sacrament to Rastafarians, the importance of ganja (mari-
juana) has been well documented and this importance extends into the
sphere of Rasta-influenced Jamaican music. Rasta-influenced musicians
were often outspoken advocates of ganja smoking, with songs full of ex-
hortations to “smoke the herb”: Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It,” Bob Marley’s
“Kaya” and “Easy Skanking,” Culture’s “International Herb,” Horace
Andy’s “Better Collie,” Lee Perry’s “Free Up the Weed” and “Roast Fish,
Cornbread and Collie Weed,” and Leroy Horsemouth Wallace’s “Herb
Vendor” are a mere few of hundreds of such songs. Yet while it would
probably be difficult to find a Jamaican musician of the roots era who was
avowedly anti-ganja, some Jamaican musicians nevertheless felt that the
prominence of this theme led to a distorted view of reggae in the world at
large, as musicians played to the expectations of their international audi-
ences. Paul Henton voiced a sentiment common among some Jamaican
musicians, who felt that their colleagues sung about ganja at least in part
“just because they know that the white people love it. If tomorrow morn-
ing the people or the fans say ‘Okay, we don’t want to hear anymore of this
ganja stuff,’ they’ll stop singing about it and stop promoting it!”44
Inside Jamaica, where ganja songs have flourished within several genres
of Jamaican popular music (such as roots reggae and ragga), the situation
has been more complex. Ganja was declared illegal in Jamaica in 1913 and for
the decades since, its illegality has been a primary tool used by the ruling
class in the social control of working-class Jamaicans.45 Correspondingly, it
became a combustible element in the constellation of factors (including
music, Rastafari, class conflict) that factor into Jamaica’s social tensions. As
such, it is not surprising that ganja played a central role in the blended class,
cultural, and political content that exploded in Jamaica in the 1970s and that
arguably found its most powerful and passionate articulation in roots reg-
gae. This centrality can be felt in the comments of legendary drummer
Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace: “The people respect you in Jamaica when
you can put forty and fifty bag a ganja on a plane! We don’t call that drugs.
That is ganja business. . . . We do those things like we are revolutionary. We
put forty bag on a plane and feel good. . . . We send those so people in
America could smoke the good ganja, not just for money alone.”46
Introduction / 17
The symbiotic relationship between ganja and roots reggae helped clear
a psychological space for the flourishing of Jamaica’s brand of cultural na-
tionalism, but in all likelihood, its significance to Jamaican culture tran-
scended both this and its function as a religious sacrament for Rastas. As
Rasta-influenced reggae musicians extolled the virtues of ganja to the inter-
national audience, Jamaica, roots reggae, and ganja essentially became
interchangeable advertisements for each other, with the latter rivaling legal
exports such as bauxite, sugar cane, and bananas. Despite the religious
rhetoric, then, a deeper reason for the sacralization of ganja in Jamaica
might be the huge economic benefit it brings to the island. Bonham Rich-
ardson concluded:
Romanticized by reggae and a sacrament in the island’s Rastafarian religious sect,

the use of ganja is widespread though illegal in Jamaica. . . . A Jamaican narcotics
squad patrols warehouses, sabotages clandestine airstrips, and intimidates growers,
and the Jamaican government has sponsored helicopter flights over parts of the is-
land to burn ganja fields. Yet these campaigns from a Jamaican government pres-
sured by US politicians are not appreciated by the majority of Jamaicans; a recent
poll indicated that 62 percent of all Jamaicans opposed the curtailment of marijuana
exportation to the United States, in part because so many benefit from it.47
As a result of this situation, some have suggested that the connection

between reggae and ganja may represent the most complex “drug-music
nexus” in the sphere of global popular music.48 But what has been less doc-
umented is the role of ganja in the sonic transformation of Jamaican music
in the 1970s. As I shall discuss in chapter 2, ganja was an important catalyst
in the sound of dub music. For example, some musicians claim a correla-
tion between the sound of the music produced in different recording stu-
dios, and various producers’ willingness or reluctance to let musicians
smoke ganja in their studios. Similar to the case of psychedelic rock music
of the 1960s, mind-altering substances were a catalyst in the expansion of
Jamaica’s sonic imagination in the 1970s, inspiring musicians and engineers
to expand their conception of the capabilities of their equipment.
Basically, then, this book is about a particular type of art realized in the re-
cording studios of Kingston: its sound, its broader resonance for Jamaican
and diasporic African culture, and its influence on the language of popular
music worldwide. The book can be considered a history of a subgenre of
reggae music with a substantial oral history component, a sonic analysis of
what I hear as unique about Jamaican studio craft, and a work of cultural
interpretation. The book examines the impact of dub music on several lev-
els. This introduction delineates some of the book’s prominent themes,
d u b / 18
and will most interest readers who desire an overview of dub music and its
general relevance to both post–World War II popular music and several
broader themes. Chapter 1 foreshadows the emergence of dub by provid-
ing a brief historical overview of Jamaican music and an exploration of the
theme of electronic music as viewed through the prism of Jamaican music.
Chapter 2 examines the economic, stylistic, and technological forces that
were catalysts in the emergence of dub as a genre, the formal strategies of
the dub mix, and includes the voices of several of the musicians central to
its rise. My musicological approach in this chapter ultimately rests on a no-
tion of the dub mixer as a “songscape” composer concerned with regulat-
mbhgh_ma^]n[fbq^kZlZÊlhng]l\Zi^Ë\hfihl^k\hg\^kg^]pbmak^`neZm&
ing the musical parameters of (electronically manipulated) texture and
soundspace as much as the traditional parameters of melody, rhythm, and
harmony. Given the extent to which advances in sound technology have
opened up new sonic parameters in music, my analysis in chapters 2 though
6 is an attempt (however preliminary and narrative-based) to fashion a lan-
guage to address the qualities of this music on its own terms. And my own
work necessarily ties into similar efforts in the spheres of experimental
music, free jazz, various world musics, and other forms of electronic popu-
lar music. Chapter 2 will most likely interest readers who wish to under-
stand what distinguishes dub from the rest of roots reggae music, as well as
those interested in its processes of realization.
Chapter 2 in turn lays the foundations for the third through sixth chap-
ters, each of which examines the history, equipment, and mixing styles of
several of the era’s leading studios and engineers: Sylvan Morris (at Studio
One and Harry J studio), King Tubby, Philip Smart, King Jammy and Sci-
entist (at King Tubby’s studio), Lee “Scratch” Perry (at his Black Ark stu-
dio), and Errol Thompson (at Randy’s and Joe Gibbs’s studios). While this
section of the book can be read straight through from beginning to end, it
might be more comfortably read a chapter at a time—ideally, while listen-
ing to the various dub mixes that are discussed. Unfortunately, clearance is-
sues proved prohibitive in the release of a CD to accompany this book, but
CD sources for all music discussed in this text are provided in the notes and
the appendix of recommended listenings. These chapters will be most rele-
vant to readers interested in the history and styles of specific studios and
engineers, as well as in a close read of stylistic aspects of dub mixing (espe-
cially true for the “On the Mix” sections, which examine specific dub mixes
in close details and will be of most interest to engineers, music scholars,
musicians, and composers).
Chapter 7 briefly chronicles the final years of the roots reggae era, and
examines the legacy of dub music in Jamaica and its influence on the digital
era of Jamaican music, which began in the mid-1980s. Chapter 8 largely
Introduction / 19
concludes the Jamaica-centered core of the book, and is an interpretive at-
tempt to ground dub music in the particular cultural and historical experi-
ence of postcolonial Jamaica, and within certain dominant tropes of Afri-
can diasporic history. As Veit Erlmann has asserted, “Musical analysis . . . is
not about structure per se, or even about semantic content. Rather, it seeks
to uncover the processes by means of which certain people—socially-
situated and culturally-determined actors—invest certain sounds with
meanings.”49 So although portions of this book are concerned with musi-
cal analysis of a type, chapter 8 attempts to chart the way in which the strat-
egies of the dub mix may function as sonic markers of certain processes of
black culture. Chapter 8 will be of most interest to those readers who ap-
proach the topic of dub music with an interest in black cultural studies, di-
aspora studies, or postcolonial studies.
The book closes with a coda, and it examines dub’s stylistic legacy to glo-
bal popular music. Having moved beyond the boundaries of Jamaican cul-
ture, this coda makes a claim for dub as an influential musical subculture of
global popular music at the turn of the twenty-first century. Because this
book, for the most part, focuses on dub in its original Jamaican context, I
do not attempt to examine the non-Jamaican varieties of dub in the same
amount of detail as I devoted to the Jamaican context; I merely provide
enough material to give the reader an overview of how dub has influenced
musical developments outside of Jamaica. In this light, I also use the coda
to emphasize dub’s significance in the historical soundscape of popular
music via a brief comparison with hip-hop, a musical genre that (as I shall
discuss) shares a somewhat parallel history with dub, but that has achieved
much higher visibility in both academic studies and popular music journal-
ism.50 The varying amounts of attention paid to the two styles is ironic as
both hip-hop and dub worked more or less in tandem (although at differ-
ent rates) to transform the grammar of global popular music, and both are
implicated in a reshaping of sonic values in popular dance music that can be
traced at least as far back as the late 1960s. I compare the two styles in a way
that takes advantage of the scholarly space opened by hip-hop scholarship’s
study of issues such as technology and identity, while simultaneously dis-
tinguishing dub as a crucial, regionally specific genre that engages a differ-
ent constellation of musical and extramusical issues, and that deserves seri-
ous discussion on its own terms.
In the end, there are two themes in this book. One is the theme of dub
music, its evolution, stylistic characteristics, primary innovators, and in-
fluence on world popular music. The other is the story of dub music con-
sidered as an embodiment of its times, both in Jamaica and to a lesser ex-
tent, globally.
d u b / 20
. . .
Along with the practice of rapping or toasting over prerecorded music,
dub’s unique approach to production has been among Jamaica’s most im-
portant contributions to world popular music. The former trait has been
addressed by several writers including David Toop (1984), Brian Jahn and
Tom Weber (1998), Carolyn Cooper (1995 and 2004), Norman C. Stolzoff
(2000), and others, but no substantial study has yet been completed on the
sonic, procedural, or conceptual aspects. While there have been a number
of chapter-length articles devoted to dub music,51 there have been no
book-length studies to date. The lack of writing about dub probably re-
flects three factors. First, the difficulty in analyzing music created by elec-
tronic technologies; after all, no standardized musicological language exists
to discuss these types of music.
Second, for the most part, authors on the subject of Jamaican music
have tended to write biographies of individual musicians (T. White 1983,
Davis 1985, Katz 2000, Lesser 2002), historical overviews of the genre
(Davis and Simon 1982 and 1982, Potash 1997, Foster 1999, Bradley 2000,
Katz 2003) or social-scientific studies that are less concerned with musical
detail than in the broader social and political forces within which the music
was constituted (Waters 1985, Stolzoff 2000, King 2003). It is also true that
virtually all Jamaican music of the “roots” era has tended to be viewed
through the prism of Rastafari. This strong extramusical influence has
made it difficult for the music to be appreciated for its purely musicologi-
cal, technical, and/or conceptual qualities.
Third, generally speaking, Caribbean music has not been thought of for its
conceptual qualities; the dominant stereotypes of the region’s music center
around ideas of sensuality, physicality, hedonism, and existential optimism.52
Accordingly, many people have asked me, when they hear of my approach to
this music, “Does the music really support the theorizing?” In terms of the
music itself, dub won’t hold much fascination for those for whom the bass-
driven roots reggae sound and its foggy, low-fi aesthetic is monotonous and
bottom-heavy. But although it might sometimes sound staid in comparison
to its digital descendants of today, dub in its day was messy, unruly, and sub-
versive; its pioneers devised a new system of improvisation and helped trans-
form the recorded popular song from a fixed product into a more fluid process.
In fact, although dub is certainly a genre of Jamaican music, it might be
most accurate to think of it as such a process: a process of song remixing
or, more accurately, song re-composition. The fact that the dub mix is a
version of a preexisting song that allows fragments of its prior incarnations
to remain audible as an obvious part of the final product, makes it condu-
cive to such conceptualizing; it can be linked with similar technology-based
Introduction / 21
processes in other artistic media such as the serial reuse of images, collage,
manipulations of texture, and compositional procedures based on chance.
So if the real-time, live musician, dance-oriented performance aspects of
the music allow it to furnish the usual range of physical, emotional, psy-
chological, and aesthetic pleasures normally expected of pop music, its
post-performance manipulation at the hands of recording engineers gives
it a conceptual edge that makes it applicable to various modes of abstract
theorizing. Thus, I have written this book in a way that simultaneously re-
mains faithful to dub’s Jamaican context, allows its technical and concep-
tual contributions to world sonic art to be acknowledged, and also explores
its similarities with a range of non-Jamaican art forms. If comparisons with
Western canvas painting, African oral and visual arts, deconstructive archi-
tecture, and experimental Euro-American art music seem a bit afield, the
text will make it evident that I am not addressing the music in this way in
order to “add thrilling new grist to the moribund old elitist mill” (to quote
John Corbett).53 Rather, I hope to make dub music a part of discussions
that are global in scope. As much as the music has to tell us about the obvi-
ous tropes of race, nation, culture, it has other stories to tell about art, aes-
thetics, technology, and the nature of modernity.
As such, the book also contributes to a growing body of literature about
electronic popular music and the creative history of the recording studio.54
In addition to the more established area of technical books, articles, and
manuals, the study of the studio as a musical and/or cultural institution has
grown over the last two decades. The literature can be traced through sev-
eral disciplines and concerns: histories of recorded sound (Chanan 1995,
Lastra 2000, Sterne 2000); philosophies and aesthetics of recording (Eisen-
berg 1987, Zak 2001, Cunningham 1998, Buskin 1999, Martin 1983); histo-
ries of specific studios and studio systems (Cogan and Clark 2003, Bowman
2003, Southall, Vince, and Rouse 2002); biographies of producers, engi-
neers, technicians, and session musicians (Martin 1979, Howard 2004,
Repsch 1989, Cleveland 2001, Moore 1999, Dr. Licks 1989); chronicles of
the recording history of specific artists (Lewisohn 1998, McDermott, Cox,
and Kramer 1996); architectural surveys of recording studios (Grueneisen
2003); and many books devoted to the creation of particularly influential re-
cordings. Ethnomusicologists have tended to approach the recording stu-
dio as a site in which to examine a variety of musical and extramusical con-
cerns such as gender (Sandstrom 2000), and the aesthetics and discourses of
the studio (Porcello 1996, Porcello and Greene 2005, Meintjes 2003).
My book draws from several of these areas but can be most centrally
placed within ethnomusicology as it addresses both music history (who did
what when, with which equipment) and analysis (the effects these actions
d u b / 22
had on song form and structure). It also examines the way this studio-
based art functioned during a particular historical moment in Jamaica; in
this sense it is also a work of interpretation in which I show the extent to
which the recording studio (despite its seemingly hermetic remove from
the “real world”) is in fact a microcosm of the society within which it ex-
ists.55 Dub music can be defined by a set of core stylistic traits and technical
procedures, but as will be discussed in chapter 2, these traits vary slightly
from definition to definition. Such variation suggests that, seen from an-
other perspective, dub is not merely a musical genre but a vividly sonic ex-
pression of the social, political, and cultural changes affecting Jamaica in
the 1970s. This approach allows me to address the theme of political trans-
formation, so central to most other works on roots reggae, from a different
but equally effective angle. And several of the the topics explored in this
book ultimately intersect with topics that have been prominent in ethnom-
usicological, anthropological, literary, and art historical studies of the late
twentieth-century Caribbean as a cultural sphere: the issue of African re-
tentions, the impact of slavery and colonization, postcoloniality, Caribbea-
ness as creolization, and the increasing centrality of vernacular forms to the
cultural life of the nation.56
Given that the academic discussion of much black popular music today
tends to be dominated by non–music scholars, this book might strike some
as conservative in the sense that it addresses the music in fairly musicologi-
cal terms. It does not privilege the sociocultural over the aesthetic and the
historical, but rather attempts to keep them in complementary balance.
What I offer in this book is a discussion of Jamaican popular music that
treats “the music” itself as a serious object of study, doing it as much justice
as it does the music’s broader resonances. And while some might argue that
“the music” is itself a problematic construction, I believe that in order to
understand a music’s broader resonances, we need an informed under-
standing of the way social codes are sublimated into the codes of musical-
ized sound, in order to understand the way they are manipulated to pro-
duce social meaning.57 Ultimately, what I have aspired to here is a culturally
grounded inquiry of ethnomusicology and a blend of what Guthrie P.
Ramsey has discussed as the “musicological” and “literary” tendencies in
black music scholarship and criticism.58
I want to make it clear that this book is not a general history of reggae or
of Jamaican music; for that or other reggae-related topics, the reader should
consult any of the many excellent studies that have preceded it, including
Barrow and Dalton (1997), Bilby in Manuel (1995), Bradley (2000), Chang
and Chen (1998), Clarke (1980), Cooper (2004), Davis and Simon (1982 and
1992), Dawes (1999), Foster (1999), Hebdige (1987), Hurford and Kaski
Introduction / 23
(1987), Katz (2003), Jahn and Weber (1998), Neely (forthcoming), Potash
(1997), or Stolzoff (2000). Although the book is concerned with a fairly spe-
cialized topic, I believe it will remain relevant to the study of Jamaican music,
because Jamaica’s most significant contributions to the world’s music are
based in large part around its studio innovations.
Topically, this book is framed and/or inspired by several works that have
preceded it. Even though my own book is written in a very different way,
Walter Everett’s work on the Beatles provided an inspiring example of the
rigor with which popular music scholarship can be undertaken: on the one
hand, in terms of depth of analysis; and on the other, in terms of account-
ability to factors of repertoire and biography (via the search for unauthor-
ized recordings, alternate takes, session logs, and journalistic accounts),
which are handled as thoroughly as a historical musicologist’s search for
letters, scores, and manuscripts in dusty archives in far-flung lands.59 Rob-
ert Farris Thompson’s 2005 historical study of the Argentine tango was a
threefold inspiration. First, for the way that personal passion for a topic can
combine with the rigor of the scholar to paint an enlivened and poetic his-
tory of an artistic genre and/or a culture. Second, for the way that nonmu-
sical perspectives (in this case, the art historical) can be used to expand and
enrich the discussion of music, expanding the parameters of musical think-
ing while remaining accountable to the “sound material.”60 Third, for the
way Thompson has teased out the Africanist underpinnings of a dance
genre heretofore considered to be one of the defining artistic statements of
Western modernity. Louise Meintjes’s Sound of Africa (2003) presents a
vivid ethnographic account of the ways that cultural identity becomes em-
bodied in musical sound via the technology of the recording studio. Art
historian (and chemistry professor) Philip Ball’s Bright Earth: Art and the
Invention of Color (2001) makes the case that histories, analyses and inter-
pretations of artistic movements are virtually meaningless without close
scrutiny of the different materials available to artists in different eras. Ball’s
colorful (pun intended) history of the synthesis of artist’s pigments clearly
parallels the synthesis of new sounds made possible by sound processing
technologies. Paul Gilroy has consistently used the most innovative forms
of black popular music as fruitful points of departure for broader and par-
ticularly provocative discussions of race, culture, and history. His challenge
to received notions of modernity, expressed most comprehensively in The
Black Atlantic (1993a), was a touchstone for my work here. The writings of
Michael Chanan (1995), James Lastra (2000), and Jonathan Sterne (2003)
provided crucial historical contexts for the emergence, evolution, and cul-
tural significance of sound technologies. Finally, any study of reggae must
d u b / 24
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chapter one
Electronic Music in Jamaica

Dub in the Continuum of Jamaican Music
However unique it may be in the soundscape of black popular music,

dub—like most popular music of the Caribbean—arose as a product of the
historical continuum encompassing European conquest, slavery, coloniza-
tion, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization in the so-called
New World. As such, it can be clearly fit into a historical continuum of Ja-
maican music traceable centuries into the past. Given that the history of Ja-
maican music is covered in several previous publications, the following his-
torical sketch is deliberately brief and schematic, used to set the stage for
this book’s primary concerns.
A plantation society similar to the nearby nation of Haiti, colonial Ja-
maica was characterized by harsh cultural and political repression of the
overwhelmingly black majority by a small, white plantocracy. The British
rulers (who ended a brief period of Spanish rule in 1655) viewed African
cultural expressions with distaste, and attempted to eradicate them through
a mixture of legislation, conversion, and coercion. As a result of this, the
documentation of “pure” transplanted African cultural expressions in Ja-
maican music remains fairly basic. What is known includes a variety of re-
tained West African songs and other cultural forms that flourished undocu-
mented in the country’s interior well into the twentieth century. Those
accounted for include Burru, Etu, Tambu, and Gombe—all rural-based,
neo-African musical genres that traditionally flourished on both planta-
tions and in the country’s interior. Fusing African-derived singing, drum-
ming, and religious possession, these styles betrayed little or no European
influence,1 and they share characteristics in varying degrees with other re-
gional neo-African liturgical musics such as Cuban santería and palo music,
Haitian vodun, and Trinidadian shango.2 Other styles such as the wide-
spread Revival or Pocomania/Kumina styles, blended similar drumming
d u b / 26
styles with Africanized Christian hymnal singing and were more widely
practiced; the latter was also used for trance healing ceremonies, and se-
lected elements of both musical traditions would later be adopted by Rasta-
farians for their own liturgical Nyabinghi music and Kete drumming.
During the era of slavery from the mid-1600s to 1838, colonial planters
also encouraged their subjects to form “slave orchestras” for the masters’
entertainment during various slave and Christian holidays. Blending
African- and European-derived musical traits, these orchestras represented
Jamaica’s first documented indigenous musical forms. This hybrid history
is reflected in the blend of African-derived structural traits such as rhythmic
dynamism, call-and-response song forms, and drumming traditions, with
European traits such as various instrument types, chordal harmonies and
various song types (for example, Protestant hymns, sea shanties).
Taken together, these traditional religious and folk styles constituted the
body of documented musical practice until the urbanization of the 1930s
provided a context for the emergence of Jamaican popular music. Kenneth
Bilby characterizes the evolution of Jamaica’s popular music as being in-
formed by a continuous exchange between the rural and the urban,3 and
many of these musical practices would ultimately be transplanted to the
urban context, influencing the evolution of popular music in various ways.
Mento
Growing directly out of the experience of rural migrants to Kingston
during the first decades of the twentieth century, the origins of Jamaican
popular music—like the traditional forms they grew out of—were consid-
ered unworthy of serious attention and/or documentation by the Euro-
phile national elite. As a result, precise origins, influential individuals, and
seminal moments have gone largely unaccounted.4 By most accounts, how-
ever, the country’s tradition of popular music is widely considered to have
begun with mento, a style that had flourished since the early decades of the
twentieth century and that was first recorded in the early 1950s by the first
generation of Jamaican recording entrepreneurs, including Stanley Motta,
Ken Khouri, and Baba Tuari.5
The term mento encompassed a fairly wide range of stylistic practices that
drew on all the aforementioned folk traditions in varying degrees. Like
many other regional Caribbean styles, it also sometimes blended elements of
European ballroom and folk dance (such as quadrille, lancer, and mazurka)
with African-derived percussion and vocal stylizations.6 Over time, the Afri-
can elements came to dominate, owing in Bilby’s account to the aesthetic
preferences of the black musicians and the African-derived instruments on
which they performed. By the time the style began to be recorded in the
Electronic Music in Jamaica / 27

early 1950s, enough standardization had occurred that mento could now be
considered a national folk music broadly related to Trinidadian calypso in
style, if not origin. During the 1930s and 1940s, this newly commercialized
mento was performed by large dance bands who also played American jazz
standards to audiences in Kingston and other cities. Song lyrics were usually
concerned with love, sex, and hardship, and instrumentation was typically
some configuration of banjo, hand drums, guitar, “rhumba box” (a large,
bass-register thumb piano of West African origin), bamboo “sax,” penny-
whistle, and Trinidadian steel pan.7 In addition to weddings and parties,
mento bands often performed for tourists at various resorts. Even today,
foreign tourists arriving at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay
are likely to be serenaded by the sounds of a mento band.
The Influence of Rhythm & Blues
While mento was the main local style, the dominant music that urban Ja-
maicans were dancing to during the 1950s was rhythm and blues imported
from the United States. The music could also be heard via radio transmis-
sions, which could be picked up on clear nights from broadcast points in
the southern United States such as Miami and New Orleans. It also made
its way to Jamaica via migrant workers returning from farmwork in the
United States, and through the presence of African American migrant
workers and military servicemen stationed on the island.8 At this time,
rhythm and blues was still strongly rooted in blues and gospel music and
was dominated by plaintive ballads and shuffle tempos; the Jamaican pref-
erence was for the “jump blues” of musicians like Charles Brown, Louis
Jordan, and Big Joe Turner, or for balladeers like Nat King Cole, Billy Eck-
stine, and Arthur Prysock.9 Sound system operators like Coxsone Dodd
traveled frequently to the southern United States to find the hottest and
most obscure records to play for their Jamaican audiences.
The emergence of rock and roll as a national craze in America of the late
1950s had consequences for the subsequent development of black American
pop. The first wave of proto–rock and roll purveyed by electric blues and/or
rhythm-and-blues artists such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Bo Did-
dley began to be aimed at a more cosmopolitan audience; by the beginning
of the 1960s, many black R&B hits were “covered” by white American sing-
ers like Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. The white sound was softer, and held
less appeal for the Jamaican audiences used to the rawer, more passionate
sounds of black R&B. Meanwhile black American musicians, their styles
having been co-opted by cover artists, were in the process of either “crossing
over” to white audiences, or regrouping before the explosive emergences of
Motown, Stax-Volt, and James Brown later in the decade. It was this period
d u b / 28
of stylistic change that provided the catalyst for the first serious formulations
of an indigenous Jamaican popular music. At a loss for appealing African
American music at the turn of the decade, sound system proprietors such as
Dodd and Reid began to turn at last to local musicians to produce sounds for
the local market. In Dodd’s account: “What really gave me the idea that we
needed to produce some local recording [was that] at about 1960 the rhythm
& blues dried up and in came the rock & roll, but rock & roll wasn’t so pop-
ular in Jamaica. It never went over. So I figured, more or less, then we’d have
to get in the studio and get with that heavy dance beat, you know. So that’s
how we really thought of doing it.”10
This turn to the local was a significant cultural landmark; as Davis and
Simon point out, Jamaica, like other formerly colonized cultures, was then in
the grip of a cultural mindset that privileged all things foreign (especially Brit-
ish and American); producers only turned to local musicians as a last resort. In
the broad view, however, Jamaican music has often functioned—at least par-
tially—as the most provocative Caribbean commentary on mainland African
American popular music. From this period on, Jamaican and African Ameri-
can music would develop in and out of stylistic phase with each other until—
with the post-1980s symbiosis of Jamaican ragga and American hip-hop
music—the musical influences became almost completely complementary.
Ska
The musicians that local businessmen-cum-producers (for example,
Dodd and Duke Reid) turned to were older players such as Val Bennett,
Sonny Bradshaw, Roy Coburn, and Bertie King who had made a name
for themselves in the Jamaican dance-band scene. They also turned to
younger musicians such as guitarist Ernest Ranglin, pianist Jackie Mit-
too, or drummer Jah Jerry, some of whom were graduates of the Alpha
School in West Kingston, a school that took boys off of the streets and
provided them with a solid musical education.11 In previous decades, the
older bands had offered their (mostly elite) audiences a repertoire of
American swing music, mixed with the occasional orchestrated mento,
Cuban rhumba, Trinidadian calypso, and Dominican merengue. When it
became necessary to formulate their own popular music, however, they
modeled it directly after rhythm and blues, but with a distinctly local
twist. The earliest attempts were directly indebted to the shuffle/swing
tempos and plaintive ballads of American R&B, elaborated with various
rural Jamaican and local Caribbean influences.12 But when guitarists and
pianists began emphasizing the upbeat (off-beat eighth notes) in the
music, the ska style, as it came to be known, was born. Like the rhythm-
and-blues music upon which it was initially modeled, ska was marked by a

bouncy uptempo beat played in either straight or swung time, with the
guitar and piano emphasizing the upbeats. This upbeat emphasis, trace-
able to the “comping” style of piano and/or guitars in rhythm & blues as
well as the role of the banjo in mento,13 would become the most distinc-
tive element of Jamaican music, continuing throughout the successive sty-
listic phases to the present.14 The ensemble that emerged as the dominant
ska outfit came to be known as the Skatalites, under the direction of the
late trombonist Don Drummond (1940–1969); the music they would
create for producers like Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, and Justin Yap re-
mains a high-water mark for Jamaican pop.15
The loose ensemble feeling of many ska songs recalls the early, small
combo jazz of musicians like Louis Armstrong in New Orleans. The musi-
cians typically conform to set song forms but sometimes take a fair amount of
improvisational liberty in playing their individual parts, resulting in a
buoyant mood and heterophonic ensemble texture. Some have suggested
that this buoyancy was at least partially a form of musical propaganda spon-
sored by the Jamaican government to foster optimism in the new nation.16
Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that it was also an organic reflection of
the national mood following the nation’s independence from England in Au-
gust 1962. Like the forms highlife in sub-Saharan Africa and soul in Afro-
America, the mood of lighthearted abandon in such ska songs as Derrick
Morgan’s “Forward March” and Jimmy Cliff ’s “Miss Jamaica” was powered
by a wave of national pride and sociopolitical commitment and optimism.17
But there was also another side to ska, typified by the tightly orches-
trated instrumental pieces composed by musicians like Drummond, saxo-
phonists Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso, and trumpeter Johnny
Moore; these pieces sported such provocative titles as “Fidel Castro,” “Ex-
odus,” “King Solomon,” “Addis Ababa,” “Distant Drums,” “Yogi Man,”
and “South China Sea.” They hinted at the growing influence of Rastafari,
looming political revolution, a culture increasingly looking eastward, and
the reemergence of ancestral Africa as a valued cultural symbol.18 Shep-
herded by the tragic genius figure of Drummond, this type of ska was
Jamaica’s local commentary on the emergence of musicians like Charlie
Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and the idea of modern jazz as an Afro-inflected art
music of the twentieth-century metropolis.
Rock Steady
By 1966, ska had been transformed into a style known as rock steady. The
moniker describes several changes in the music: a slower, steadier tempo; a
d u b / 30
de-emphasis on horns; the foregrounded role of electric bass lines that
were now composed from a mixture of rests and syncopations (as opposed
to the continuous “walking” pattern of ska) opening up spaces for other in-
struments to insert counterrhythms;19 and the introduction of the stub-
born “one drop” drumming pattern, which became a highly distinctive fea-
ture of Jamaican music.20 The earliest song in this style is often considered
to be Hopeton Lewis’s “Take It Easy,” and there are varying accounts of
the catalysts for the musical change. In Davis and Simon’s account, many
Jamaicans attributed the change to the unusually hot summer of 1966, in
which slower dancing became a necessity in the extreme heat.21 Producer
Clive Chin spoke in more general terms of the move to slow the tempo
down from its rhythm-and-blues and ska origins:
Basically what slow it down is that . . . a man like for a more relaxed stage of
movement. The foot movement and the jigglin,’ it nice but it tired you out . . .
you want to feel good and you and your queen just a move steady—you no want
a whole heap of foot movement like you get on the dance floor and just create a
mash. You just go there and lock and position yourself and rub-a-dub and sip
your beer or your spliff or whatever. The whole mood of it—you just cool, you
just mellow.22
Other accounts attribute the change to a “darker” social mood reflecting

the growing culture of “rude boys” (that is, young, unemployed men in the
city), an increase in violence and the intensification of political rivalries;
this would account for the change in subject matter as well.23 In general we
can observe that, for whatever reasons, the ska model was refashioned over
time and rock steady marked the beginning of a process in which Jamaican
popular music became slower, more bottom-heavy, less concerned with
abandon and more with controlled and repeated syncopations. The accom-
panying dancing became more controlled as well, with the halting, synco-
pated bass lines inspiring what David Katz described as “a stationary pose
with a rocking body, jerking shoulders, and snapping fingers.”24 The most
prolific rock steady session band was the Jets, led by guitarist Lynn Taitt,
whose melodious chording (inspired, in some accounts, by the steel pan
music from his native Trinidad) embellished the heavy bass lines created by
players like Bryan Atkinson, Jackie Jackson, and others.25
Reggae
Many people are wondering about the origins of the word reggae. What we are
talking about is the regality of the music.26
Reggae means comin’ from the people, y’know? . . . Like from the ghetto. From
majority. Reggae mean regular people who are suffering, and who don’t have
what they want.27

. . . at that time we was listening to the rebels, and the rebels was the lazy people.
Them want something to rock to because them fucking lazy. They want exercise, so
we have to take the rhythm down to help.28
A beat like this, it get a rich guy very scared. When they hear the horns, is like the
horns a say “Hey, one day I’m going to fuck you up! One day I’m going to catch
you!” . . . When you hear the drumroll, it’s like cutting, making a fight . . . the
whole basical truth about it is that the tempo is right. You can never say it’s
wrong. It’s like revolutionary.29
Ever since the R&B and ska years, when sound system operators
pushed their bass controls to full capacity in order to thrill and traumatize
their audiences and have their sounds heard over the widest possible out-
door distances, the electric bass had grown in prominence in Jamaican
music.30 The first Fender bass had been introduced into Jamaica around
1959 by bassist/entrepreneur Byron Lee and by the rock steady period,
Jackie Jackson had emerged to define the instrument’s role more pre-
cisely.31 As rock steady began to slow down into what became known as
reggae, it was this instrument that became the key to the new style. Structu-
rally, reggae was partly common practice harmony and song form, and
partly a neo-African music of fairly rigid ensemble stratification in which
the fundamental ingredients were an aggressive, syncopated bass line, a
minimalist (but highly ornamented) drum set pattern, and a chordal in-
strument (usually guitar and/or piano) playing starkly on each offbeat
eighth note, elaborated by a syncopated “shuffle organ” emphasizing the
offbeats in sixteenth-note double time. The “one drop” became standard-
ized into a minimalist pattern in which the bass drum emphasized beats 2
and 4, the snare (playing mainly on the rim) alternately doubled the bass
drum or improvised syncopations, while the hi-hat kept straight or swung
eighth-note time. There were also several other popular patterns and varia-
tions, such as the popular “steppers” rhythm in which the bass drum
sounded on each beat while the snare played interlocking syncopations, or
the “flying cymbal,” which imported the offbeat hi-hat splash of disco
music and fused it with the one drop.32
Although rock steady is generally considered to have “slowed down” into
reggae, it actually accelerated (via the double-time shuffle organ) and decel-
erated (via the half-time drum and bass) simultaneously. It also tightened
considerably, as rock steady had at times retained some of the ensemble
looseness of ska. Because of this juxtaposition of downbeat and offbeat,
along with the tighter ensemble texture, the net effect of “roots” reggae
(as it came to be known) was simultaneously of midair suspension and
firm grounding, of density and spaciousness, of weightiness and weight-
lessness. It could be danced as a sensual and subtly interwoven dance for
couples, or as a very free step for people dancing alone. As usual, there are
d u b / 32
varying claims and accounts of the first commercially recorded reggae
song. Toots and the Maytals’s “Do the Reggay,” Lee Perry’s “People Funny
Boy,” and Larry Marshall’s “Nanny Goat” are three songs most frequently
credited with inspiring the slower tempo.33
Reggae was a distinct stylistic phase of the music; structurally speaking,
however, it was (as outlined above) actually a refinement of many elements
that had been introduced in the ska and rock steady periods. The true sig-
nificance of the change comes from these musical refinements in conjunc-
tion with a dramatic shift in lyrical themes that itself reflected a fundamen-
tal shift in the cultural mood. In terms of the new lyrical focus on Africa as
cultural homeland, Erna Broadber observed, “a river of sentiment that had
been running underground for decades had suddenly surfaced.”34 Songs
also began to explore a wider range of social and political topics giving
voice to a more critical examination of the new nation-state: poverty, class
conflict, homelessness, political violence, Rastafari, the concept of “black-
ness,” and a variety of other social and cultural issues. The infusion of polit-
ical, class, and religious sentiment reflected the music’s roots in the experi-
ences of both rude boys and Rastas, and gave rise to the dynamically
contrasting claims for reggae’s etymological roots in words such as “rag-
gedy” (that is, lower class) and “regal” (that is, Rastafari). In the view of
some historians, it was this thematic shift that actually defined the shift to
reggae.35 Many musicians offered interpretations similar to that of engi-
neer Philip Smart, who claimed that “the tempo of the music had some-
thing to do with the revolution at the time.”36 The slower tempo resulted
in a brooding mood conducive to the weightier topics; as Lloyd Bradley
notes, it also allowed a more relaxed, hymnlike quality of singing for the in-
creasing number of songs with religious or spiritual themes.37
Crucial to this generation were the producers who shepherded the new
sound: Clement Dodd, Duke Reid, Joe Gibbs, Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Clive
Chin, Jack Ruby, and others who would record the emerging musicians. It is
impossible to talk about the music without mentioning these figures, and the
story of dub music in particular is a collaborative story between these produc-
ers and the studio engineers they worked with: Bunny Lee and Augustus
Pablo with King Tubby, Clive Chin and Joe Gibbs with Errol Thompson, Lin-
val Thompson and Junjo Lawes with Scientist, and other similar partnerships.
Finally, there was the new crop of musicians, especially the electric bas-
sists and drum set players who were in the forefront of the new sound: the
former included Aston “Family Man” Barrett, Glen Brown, George
“Fully” Fullwood, Boris Gardiner, Errol “Flabba” Holt, Lloyd Parks, Rob-
bie Shakespeare, Leroy Sibbles, and Errol “Bagga” Walker;38 the latter in-
cluded Carlton “Carlie” Barrett, Warren “Benbow” Creary, Carlton

“Santa” Davis, Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, Mikey “Boo” Richards, Lincoln
“Style” Scott, and Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace. It was these musicians
who revolutionized Jamaican music and put an indelible stamp upon world
popular music. As Adrian Sherwood claims, “There were half a dozen bass
players who for a period of twenty years were putting out fantastic stuff,
and the way that their crew of producers and mixers and the musicians inter-
acted is unique. It cannot be compared to anyone else. You cannot compare
any huge bulk of music with what came out of Jamaica. It’s quite unique.”39
Although reggae, as performed by this new generation of musicians,
would attain unprecedented international popularity by the late 1970s, the
foundations of their innovations had been solidly laid in place by the musi-
cians at the Studio One and Treasure Isle studios between the 1960s and
early 1970s. From around the time of independence in 1962, these musi-
cians had been charged by producers like Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid
with the task of using their jazz skills to adapt black American R&B into a
new local popular music. By the rock steady period at the end of the 1960s,
they had blended high musicianship, jazzy solos, accomplished singing,
and meticulous songcraft in the synthesis of what might be thought of as
Jamaica’s “perfectly formed pop song.” Even at the turn of the twenty-first
century, producer “Computer Paul” Henton could remark on the irony:
“Every generation that comes up eventually gets into Studio One music.
Why? It was just good music. Every song almost is a sing-along. Cyaan
[can’t] beat that, it’s like Motown.”40
Dub
Because of a combination of social, political, and technological factors,
the neat conception of the pop song would undergo a strange transforma-
tion during the 1970s. Roots reggae’s unique interplay of density and spare-
ness had set the stage for the texturally and spatially oriented practices of
dub, a style in which the Jamaican pop song was electronically decon-
structed and reconfigured by a generation of studio engineers who had vari-
ously tuned into the potentials of Africa, outer space, nature, psychedelia,
and the late modernist machine. Two iconic photos of legendary producer/
engineer Lee Perry demonstrate this dramatic change. In the first, a widely
circulated publicity shot taken around 1967, Perry poses coolly against a
park bench, with a placid pond in the background. He is dressed in a match-
ing ensemble of black shirt, slacks, and sports jacket with polished black
shoes and hair trimmed to a short, neat Afro. Like many publicity shots of
the mid-1960s, he strikes a stylish and dynamic pose, with his jacket slung
over his shoulder. The image is of a successful and stylish music business-
man “on the go”; my guess would be that the photo was taken in England.41
d u b / 34
In a well-known later photo taken by Peter Simon around 1976, Perry
has been transformed. He is shown in front of the console of his Black Ark
studio, the site of his greatest sonic achievements. The sporty ensemble has
been discarded in favor of shorts and a cut-off sleeveless T-shirt. His head
and hair—by this time a large Afro on the verge of dreading—are thrown
back as if blown by a fan. His hands (one of which holds a burning spliff)
are raised in the air in an ecstatic gesture, and his mouth is open as if form-
ing a scream. Perry’s expression here is actually quite similar to iconic pho-
tos of Little Richard, who blended comic, sexual, and religious absorption
into a new construction of rock-and-roll passion.42 The difference here is
that when Perry drops his hands back down, they will not rest upon a piano
keyboard, but rather on the knobs, buttons, and dials of a recording con-
sole. And for those in the know, it is from this fact that the passion of this
photo is constructed; the recording console was Perry’s “instrument” in
the same way that the jazz orchestra was Duke Ellington’s, a vessel for his
most sublime and elemental insights.
Perry’s personal transformation parallels the transformation in both the
music and in Jamaica. The era of “roots” in Jamaica was paralleled through-
out the black world as cultures and their artists embraced ideas of Africa,
nature, resistance, and blackness and channeled them into local popular
music forms. The raw emotion of the photo (especially given the distortion
of the image) implies that Perry had found in the ostensibly neutral tech-
nology of the studio a potent medium through which to channel the pas-
sion, peril, and promise of the times.
What might be thought of as Jamaica’s period of musical modernity was

arguably bookended by the tragic, lone-genius figure of Don Drummond
on one hand, and the techno-deconstructionist figures of Lee Perry and
King Tubby on the other. Ska, rock steady and roots reggae were all, to var-
ying extents, invested in traditional conceptions of race, nation, a linear
understanding of history, and a clear distinction between good and evil.
The advent of dub subverted these constructs, creating a space in Jamaican
music (and later world pop) for the postsong, for linguistic, formal, and
symbolic indeterminacy. Nevertheless, dub was very much a reflection of
the particular society and historical moment in which it arose. If the re-
sounding bass drum patterns of the Kumina traditional healing cere-
mony were considered sonic “heart strings” that connected the worlds of
the living and the dead,43 the thunderous patterns of the reggae electric
bass would similarly serve to reawaken postcolonial Jamaicans to their
“dead” past as a people of African descent, as a British slave colony, and

their uncertain future as a neocolonial satellite of the United States. The
emergence of what Lloyd Bradley described as the “nationalistic swag-
ger”44 of “drum & bass” to Jamaica’s musical forefront paralleled the full
flowering of the postcolonial political consciousness and pro-African cul-
tural nationalism that formed roots reggae’s symbolic fibre. Within all of
this would be contained the first glimpses of a new musical language that at
once hearkened backward in cultural time to ancestral Africa and forward
to a pancultural, cybersonic future of virtual environments, human-
machine interfaces, and digitized sensuality.
Electronic Music in Jamaica

The Recording Studio in Perspective
As a genre of reggae music particularly associated with the recording
studio, dub music must be discussed in the context of the global evolution
of sound recording technology in the twentieth century. Without a doubt,
the technology of sound recording is one of the most profound musical de-
velopments of the twentieth century. Magnetic tape recording dates to the
late nineteenth century in the Netherlands, and was first standardized in
the 1920s in Germany. Recording studios—the primary site for the manip-
ulation of magnetic tape—have existed since just after the turn of the twen-
tieth century. As far back as phonograph inventor Thomas Edison and such
early recording pioneers as Fred Gaisberg, Walter Legge, and John Cul-
shaw, engineers have had to make aesthetic as well as technical judgments
in their translation of musical performances onto a recorded format that
was from its earliest years understood in some quarters to hold more crea-
tive potential than a mere passive documentation of a “traditional” musical
performance.45 This idea of the sound recording as an artistic creation in it-
self—as opposed to a faithful re-creation—developed in stages. It had roots
in the 1920s, when the advent of electrical recording allowed a spatial separ-
ation between sound source and recorder, typified by the separation in the
studio between the performing room and the control room that created an
autonomous space for the recording engineer.46 The idea gained momen-
tum in the 1930s, when a variety of sound processing devices (such as
equalization and reverb) began to be used in the production of Hollywood
film soundtracks.47 It was in tandem with these technical advances that the
recording engineer began to play a more prominent creative role in the
studio-based creation of popular music.
Prior to the 1950s, however, the role of the engineer had nevertheless
been widely misunderstood as a purely technical one, concerned mainly
d u b / 36
with the ostensibly “accurate” translation of musical performances onto a
recorded format. This perception began to change with the introduction of
multitrack technology; four-channel recorders became available in the
1950s, and eight- and sixteen-channel machines followed in the subsequent
decade.48 Recording engineers now began to be publicly recognized as
what Chanan calls “audio artists” (music critic Oliver Daniel coined the
term “tapesichordists”), aggressively moving recording out of the realm of
the documentary and into the realm of the creative.49 They were aided in
this endeavor by continuing advances in electronic circuitry and sound pro-
cessing technology, as well as the ability to overdub—a revolutionary by-
product of multitrack technology (generally attributed to guitarist and
electronics innovator Les Paul) that loosened recording from the con-
straints of real time and space and allowed recordings to be perfected as
“works of art.”50 By the mid-1960s, aspects of the studio production pro-
cess began to consolidate into the signature styles of various producers and
engineers of popular music in England and America. In England, produc-
ers and engineers such as Joe Meek (working at his North London studio),
Eddie Kramer (working primarily with Jimi Hendrix at Olympic in Lon-
don and later, the Record Plant and Electric Lady in New York), George
Martin and Geoff Emerick (working with, among other artists, the Beatles
at EMI’s Abbey Road studios) expanded the palette of popular music
through techniques such as backward tape manipulation, tape splicing,
overdubbing, the use of sound effects, and sound processing. In America
during the same period, Tom Dowd fashioned a unique aesthetic from the
stylized roughness of rhythm-and-blues recordings while working as a staff
engineer at New York’s Atlantic studios.51 Legendary producer Phil Spec-
tor worked with engineers Stan Ross and Larry Levine in New York’s Gold
Star studios, providing pop music with a sonic sense of grandeur with his
“wall of sound” productions. Spector’s work in turn inspired Beach Boy
Brian Wilson and a series of engineers (including Larry Levine at Gold Star
and Chuck Britz at Western Recorders in Hollywood) in the creation of
the Beach Boys’ influential 1966 recording Pet Sounds. In jazz, Teo Macero
(who had himself been trained in twentieth-century composition) helped
expand the role of the studio in jazz from the purely documentary to the
creative while working with Miles Davis on the latter’s jazz-rock fusion
music between 1968 and 1975.52
This history suggests that, as the invention of the grand piano opened
up new possibilities for composers of European art music in the nineteenth
century, so the advent of multitrack recording represented a similarly trans-
formative advance for popular composers in the late twentieth century.53
And considering the centrality of the recording studio in the production of

virtually all forms of post–World War II music, this evolution also suggests
that the class of technicians we normally refer to as “producers” and “engi-
neers” might themselves, in some cases, be more accurately understood as
“composers.”54 The technology they use and the controlled studio setting
in which they use it has become an integral part of the compositional pro-
cess, arguably enabling a more “painterly” form of creativity that brings re-
corded music closer to the solitary arts of painting, sculpture, literature,
and poetry.55 In fact, it is the use of sound processing devices (with their
simulations of space and movement) that enabled the emergence of what
might be called a “pictorial” dimension in popular music.56
In this book, I have placed Jamaican producer/engineers among this
group of postwar sound innovators. Their closest English and American
counterparts would be multitasking producer/engineer/inventor/entre-
preneurs such as Joe Meek, Sam Philips, Norman Petty, and Les Paul who,
despite various technical, institutional, and economic limitations, created
the aesthetic foundations of entire pop music cultures. Jamaicans such as
Sylvan Morris, King Tubby, Errol Thompson, and Lee Perry created dub
music at a time when American record companies were expanding their
markets into the Caribbean,57 and recording technology was being gradu-
ally adapted outside of the overdeveloped nations in the service of budding
local record industries. It also developed at a time when the introduction of
stereo radio transmission into Jamaica led to a rise in the broadcasting of
foreign music “deemed to sound good in stereo.”58 This new outlet in turn
gradually opened a space for the appreciation of Jamaican music with more
sophisticated production values.
The innovations described above were by no means limited to the realm of

popular music; as mentioned earlier, most of them had in fact been prefig-
ured in the years following World War II in various centers of experimen-
tal art music composition in Europe and the United States. As such, the
innovations of dub in Jamaica can also be discussed in the context of glo-
bal developments in electronic music—provided we devise a culturally
fluid definition of the term. Originally, the term electronic music was quite re-
strictive, coined after World War II in the studios of Cologne, Germany, to
refer to music composed from electronically generated sound signals (elektro-
nische Musik). Later, the term was broadened to include the tape-based mu-
sique concrète composition associated with French composers such as Pierre
Henri and Pierre Schaeffer, and still later, broadened to include works real-
ized with electronic synthesizers. Clearly, dub cannot be defined as “elec-
tronic music” in the specific sense that we define the term in the context of
d u b / 38
these traditions of post–World War II Euro-American experimental art
music. If, on the other hand, we define “electronic music” broadly as encom-
passing either any musical form relying on the electronic generation, process-
ing, amplification, or storage of sound signals or as any prerecorded work in-
tended solely for transmission via loudspeakers, a huge majority of
contemporary music making could then be classified as “electronic.”59
The significance of dub music can be located somewhere between these
two definitions. On the one hand, it can be generically discussed as “elec-
tronic” in the same way that we discuss other musical forms making use of
any electronic technology. But it can also be discussed in more narrowly
“electronic” terms, owing to the degree to which Jamaican producers and
engineers foregrounded the experimental use of sound technology within
the genre. As a form of tape-based composition, for example, dub might be
compared to aspects of musique concrète. Its emphasis on repetitive rhyth-
mic structures (which have often been stripped of their harmonic ele-
ments) might be compared with the minimalism of composers like Steve
Reich and Philip Glass and in fact (as I shall discuss in the coda), the music
was adopted as an aesthetic template in the 1990s by a generation of Ger-
man electronic music composers who had themselves been influenced by
minimalism. Dub’s electronic manipulation of spatiality can be compared
with certain spatially conceived works of composers like Karlheinz Stock-
hausen. In purely sonic terms, it bears comparison with certain works of
composers such as Stockhausen, John Cage, and Vladimir Ussachevsky,
who subjected prerecorded musical materials appropriated from mass
media (such as commercial recordings or radio broadcasts) to electronic
manipulation.60 Conversely, the Jamaican practice of deejays toasting over
prerecorded music fits into a body of work composed for electronics and
live musicians that in its broadest sense encompasses everything from
pieces like Mario Davidowsky’s Synchronisms No. 1 (composed for live
flautist and tape) to karaoke singing.
Any sonic similarities between these very different musical areas probably
reflect the fact that to the ear, electronic and tape compositions (many of
which were only notated after the fact) seem to share a sonic and conceptual
space with popular forms that developed out of traditions of performance
and improvisation.61 It also reflects the rarely discussed fact that composers of
the experimental tradition were often influenced by concepts of form, sound,
and process found in various jazz, popular, and non-Western traditions.
In the same way that it would be fascinating to hear how composers
such as Pierre Schaefer, Pierre Henri, or John Cage might adapt their
“pure” sound experimentation to the stylistic demands of popular/dance
music, it would be equally fascinating to hear the way Jamaican studio

engineers like Scientist or Sylvan Morris would utilize venues specially
designed for the performance of spatially oriented “pure sound” works
(such as the building built for Stockhausen at the 1970 World’s Fair in
Osaka, Japan), or studios specifically equipped for the realization of elec-
tronic works (such as the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne, Ra-
diodiffusion Française in Paris, or the Columbia-Princeton Electronic
Music Center in New York City). The truth, of course, is that Jamaican
engineers never had access to such elaborate technology and it was in
light of this lack of technical and institutional access that a recent profile
of second-generation dub engineer Mad Professor mused: “Neil Fraser,
a.k.a. UK dub producer ‘The Mad Professor,’ can’t wait for audio tech-
nology to catch up with the sounds he can hear inside his head. Frus-
trated by the limitations of our outdated stereo technology, Fraser
thinks in quadraphonic, pentatonic, geometric, analgesic, afrodisiac,
psychedelic full-screen surround-sound, pushing his equipment to the
limit and beyond as he attempts to cram his cutting-edge creations into a
format that uses just two puny speakers.”62
What makes the work of these engineers particularly provocative is what
they were able to achieve by pushing the limits of the equipment at their
disposal. In any case, Jamaica’s musical innovations provide a fascinating
example of the way in which similar forms of technology have been applied
in different cultural areas, as well as a localized example of what constitutes
musical “experimentation,” in a Jamaican popular context.
Despite their frequently overlapping associations in post–World War II
Western art music, the terms electronic and experimental are by no means
synonymous. To the extent that these terms have often been used inter-
changeably, however, my use of the term “electronic music” in this text is
also a conscious attempt to raise and problematize the concept of an experi-
mental avant-garde in relation to the music cultures of Africa and the Afri-
can diaspora. This issue has been substantively explored by musician/scholar
George Lewis in relation to jazz and other improvised musics, and in this
book, I attempt to extend the discussion into the sphere of popular music.63
The idea of an avant-garde is fairly established in Afro-America, where jazz
musicians of the 1960s such as John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Cecil Taylor
made music that challenged the status quo from various “outsider” artistic
stances. But this particular model of outsiderness is not the only aesthetic
sphere in which social and/or aesthetic norms have been challenged and/or
transformed. With the rise of digital and electronic technologies, in fact
(and as jazz has become increasingly associated with elitist and academic val-
ues), the experimental envelope in much black music has been frequently
pushed in the arena of communal dance musics. And this expansion has in
d u b / 40
turn opened a space for sophisticated musical discussion by authors willing
to engage the idea of experimentalism from the perspective of popular
music (or at least to let the two perspectives influence each other). In the
United States, this experimentalism was apparent in the work of writers
such as John Rockwell and more recently, John Corbett, as well as the gener-
ation of jazz critics who came of age concurrently with the jazz avant-garde,
such as Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch, and Greg Tate. In the last decade,
D.J. Spooky (Paul D. Miller) has broadened this discussion through his en-
gagement with dub, hip-hop, and the Western experimental music tradi-
tion. In England, a similar contribution has mainly come from music jour-
nalists and cultural studies scholars; some of the most insightful musical
criticism in this sphere has come from such authors as Kodwo Eshun and
David Toop.
In light of all this, it follows that my application of the “experimental”
idea in relation to Jamaica will remain grounded in Jamaica’s cultural real-
ity; although there is a local tradition of modern jazz (typified by such mu-
sicians as Joe Harriott, Monty Alexander, Ernest Ranglin, and Don Drum-
mond) the culture has no tradition of a musical avant-garde in the
Euro-American or African American sense of the term.64 There is, how-
ever, a vibrant tradition of electronic music, best typified by dub music.
The creators of this music certainly viewed themselves as experimentalists,
as their comments and professional monikers indicate: Scientist, Peter
Chemist, Professor, and so on. Their work represented the sonic vanguard
of Jamaican music in the 1970s and early 1980s, and it later entered into the
production of Euro-American popular music in a de facto avant-garde po-
sition, its perceived low-fidelity aesthetic providing inspiration and justifica-
tion for various “outsider” musical stances beyond Jamaica.65
How, then, might this music factor more broadly into the history of
twentieth-century popular and experimental musics and vernacular mod-
ernism in general? In the sphere of visual arts, the role of Africanist aes-
thetics in the formulation of the Western avant-garde has been discussed
fairly extensively, allowing Kobena Mercer and Lowery Sims to apply the
idea of a de-centered “cosmopolitan modernity” in relation to modernist
(visual) artists of the Afro-Caribbean.66 But despite the “Jazz Age,” the
“rock and roll revolution,” “free jazz,” “world beat,” and the globalization
of hip-hop culture, the acknowledgment of Africanist influences upon
Western notions of the musical avant-garde has been slow in coming.
Paul Gilroy’s conception of the Black Atlantic zone as a symbiotic
“counter-culture” of modernity provides an opening here. Based on the
idea of modernity having been forged through the diametric but symbi-
otic opposition between Western Europe and its colonized “others,”

Gilroy’s conception of modernity provides the framework through
which we can understand Africanist aesthetics of dub as a local articula-
tion of modernist traditions of musical experimentalism. 67
The Jamaican Sound System

Ultimately, the most relevant and organic context in which to ground any
discussion of an electronic aesthetic within Jamaican music (besides the re-
cording studio) is the local institution known as the sound system, which has
been asserted by many observers as the site of most that is unique to Jamai-
can music.68 With a depressed postwar economy, few Jamaicans could af-
ford to purchase recordings on a regular basis, and the enjoyment of music
was mainly a communal, public affair. From the 1950s onward, most King-
stonians enjoyed music via these sound systems: mobile outfits playing re-
corded music in dancehalls or outdoor clearings, which emerged as a more
viable economic alternative to the large dance bands that they rapidly re-
placed; for the most part, the dance bands gradually became associated with
the urban upper class in Kingston and the growing tourist trade on
Jamaica’s north coast.69 By the mid-1960s, there were dozens of sound
systems in operation, but the scene was dominated by the “Big Three” oper-
ators: Clement “Coxsone” Dodd (Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat), Arthur
“Duke” Reid (Trojan), and Vincent “King” Edwards (Giant).70 These men
commanded fierce loyalty among their followers and rivalries between com-
peting systems often erupted into violence. Technically speaking, the sound
systems emerged from extremely humble origins. Coxsone Dodd, for exam-
ple, began his own “Downbeat” sound system in the 1950s by playing im-
ported records for customers on a tiny phonograph in his parents’ liquor
shop in Kingston; as he explained to Rob Kenner, “in those days, 30 watts
was a big thing.”71 Outfits such as this later grew to include a phonograph
and extension speakers, typically set up in a “yard”: a public clearing for
dances that were generally sponsored by an adjoining bar, restaurant, or
other business. Despite their humble origins, these systems would eventu-
ally grow—under the guidance of Jamaican technicians such as Hedley
Jones, Fred Stanford, Jacky Eastwood, Lloyd “Matador” Daley, and their
successors—into sonic powerhouses capable of delivering tens of thousands
of watts of power, producing sound that could be heard for miles around.72
There are several conceptual aspects of the sound system experience
that are directly relevant to the growth of dub, and that will be discussed
in the next chapter. In the most basic view, it seems plausible to speculate
that because of the relative dearth of performing ensembles in Jamaica,
emphasis has tended to be placed on verbal and electronic creativity. But
d u b / 42
the significance of the sound system, which has received thorough cul-
tural grounding in the aforementioned works of Carolyn Cooper and
Norman Stolzoff, transcends mere entertainment; it is arguably one of
the most powerfully resonant metaphors for postcolonial Jamaica. It has
been described as the “community’s heartbeat”:73 the place where “a dis-
course of specifically black identity was celebrated and articulated” in a
particularly powerful way.74 Like the stereotypical village clearing in sub-
Saharan Africa or the block party in urban black America, the sound
system is a communal space in which many of the nation’s most potent
myths, tropes, and emotions are dramatized in the act of communal
dance. The songscape innovations of dub music, composed in the record-
ing studio with the 1970s sound system experience in mind, are intimately
implicated in these same myths despite the largely nonliteral (that is, in-
strumental) nature of the music.
As such, any “experimental” tendencies evident in dub remained predi-
cated upon the capital-driven setting of the Jamaican recording studio,
which was a radically different setting than the radio and university studios
that have provided the technical and institutional framework for electronic
composition in Europe and America. These tendencies also remained pred-
icated upon the communal imperatives of the sound system and the dance-
hall, which were themselves radically different settings than the concert
halls, galleries, and other spaces we usually associate with the performance
of experimental music in Europe and America. Despite its experimental as-
pects, dub music remained solidly grounded in the reality of Kingston life
in the 1970s. As Sebastian Clarke describes:
The sound man [that is, the sound system proprietor] carries his impoverished
community with him. The music that he plays appeals to the sensibility and sensual-
ity of the urban impoverished settler. By and large, the sound man’s audience con-
sists of an impoverished urban community like Waterhouse (where King Tubby
comes from). In this community is a multiplicity of personalities. The hard-
working man may be a follower, as well as the “gun man”—the ex-political rebel
[sic] rouser-turned-criminal. It is the latter element [who] are prepared to terrorize
anybody for the silliest of reasons, who are almost totally responsible for the noto-
riety of the sound man.75
The social polar opposite of the recording studio in its hermetic isola-
tion, the sound system is significant as the site in which studio experimen-
tation acquires its cultural grounding. In his insightful essay on Oriental-
ism in the Western experimental tradition, John Corbett notes how “the
notion of experimentation rhetorically carries into the musical process a
connotation of science—of laboratory experimentation.” He goes on to
mention how the hermetic setting of the laboratory implicitly divested

such experimentation of its potential political or ideological import. Dub,
however, was composed with the sound system audience in mind; thus the
experimental impulse remained connected to the general cultural climate in
Jamaica. As we shall see in chapter 8, in fact, it was in many ways an impor-
tant articulation of this climate.76
How did such a technologically dependent style develop to such an ad-
vanced extent under these circumstances, in a nation of extremely limited
economic resources, within a region marked by a diversity of traditional
performing ensembles? The easiest explanation would be that Jamaica’s
proximity to the United States provided a convenient physical and eco-
nomic conduit for what Malm and Wallis have described as a “remarkable
influx of electronic hardware”;77 industrious Jamaicans then used this tech-
nology to supplant the dominance of more expensive performing ensem-
bles that the economy was incapable of supporting. But physical proximity
can only be part of the answer, as dublike genres did not develop on other
islands in the region with dynamic music cultures, such as Haiti, Cuba, or
Trinidad. There are no definitive answers, but several likely factors. One
may be the tradition of seasonal migration to the southern United States,
which employed thousands of Jamaicans who purchased American
records, sound equipment, and musical instruments and brought them
back to Jamaica. Another might be the currents of commerce during the
cold war; Cuba has an arguably more diversified music culture than Ja-
maica, but during the same period that sound equipment was developing
in the United States, Cuba was economically alienated from the United
States. Finally, there is the language factor: Jamaica is an English-speaking
country, and as such had a closer economic and cultural relationship with
both England and the United States, two important centers of developing
musical technology.
Any other explanation for Jamaica’s vigorous musical culture must lie
in the elusive and unquantifiable “character” of the Jamaican people, and
in the rural folk forms that were transplanted to Kingston and that
guided Jamaica’s adaptations of foreign music. Unfortunately, as Ken
Bilby mentions, the class divide in Kingston meant that the rural-based
cultural expressions of “downtown” culture were never considered worthy
of serious study, and have gone mostly undocumented until fairly re-
cently.78 This indifference began to change as the music moved beyond
Jamaica, and especially as foreigners became intensely interested in Jamai-
can reggae beginning in the late 1960s. It is in this general period that the
story of dub begins.
d u b / 44
chapter two
“Every Spoil Is A Style”

The Evolution of Dub Music in the 1970s
In America, if Michael Jackson makes a record, the master tape is sit-

ting there with all the orchestration, maybe it’s a beautiful symphony.
Nobody else ever heard it in their life! So what, the musicians don’t get
any feature? People are still interested to hear, “What would it sound
like without all these voices on it? What were the guys actually playing?”
[But] it’s so low in the mix, it doesn’t come across the same way. So with
reggae, we don’t stop there!1
—Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell
The history of sonic innovation in popular music is, to a large degree, a his-
tory of artists driven by necessity or accident, to push their equipment to
perform unintended tasks. It might be Bo Diddley scraping his pick against
the strings of his guitar or Little Walter overblowing his amplified harmon-
ica to simulate a reed section in Chicago during the 1950s. It might be Jimi
Hendrix transforming amplifier feedback into musical melody or George
Martin and the Beatles stumbling upon the use of backward tape effects in
London during the 1960s. It might be DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster
Flash refashioning turntables as musical instruments in New York during
the 1970s, Thurston Moore using short-circuited guitar signals to create
rhythmic effects in the 1990s, or electronica musicians resuscitating obso-
lete analog equipment for novel uses at the turn of the new century. What-
ever the circumstances, the tradition of deliberately misusing or refashion-
ing sound technology toward creative ends amounts to a shadow history of
sonic innovation in popular music. These serendipitous accidents, and novel
solutions have been the catalysts for new creative languages. Such holds es-
pecially true in Jamaica: that’s why this chapter is titled “every spoil is a
style,” using a Jamaican folk phrase to evoke the way necessity, ingenuity,
“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 45

and accident have driven the sonic evolution of the country’s popular
music.2 The first half of the chapter examines the early history of Jamaica’s
recording studio, identifying the economic, technical, and conceptual cata-
lysts in the emergence of Jamaica’s unique approach to the popular song.
The second half is analytical, identifying the unique stylistic elements.
Producers, Studios, and the Reconfiguration

of Recorded Materials
The best way to understand the evolution of Jamaican popular music is
in the context of two sites: the recording labels and recording studios that
were producing Jamaica’s first commercial popular music, and the sound
systems that played this music at public dances. Barrow and Dalton have
argued that despite the international success of live performers such as Bob
Marley and Jimmy Cliff, recording studios and sound systems—more than
the concert stage—have been the major arenas for stylistic innovation in
reggae music.3 The studios and sound systems have continuously fed back
into each other, conditioning the ongoing stylistic evolution of Jamaican
popular music.
In order to understand the significance of this phenomenon, we must
first establish the primacy of the producer in the history of Jamaican music.
Dub music evolved during a period when Jamaican music was commer-
cially ascendant internationally; as a result, the country’s music industry
was nourished by a fairly steady flow of foreign capital and new musical in-
struments and recording technologies were available to studios. In the
broadest view, however, even at its most prosperous, the economy was in-
capable of supporting large numbers of individuals owning musical instru-
ments, recording equipment, or other means of musical production and
dissemination. The production of music thus became centralized in the
hands of this small group of fiercely competitive music entrepreneurs, who
came to be known as producers. Central to both studios and sound systems
in the early years of Jamaica’s music industry, the position of the producer
provides important background to the emergence of dub music.
In contrast to the freelance and largely artistic function usually implied
by the term producer in American popular music, Jamaican producers typi-
cally exercised a far greater degree of control over the means of production.
These men such as Clement “Coxsone” Dodd (1932–2004) and Arthur
“Duke” Reid (1915–1975) often owned their own studios, recording labels,
and/or pressing facilities in the Jamaican capital of Kingston. They relied
upon revolving groups of in-house studio musicians such as the Skatalites,
Upsetters, Aggrovators, Revolutionaries, Roots Radics, Soul Syndicate, and
d u b / 46
others who provided instrumental accompaniment to the various singers
who recorded for them. In reality, many of the studio bands were built
around a relatively small nucleus of musicians, who changed their band
names depending on which producer they were working for. As producer
Clive Chin of Randy’s studio recalls:
Now, a man say “who is Upsetters, who is Aggrovators?” You never know. But is a
selective set of musicians that would play for the producers them. They [the pro-
ducers] gave them that name. Same set of man them, but different name. Derrick
Harriott, right? Him record and produce tune for himself and for the singers. But
on the record now, they would be called the Crystallites. Clancy Eccles would use
the same set of musicians but him don’t call them the Crystallites, him call them the
Dynamics. Beverly’s now, would use the same set of musicians them, probably add
one or two different [players] to the lineup—Beverly’s All Stars! At Randy’s, we
called them Impact All-Stars.4
Both musicians and engineers concurred that once a session was under
way, recordings were generally made under extremely efficient (some
would say extremely pressured) circumstances. In bassist George “Fully”
Fulwood’s experience, the demand was intense for musicians to create orig-
inal music on the spot: “In Jamaica those time, we might go inna the studio
for about two hours, and come out with fourteen, fifteen songs! It’s a chal-
lenge because you have to realize the competition that you’re facing. If you
don’t come up with something crucial enough, that producer don’t want to
use you again. So you have what, three minutes, three-and-a-half minutes,
four minutes to really come up with ideas, with arrangements.”5 Similarly,
engineer Scientist remembered how quickly this material was turned into
finished product: “All those albums, we did them like in hours. We’d come
into the studio, and in eight hours we could track an album. We could track
an album and the next day, it would be on the streets. None of these guys
was coming into the studio for two weeks making a record or making an
album. It was all done in hours. I recorded many albums that way.”6
Some people, such as Dave Hendley, felt that such an arrangement led to
problems with quality control and career longevity:
It’s kind of like the guy who fixes door or windows . . . the more doors and win-
dows you fix, the more money you’re gonna make. That’s why they make so many
records. That’s how the reggae thing is, if you’re selling. You’ve got one Johnny
Clarke record, then the public wants three or four or more, so you make them. The
market gets flooded and singers get sung out, it’s bound to happen. And you’re
thinking, “They’re making too many records!” But that’s what puts food on the
table.
The economics of the reggae business and the Jamaican social system are [such]
that Jamaican artists never had that luxury of a career plan and a record company in-
vesting in them as an artist and developing them as an artist. The rewards for mak-
ing a record aren’t as great as in First World countries like England and America.
You haven’t even got the structure of proper touring, where a band can gig a bit,

make a bit of money. The whole thing is hit-and-miss and makeshift in Jamaica. It’s
always been like that. So if a man offers you two hundred pounds to put your tune
out, and you’re broke, and you’ve got kids who want food, you’re gonna take the
two hundred pounds.7
Given the amount of material that was being stockpiled in this way, such
an arrangement certainly worked for the producer’s benefit. The central
point here is the degree to which these producers retained ultimate control
over their recorded material—which, given the limited pool of musicians
and musical resources, they recycled for additional profit as the necessary
technology became gradually available. It is through this process that the
reuse of generic rhythm patterns (be they reconfigured recordings or re-
recorded versions by other musicians in other studios) has become a central
trait of Jamaican music. The term riddim, initially a localizing of the En-
glish word rhythm, has taken on a distinctive meaning in Jamaican music
over time, used to refer to these generic chord progressions and/or bass
lines that have formed the basis for subsequent songs (I use the spelling rid-
dim in this text when referring to these generic patterns in the Jamaican
sense, and rhythm for the more typical usage).8
So although the “precise” origins of dub music are shrouded in a haze of
competition, cross-pollination, and conflicting claims, the form undoubt-
edly grew out of these profit-driven recyclings, which became increasingly
elaborate as successive forms of sound technology became available. And it
is because of this vertical control of the production process by producers,
that although reggae is known in the international market mainly through
the work of individual artists, it is often as convenient to get an artist’s
most popular songs on a compilation of a given producer’s (or label’s)
work as it is to find it under the artist’s own name.
The degree of control these producers exercised over their recorded ma-
terial is reflected, for example, by the fact that decades later, popular
rhythm tracks continue to be associated with them even though they did
not, for the most part, compose music or play musical instruments them-
selves. Thus, an oft-versioned rhythm track such as “Drum Song” (origi-
nally recorded as an instrumental by organist Jackie Mittoo during his years
at Studio One) is still often referred to as “Coxsone’s riddim” even though
it was in all likelihood composed by Mittoo and the other session musicians
in Dodd’s employ.9 Some Jamaicans feel that this emphasis on the producer
takes credit away from the musicians who rightfully deserve it. In Clive
Chin’s description, for example, many producers “don’t even part of the
session. Them no take part in nothing. All them do is just pay the bills. To
me, I can’t call the man producer, I call them executive producer, in other
words financiers. . . . Them can’t play music, them no know it.”10
d u b / 48
I do not cite Chin here to vilify producers like Dodd and Duke Reid,
whose contributions to Jamaican popular music are so enormous as to be
virtually unquantifiable. But it remains that the implications of producers’
degree of control were simultaneously hegemonic and visionary, in some
ways very similar to the position of art dealers in the market for visual art-
works. Jamaican producers continued to reap economic returns on music
they controlled, while laboring musicians (who had only been paid on a
one-off basis at the initial recording session) could only seek additional ses-
sion work, creating more raw musical material to be serially reconfigured
for the producer’s long-term economic benefit. Nevertheless, it was this
profit-driven process of reconfiguration that would revolutionize the crea-
tion of popular music in Jamaica.
The Early Years of Studio Recording in Jamaica

With the exception of isolated recording attempts made at Jamaica’s
radio stations RJR (Radio Jamaica Rediffusion) and JBC (Jamaican Broad-
casting Company), the first recording studios on the island were founded
in the 1950s by entrepreneurs like Stanley Motta (who made a number of
mento and calypso recordings at his studio on Hanover Street), and Ken
Khouri. Khouri purchased “a disc recorder, a microphone amplifier, and
blanks”11 and began making novelty and musical recordings from the back
of his home and, later, at local clubs. He went on in 1957 on to found Fed-
eral (located on King Street and later on Bell Road), comprising a monau-
ral recording studio and pressing plant. In 1963, Khouri upgraded Federal
to a stereo facility, and later expanded to three tracks. Meanwhile, business-
man and bandleader Byron Lee purchased the studio of the West Indies
Records label (WIRL) from businessman (and future prime minister) Ed-
ward Seaga and renamed it Dynamic Sounds, which opened as Jamaica’s
first multitrack recording facility.
The foundations of Jamaica’s unique approach to the recording studio
were laid by technicians of this generation, only some of whom are well-
known. Graeme Goodall, for example, is an unsung hero of the Jamaican
recording industry. Born in Australia in 1932, Goodall arrived in Jamaica
from England in the late 1950s, initially to work at RJR on a three-year con-
tract. After signing on with Khouri, he worked for several years as chief en-
gineer at Federal, recording local music on a three-track Scully recorder.
Goodall ended up living in Jamaica off and on until 1981, and was directly
involved in the development of Dynamic Sounds and Studio One.12 Bill
Garnett is another important figure. Garnett began his career working with
Goodall at Federal, before moving to WIRL as a technician and engineer.13

He was later involved in outlining and installing the electronics for several
Kingston studios including Randy’s, Harry J, Channel One, and Joe
Gibbs’s first studio in Duhaney Park.
Studio One and Treasure Isle

From the late 1950s, independent producers like Coxsone Dodd and
Duke Reid had been producing records by renting time at local studios like
Federal. But the “golden age” of recorded Jamaican music really began
when Dodd and Reid founded their own studios. Dodd’s Jamaican Re-
cording Company (popularly known as “Studio One,” after Dodd’s main
record label) was located on Brentford Road. The studio opened in 1963 as
a one-track facility (using a board purchased from Federal when the latter
upgraded to two tracks), and upgraded to two tracks (again, using
Federal’s two-track board when the latter upgraded to three tracks).14 En-
gineering was handled by Dodd, his cousin Syd Bucknor, and occasionally,
Graeme Goodall, until Sylvan Morris joined the studio as chief engineer.
Reid’s Treasure Isle studio, located on Bond Street, opened in 1965 as a
two-track facility. Reid’s engineer was Byron Smith, who had previously
worked as a technician at RJR, and as an engineer at Federal alongside
Goodall.15 Both studios specialized in the recording of Jamaica’s emerging
popular music; by all accounts, both became the most successful and pro-
lific studios in the mid-to-late 1960s. By the late 1960s, several other studios
had emerged including, most notably, Randy’s Studio on the Parade. Pro-
ducer Clive Chin of Randy’s recalls that by the mid-1960s, each studio had
a distinctive sound:
Every studio had a sound that you could identify. Like Treasure Isle, they had a
high-end sound, you could get a clarity out of the horns and their organs and stuff
like that. Federal, now you get more of a quality of sound because them was into
modern equipment. I think they’re one of the first that went to 8-track and then 16-
track. They were more into clarity. Those guys used to record uptown reggae. Stu-
dio One, you couldn’t hear no midrange, you could only hear bass, and you get
more weight on high end. But then again, they had their own sound.16
Some musicians cited differences in the musical approaches of Studio

One and Treasure Isle. It is ironic that although Coxsone Dodd was known
to be a passionate jazz aficionado, the Studio One sound was considered
more raw and streetwise. Duke Reid, on the other hand, is remembered by
everyone as a tough, streetwise man known to carry (and sometimes use)
several firearms at once, but his Treasure Isle sound was considered more
musically sophisticated. As Bunny Lee recalled:
Duke Reid is a great producer, he knows what he want. Duke Reid going inna the
studio and him tell the musician, “Look bass, I want you do this . . .” and the bass
d u b / 50
[plays a line] and Duke say “No! This is what I want, play this.” Coxsone was a good
selector, him come a evening time when [engineer Sylvan] Morris done the work,
and select the tune [that is, to be released or played on the sound system]. Duke
Reid would tell [his musicians,] “When Coxsone do over our tune, him turn it to
two chords.” When Duke do a tune, him have him seventh chords and him differ-
ent changes inna it.17
Dub Plates and Rhythm Versions

The link between recording studios and sound systems is a simple conse-
quence of the fact that in the early years of the Jamaican record industry,
producers owned and operated sound systems as a means of advertising
their product at public dances. As mentioned in the introduction, these
sound systems have been more central to musical innovation in Jamaica
than live performance, and the creative practices developed in the sound
systems have in turn influenced the evolution of recording conventions.
During the 1960s, the increasing sophistication of imported sound pro-
cessing equipment benefited both studios and sound systems. At the same
time that sound system selectors began to use the simple equalization capa-
bility of their equipment (bass and treble controls) to vary the sound of
prerecorded music in the dances, recording studios began to employ in-
creasingly creative strategies of song mixing to replicate what the public
heard in the sound systems. Sly Dunbar remembered King Tubby (among
others) as a pioneer in this regard: “It was usually King Tubbys sound used
to do that, with U-Roy on the controls, and I think Tubby’s try to get that
effect in the studio. So I would a say, that’s where it a start from.”18
An important early link in this process was the “dub plate.” Mikey
Dread defined the dub plate as “a little pre-release of the thing before it gets
to the streets. Back in those days we didn’t have CD burners where you
could just go and get a copy. You’d have to wait months. So, the dub plate
was just taking the same procedure from the mastering room [of the record
manufacturing plant] and they just cut this little thing they called an ace-
tate. They cut it right there [in the recording studio].”19
The dub plate represented a consolidation of two separate stages of the
record manufacturing process into the single location of the recording stu-
dio. In most places, acetate machines are found in record mastering plants,
which are devoted to a later stage of the record manufacturing process. But
in Jamaica, acetate machines are often found on the premises of recording
studios. In the American music industry, such acetates have generally been
used as test pressings of recordings, given to music industry personnel for
review in advance of commercial release. Made of a soft wax coating over a
metal core, they are only meant to provide a limited number of perfor-
mances before decaying. Accordingly, Dudley Sibley remembered: “What

they’re calling dub, we used to call it soft wax.”20 In Jamaica, “dub plate” re-
ferred to such acetate recordings, given on an exclusive basis to sound
system operators by studios for the purpose of previewing unreleased
songs.21 But in Jamaica, the acetate also became an actual medium of pub-
lic performance.
There was a reason for this novel use of the acetate. Over time, sound
system operators like Ruddy Redwood discovered that they could create
excitement in the sound systems by playing modified acetate versions that
omitted vocals partially or entirely; the surprised audience would often
sing in place of the removed vocals. The irony is that, in Bunny Lee’s ac-
count, this discovery was made by accident:
When dub started it wasn’t really “dub.” Tubbys and myself was at Duke Reid’s stu-
dio one evening, and [a sound system operator] by the name of Ruddy [Redwood]
from Spanish Town was cutting some riddims, with vocal. And the engineer made a
mistake and him was going stop and Ruddy said, “No man, make it run!” And then
the pure riddim run because him didn’t put in the voice. Ruddy said, “Now take an-
other cut with the voice.” And then, him take the cut with the voice.
[Ruddy] was playing the next Saturday and I happened to be in the dance. And
they play this tune, they play the riddim and the dance get so excited that them start
to sing the lyrics over the riddim part and them have to play it for about half an
hour to an hour! The Monday morning when I come back into town I say, “Tubbs,
boy, that little mistake we made, the people them love it!” So Tubby say, “All right,
we’ll try it.” We try it with some Slim Smith riddim like “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.”
And Tubbys start it with the voice and [then] bring in the riddim. Then him play
the singing, and them him play the complete riddim without voice. We start a call
the thing “version.”22
This was a seminal moment. Producers’ strategy of partially or com-

pletely removing vocal tracks [or other parts] introduced an element of
creativity into what was a fairly prosaic task, and was the first step in what
would become one of the fundamental compositional strategies in dub
music: dropping out of vocal and instrumental parts. There were several
motivations for this dropping out of tracks. Dudley Sibley recalled that at
Studio One, the initial motivation was corrective, but gradually grew into
something more creative: “Punch in, punch out, experiment—a guy come
inna studio, cyaan [can’t] sing the song. And you have to use up the rid-
dim. We experiment until other [producers] get involved. And when them
draw out, put in, draw out, put in, is not something scientific. You had to
have a feel. And by feeling it, you know where to drop in, where to put out
. . . you see the people respond so you continue with it. . . . And it just
evolved.”23
Another crucial motivation was the fierce competition among the sound
systems. Sylvan Morris remembered how early engineers factored into the
competition, despite their limited equipment:
d u b / 52
Now, this is how come the real dub ting started . . . the sound men, they were try-
ing to compete with each other. So sometimes they come in and say “Bwoi, you
have any good riddim?” And there’s something that you like and you might give
them a track. When you gave a man a riddim track, you give it to him in a certain
style [that is, mix]. Him go away and him play it against another sound [system],
’cause them have a clash [that is, a competition between two sound systems]. And
because of certain tunes that you gave him, he won the contest. The next morning
he come back and him want that same music, but he no want it the same way! So
you have to be innovative with these two tracks. I try to feed some likkle things,
take out a thing here, put in a thing there . . . so now sometimes you’d sell the same
track ten times!24
Clive Chin remembers that at Randy’s, these versions were deliberately

mixed differently from the singles that were available to the general public:
“The sound system, we’d give them specials, we’d give them something dif-
ferent from what an average person would go out there and buy. I would
give, say, a sound system like say Arrows or Emperor Faith a mix that was
completely different from the way we put it out on the 45.”25 It was for
similar reasons that each sound system was given a different mix. Chin con-
tinued: “You would find on a given day at least two or three sound system
man coming and buying. . . . I wouldn’t give them the same mix. We’d have
to give them something different. It would be unfair to give say, Arrows
the same mix we give Ray Symbolic. That’s why the dub plate start to be-
come exclusive and they become very competitive and very expensive. Be-
cause what you charge a sound system to cut a dub plate would be much
more than if he buys it on a 7-inch 45.”26
Because the dub plates were pressed on a softer form of vinyl, they had a
very limited playing life. In Chin’s opinion, this impermanency was ironic
given their high price: “After a certain point they burn out and become
very noisy, like a lot of popping and stuff. . . . I really didn’t know the true
thing behind the dub plates not standing up to its quality because if you
pay so much money for it, it should have some kind of value after a period
of time, but it don’t.”27 But others feel that playing life wasn’t a particularly
important issue in the early days of the industry: the main motivation for
unique music was to entice a crowd into the sound system, whose main
profit was derived not from admission fees, but from alcohol sales. As
Graeme Goodall described it, “usually acetates only got 10–15 plays anyway,
but it was worth it for these guys to buy them because it meant people
came to the dances and bought the liquor.”28
Dub plates gradually came to be used in competitions between sound
systems, who fought to present the most unique and personalized versions
of popular songs. As Mikey Dread describes below, it eventually culmi-
nated in the production of dub plate “specials,” on which popular singers

would re-record their vocal melodies, modifying the lyrics in order to
praise the sound system that commissioned the special:
Another aspect of dub is for example, you can have a Dennis Brown song, which is
extremely popular, right? And a sound man come and check Dennis Brown and say
he want Dennis to sing that kind of lyric about his sound. He want Dennis to say his
sound is the number one sound or the champion sound, because he gonna play a
competition. The other guys don’t have Dennis singing on it, they only have the
regular generic one. So the other guy is gonna play the generic one, then [the first
sound system] is gonna play the one with the artist singing about his sound and
how he’s the better sound and all that. That’s another aspect of dub, the competitive
thing of sound clashes. Everybody wanted the most popular singer to be singing
about him on one of their popular rhythm tracks.29
The commercial equivalent of the dub plate was the “rhythm version,” a
designation indicating that the vocal track would be omitted from versions
of songs that appeared on the flip side of a 45 single. The rhythm version
was effectively the same as the instrumental dub plates, but could be pur-
chased commercially instead of being exclusively available to sound
systems. In fact, many commercially released rhythm versions were used by
smaller sound systems that couldn’t afford exclusive studio dub plates.30
This was the impetus behind Studio One’s famous “Studio One Stereo”
mix, in which vocals and instruments were strictly separated into left and
right channels; with this separation, the balance control on a playback
system could be shifted to one side, eliminating the vocal tracks entirely
and presenting a pure instrumental track. Unlike the dub plates, these com-
mercial pressings also had a normal playing life.
It seems that in some cases, the initial impetus driving the development
of both dub plates and rhythm versions was not creative, but merely a way
to economize a limited amount of music. Graeme Goodall remembered
that at Federal, “I used to do the vocal separate, and they said ‘Let’s do the
B-side without the vocal.’ . . . That was just a matter of ‘Well, why should
we give them two good songs?’ An A-side, and a backing track for the B-
side. . . . It was just expedient.”31
Versioning
As Bunny Lee mentioned above, these early reconfigurations associated
with dub plates were referred to as “versions.” Sylvan Morris detailed the
same process and agreed that the term version originated concurrently with
dub plates and rhythm versions: “Originally, what they called “dub” was
just called version. In other words, you’d probably take out some of the in-
struments and some of the voice and put [the new version] on the other
side of a 45. So the dub business eventually came from that. It’s just a ver-
sion of the original which is done in many forms.”32 It is interesting that in
d u b / 54
Jamaican musical parlance the noun “version” was gradually transformed
into a verb; that is, “to version.” The dub plate can be considered the first
step in this process of “versioning,” a method of serially recycling recorded
material developed by producers desiring to ensure the longest commercial
life for a given piece of recorded music despite economic constraints and a
limited pool of musicians. The process of versioning was soon exploited to
its fullest extent, as prerecorded backing tracks began to be used as a basis
for a series of more distinct performances. On successive recyclings of a
track, an instrumental soloist might offer a jazzy improvisation on what
was termed an “instrumental” version, or a different singer might offer a
new set of lyrics.33
The Rise of the DJ

There was another important motivation for providing instrumentals
for sound systems. By the mid-1960s, the first generation of sound system
operators turned record producers were increasingly devoting time to their
production activities, and their roles at dances were filled by resident dee-
jays, the most loquacious of whom began to “toast” (that is, rap) over the
music to excite the crowd. The first deejays were people like Count Ma-
chuki and King Stitt (both working Coxsone’s Downbeat system), and with
the emergence of the groundbreaking U-Roy (Ewart Beckford) with King
Tubby’s sound system around 1970, a younger generation of DJs would go
on to become recording stars in their own right: Dennis Alcapone, Big
Youth, Tappa Zukie, Dillinger, Prince Jazzbo, U-Brown, Trinity, Dr. Ali-
mantado, and I-Roy, among many others. These musicians specialized in
exhorting the crowd to dance with their various styles of stream-of-
consciousness vocalizing; the new dub plates, with vocals partially or com-
pletely removed, allowed the deejays the sonic space to improvise freely
over the rhythm as would a jazz soloist. Clive Chin remembered the rise of
the deejay as a dominant force in the sound systems, and the role the dub
plate played: “Sound system become modernized now. You no have one
turntable no more, you have two turntable, so you play the vocal, like
Heptones’ ‘Tripe Girl’ or ‘Guiding Star,’ and just about as the music finish
after three minutes and change—BOOM!—the version just come in with the
drum and bass and the man just pick up the mic at the same time and begin
to toast, him a nice up the sound!”34
The dub plate thus represented a conjunction of two creative practices:
the multitrack recording machines through which musical performances
could now be partially disassembled, and the interruptive performance
logic of the sound system deejays, who thought nothing of continuously

interrupting songs with their improvised vocalizing. In fact, the process of
stripping songs down to their essential components must be understood as
substantially intertwined with the practice of deejaying; while studio engi-
neers were beginning to use the mixing board to open songs up from the in-
side, their work was clearly prefigured by the deejays who destroyed song
form from the outside. Rapping, chanting, and shouting their laconic im-
provisations often irrespective of harmonic or formal changes, and asking
their selectors to “pull up” (stop and restart the record) at every opportunity,
the deejays were rudely and creatively disrespectful of song form. Ultimately,
the aesthetic of fragmented and superimposed vocalizing that would become
such an important part of dub music could be thought of as at least partially
inspired by the performance style of the sound system DJs and selectors.
Thus, it was no coincidence that King Tubby’s later ascendance as a dub
mixer would parallel the ascendance of the first full-fledged DJ, U-Roy, and
that the latter was one of the DJs (and selector) on the former’s Home Town
Hi-Fi sound system; the dub impulse and the DJ impulse were almost
completely intertwined. Bunny Lee described the method he developed in
the studio with King Tubby:
Me just say Tubbs, I want you to mix a dub version. And then the DJ talk over the
dub. Sometimes we put the singer’s voice but sometime the DJs used to clash and
we start doing the pure dub. If you take off the DJ voice, you have the dub LP too.
So you used to take two—sometime you do three vocal/dub LPs in one night. That
automatically is six albums because when you take off, put the dub aside. Take off
the DJ voice, mix it off and run the pure dub, is another a three album that. So we
used to take one stone and kill all three birds at the same time. You don’t waste time
those days!35
Artists and producers sometimes conceived their series of versions as

thematically linked, reflected in the way that retitling led to a string of B-
side witticisms. So although, in Lee Perry’s productions of the Wailers,
“Duppy Conqueror” predictably begat “Duppy Conqueror Version 2,”
“Duppy Conqueror Version 3,” and so on, the ghoulish-sounding “Mr.
Brown” (complete with what Bunny Lee termed a “creep organ”) begat
“Dracula,” while “Small Axe” begat “Battle Axe,” “More Axe,” and “Axe
Man.” Over time, versioning would provide an opportunity for as many
wordplays and title puns as there were versions.
Besides the maximizing of profits, another motivation for versioning was
the variable talent level of singers who passed through the Kingston studios.
Unlike instrumentalists who worked regularly, vocalists were often “one-
shot” singers with a catchy melody or lyric, but lacking the talent to translate
it into a successful song formula. For example, Augustus Pablo’s 1972 me-
lodica instrumental “Java” was originally conceived as a vocal performance,
d u b / 56
but the vocal track was deemed unsatisfactory by producer Clive Chin and
erased.36 We recall Dudley Sibley’s comments regarding the corrective use
of the mix, and Chin recounted the process that turned “Java” into a career-
launching hit for both Pablo and Chin:
it was a schoolmate of mine I took down to the studio one Friday evening while a
session was going on and him say him want do a tune. So what happened now the
guy couldn’t sing the tune. . . . Although we tried different takes, he just couldn’t
handle it. So [engineer] Errol [Thompson] say, let’s just rub off him voice and do
something with the riddim, ’cause the riddim did wicked! . . . Pablo was there after
the riddim was made . . . he heard the guy trying to sing the tune and him just ask
me, him have an idea for the tune. We give him a cut off a the riddim ’pon a dub
plate. Him carry it home and the next couple of days him come back. And it’s two
cuts we took with him. I never forget that, two cuts on the same “Java” riddim. And
we use both of them cause the two of them is wicked!37
Pablo’s overdubbed melodica instrumental was just one of several sub-

sequent versions of the riddim.38 At this stage, then, recording technology
was beginning to imply for reggae what improvisation had already implied
for jazz: the notion that a “composition” must now be understood as a
composite of its endlessly multiplying, mutating, and potentially infinite
elaborations over time. The next phase in the development of dub would
feature songs that had been stripped to their barest components.
“Drum & Bass” as a Concept in Jamaican Music

Forget ’bout pretty guitars and all that, people just wanted to hear the basic
thing. So, we started making riddims with just bass and drum and people sung
on it or the DJ just talk on top of it. —Philip Smart, 2003
During the early 1970s, engineers like Errol Thompson and King Tubby
began to exploit a new aspect of the mixing process. Prior to this, “ver-
sions” had generally been alternate vocals, instrumentals, or rhythm ver-
sions. Around 1972, however, engineers began to produce “drum & bass”
versions, as they came to be known. These minimalist mixes reflected a sig-
nificant shift in several musical values in reggae.
Using the earlier “rhythm versions” as their point of departure, these
new mixes stripped tracks even further, decreasing the emphasis on the
horns, guitars, and keyboard instruments, while increasing the emphasis
on the electric bass line and drum set, which now provided the main musi-
cal interest. A typical drum & bass mix would focus on the propulsive mo-
tion of those two instruments throughout, with the chordal instruments
only occasionally filtering through. This treatment of the chordal instru-
ments reflects what would become two central strategies of dub mixing,
fragmentation and incompletion. One important result of all this was that
explicit harmonic movement decreased somewhat in its importance to this

type of reggae composition; chords could now be as easily used as bits of
abstract color and texture to flavor the austerity of the drum & bass sound,
as they could to chart harmonic movement.
As the mixes discussed below will demonstrate, the “drum & bass” tag
should not be taken absolutely literally, as these mixes often included
snatches of rhythm guitar, organ and piano. In essence, the term indicates
the prominence accorded to the drum and bass patterns, and the gradual
de-emphasis on harmony in the traditional sense. With such a de-emphasis,
it makes sense that electric bass patterns became by necessity more dy-
namic; the new sound was crucially dependent on the inventive patterns
being created by established and emerging bassists such as Errol “Bagga”
Walker, Robbie Shakespeare, Fully Fulwood, Boris Gardiner, Lloyd Parks,
Errol “Flabba” Holt, and Aston “Family Man” Barrett. Other musicians
crucial to enlarging the stock of riddims include producer/instrumentalists
Augustus Pablo, Glen Brown, and vocalist/bassist Leroy Sibbles.
Without slighting the dozens of talented session musicians who worked
in ever-changing configurations around the Kingston studios, the most in-
novative drum & bass teams during the 1970s were the brothers Carlton
and Aston “Familyman” Barrett (best known for their work with Bob Mar-
ley and the Wailers), and Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (best known
for their work with Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru). While the Barrett broth-
ers slowed down the syncopations of rock steady to create a distinctive
brand of “roots” reggae, Sly and Robbie emerged as inventive reinterpret-
ers of old Treasure Isle and Studio One riddims, as well as masterful com-
posers of the new generation of “militant” riddims. Musically, Sly noted
the change that took place in the music once the emphasis was placed on
drum and bass patterns: “Me and Robbie didn’t realize what we were
doing until Jamaican music went dubwise and the bass and drum would
come right in your face. When the music was broken down to the raw
drum & bass, we realized we had to work some magic . . . we realized this
music was different from everybody playing together.39
It is not surprising that Barrett and Shakespeare dominated the compo-
sition of bass riddims. In Jamaica, they had been recognized for several
years as premiere bassists, their lines booming out of dancehalls and sound
systems across the island. It has been often discussed that the prominence
of the bass line in Jamaica is at least partly attributable to the necessity of
making sure low-frequency information survives in the open-air spaces in
which the sound systems usually play. But we can assume that Barrett and
Shakespeare’s extensive touring activities must also have brought a new di-
mension to their craft. Playing their bass lines through huge amplification
systems in the cavernous arenas and stadiums of Europe and America had
d u b / 58
clear effects on their phrasing. Lines now became longer and more sus-
penseful, phrased to hang in the air dramatically within the huge physical
spaces in which they were now performed. This spatial component in turn
fed back into the Jamaican context, these expansively phrased bass lines per-
fectly suited to the expansive lyrics and mixing strategies of the era.
It follows that in most musicians’ opinions, the success of a dub mix is at
least partially dependent upon the inventiveness of the riddim and the bass
line in particular. According to Bunny Lee, “Most of the time the riddim
have to be good, and the riddim unusual.”40 Bassist Fully Fulwood feels
that the “bass is very important because when you have a real nice line that
you can really vibe to and groove to, that’s where you can find a great dub
mix.”41 Adrian Sherwood similarly felt that the “performance thing is still
very important; the rhythm’s either good or it’s not. If the bass line, the
chords, the rhythm and lead melodies are good, you’ll make a good record.
If they’re not, you can’t make a piece of shit shine, as they say. If you’ve got
good ingredients, you make a good cake. And if you’re inspired because of
the magic on the tape, something fantastic can happen.”42 As such, drum &
bass patterns were fundamental to dub: because the most successful dub
mixes transcended mere soundscaping, the atmospheric manipulations
were dependent on what was happening in the rhythm section (thus, as we
shall see, King Tubby and Scientist mixed differently from each other; they
had different types of riddims to work with).
Karl Pitterson on the Mix

Earl “Chinna” Smith: “Satan Side” > Keith Hudson: “Black Heart”
Aston “Family Man” Barrett’s bass pattern on Chinna Smith’s “Satan
Side” is a great example of the foregrounding of the bass line typical of
roots reggae. A melodically active pattern, the line rivets the listener’s at-
tention even when stripped down by engineer Karl Pitterson into a bare
drum & bass mix (titled “Black Heart”). Mixes such as “Satan Side,”
whether or not they also contained vocals, are best understood as a music
in which engineers fused minimal sound processing with the force of the
low register to articulate the atmospheric and spatial qualities of the mix,
or in which the processing of texture replaces harmony in the fleshing out
of a skeletal rhythm pattern.
Tracks such as “Black Heart” also demonstrate that drum & bass was
more than one of the most distinctive stylistics feature of roots reggae
music. It was in fact a new mixing strategy that radically altered the sound of
Jamaican music and that arguably established a characteristically Jamaican
popular music aesthetic. Over time, in fact, “drum & bass” became much
more than a description of a particular mixing style: it became a musical

signifier invested with the same types of resonance associated with “swing”
in jazz or “clave” in Afro-Cuban music—a musical signifier of a Jamaican
cultural ethos. In this case the cultural ethos was rooted in the perceived
“rawness” of African roots and nature (as well as the West Kingston experi-
ence, quickly becoming a metaphor for the national condition), and en-
coded into musical sound via the jettisoning of Western harmony. Drum &
bass was thus one of many instances in which musicians of African descent
began to deconstruct and Africanize the Western popular song according
to whatever ideas prevailed about which musical choices constituted “Af-
rica” in their particular location. The irony is that studies of black power
and Afrocentricity in the Caribbean have concluded that despite the Afro-
centric rhetoric of the era, the popular embrace of Africa actually remained
quite ambivalent.43 Ultimately, then, the revitalization of ancestral Africa
in the cultural imagination led partially to an infusion of musical African-
isms, but ultimately to a more unique form of Jamaican music.
Not all Jamaican engineers championed these developments. One such
skeptic is Errol Brown, who engineered much of Bob Marley’s Island-era
music and whose tastes seem to reflect that he worked with several of the
Jamaican artists whose work was aimed at the international market: “I
work with all of the international artists, the type of people that really like
real music [emphasis mine]. What I realized with this dub music is when
you take out the middle, with the guitar, piano and organ and all of these
things, it loses the life for me. I really don’t like too much of that because
it’s like the music is missing an element with all of that drum & bass.”44
This new sound also carried certain social overtones, given that the “down-
town” music coming out of West Kingston was deliberately fashioned to
sound more raw and abrasive. In fact, as Scientist recalled, the sonic values
of this music also posed a very literal technical challenge to both radio sta-
tions and record manufacturers, inside and outside of Jamaica: “Back be-
fore reggae got popular, you find that a lot of radio stations didn’t like to
play reggae because it would make the transmitters overmodulate. And
when they were cutting vinyl, a lot of people didn’t want to master reggae
because whenever the cutting head see that amount of high frequency, it
would go into protect and shut down the machine. That’s one of the rea-
son why reggae got the type of fight that it got.”45
Philip Smart similarly recalled many instances in which he and King
Tubby devised a unique mixing strategy, only to have the tape returned
from the mastering plant, because it violated some convention of recording
fidelity. Sylvan Morris, however, remembers that despite these various
forms of resistance, “people started to recognize that drum & bass was
really having a sound, [although] it was really a ting that normally people
d u b / 60
wouldn’t think of that way, ’cause they were saying that that music was raw,
it’s not professional.”46 And Sly Dunbar felt that by the time of King
Tubby’s early work, drum & bass “really come in the forefront as showing
people that you can just use a bass and drum and really make a hit without
putting all this instrumentation on it.”47
In purely musical terms, the most important implication of drum &
bass was that it would pave the way for dub to become to reggae what
modal jazz was to bebop and hip-hop was to funk and R&B: a means of
disassembling the harmonic landscape to enable freer improvisation. This
improvisation was by no means limited to vocalists and/or instrumental-
ists, however. As much as drum & bass cleared a space for inventive rhythm
section composing and vocal improvisation, so did it also clear a space for
the increasingly creative mixing skills of engineers. In fact, if drum & bass
can be considered a distillation of the reggae structure to its most basic ele-
ments, the next stage in the evolution of the reggae remix would reanimate
riddims not by reintroducing chords and melodies, but rather by a system
of atmospheric remixing techniques that emphasized timbre, spatiality, and
texture as primary musical values. The new spaciousness of “roots”-era reg-
gae provided the perfect aural canvas for the increasingly spatial strategies
of studio engineers who—to paraphrase Sly Dunbar—now began to work
their own form of magic. It was the availability of increasingly sophisti-
cated pieces of sound processing equipment that enabled engineers to elab-
orate drum & bass into a more radical form of improvisational engineer-
ing, one that became known as dub.
The Rise of the Dub Mix

Varying Definitions of the Term Dub
While it is possible in retrospect to delineate the evolution of these
“proto-dub” practices, a visit to any Jamaican record store will reveal that
even thirty years after the fact, there remain several contrasting definitions
of the term dub. The earliest popular usage of the term “dub” in this con-
text seems to have referred to the aforementioned “dub plates.” On the
other hand, some Jamaicans merely define “dub” as a style of erotically
charged dancing. Max Romeo remembered “a dance which is very close,
where you hold the woman and kind of rub on her, you call it rub-a-
dub.”48 This definition spawned more explicitly sexual associations, such
as those implied by The Silvertones’s song title “Dub the Pum Pum”
(“pum pum” being the Jamaican slang for female genitalia), Big Joe and
Fay’s lewd talk-over “Dub A Dawta” (“dawta” being the Rasta term for

wife or girlfriend) or the deejay I-Roy’s “Sister Maggie Breast,” a song
filled with sexual references and double-entendres:
I man a-dub it on the side
Say little sister you can run but you can’t hide
Slip you got to slide you got to open your crotches wide
Peace and love abide49
The stylistic term rub-a-dub could refer either to dancing, or to the

aforementioned style of deejaying. In this sense, dub is the direct forebear
of what later became known from the mid-1980s as ragga or dancehall.
Connected to this stylistic stream is the genre called “dub poetry,” in which
politicized vocalists such as Mikey Smith, Mutabaruka, or Linton Kwesi
Johnson chanted and/or rapped politically conscious verses over reggae
rhythms. The keyword here is politicized; in terms of musical delivery, the
dub poets were identical to the deejays and their “rub-a-dub.” The connec-
tion between the word “dub” and the practice of deejaying remains strong
to this day, especially outside of Jamaica where the influence of Jamaican
dancehall rapping on other regional genres is often referred to by the short-
hand “dub.”
Musicians often used the term on stage to indicate a particular portion
of their live sets. For example, Bob Marley and the Wailers had their own
definition of “dub”; when they said “dub this one,” they meant to empha-
size the rhythm groove and to play particularly tightly as a band.50 Sly
Dunbar related that “onstage when a man a say “dubwise!” that means
bass and drums.”51 But the most obvious usage of the term relates directly
to the process of recording: “dub” in this context meaning either to record
on top of or to make a copy of. And the stylistic definitions offered by most
musicians, engineers, and producers all cohered around the elements of
rhythm (that is, drum & bass patterns), sound processing, and song re-
mixing. Rather than paraphrasing them, I shall allow the following Jamai-
can musicians, producers, and engineers to define the term dub in their
own words:
Engineers and producers create it. First it start out when they take out a few instru-
ments. Then they take most of the vocals out. They get deeper and deeper until they
take out everything, and just leave drum and bass. And get more and more deeper
into it. The less instruments, the more effects (Clinton Fearon, member of the
Gladiators and session musician at Studio One and Lee Perry’s Black Ark).52
. . . playing around with rhythm tracks, you know like the drum & bass, the riddim
set up of it (producer Clive Chin of Randy’s Studio).53
. . . creating different type of sounds, putting different type of instruments and

voices through different type of effects—the dub music is that experience (pro-
ducer Winston Riley).54
d u b / 62
. . . about experimenting. Let’s say you make a mistake in the electronics part of
it and the sound that you get out of it [makes you say] “wow, I wish I knew how
to do that again.” . . . There are times when those kind of impulses just happen .
. . in that way you can change the whole pattern of the song (vocalist/producer
Mikey Dread).55
. . . the fundamentals of reggae but not only is it fundamental music, it is complex in

that it carries every mood, every feel, every groove that you can imagine in music,
all broken down into its basic, very simple form (Bobby Vicious).
. . . [A music that] fuck up the head! It blow your mind like you dey ’pon drugs! It put
you ’pon a different level, a different planet. You can feel like you’s a space man, some-
time you might feel like you’s a deep sea diver. You can be like in an airplane in ten sec-
onds, it make you feel anyway you want to feel (Robbie Shakespeare, producer, ses-
sion bassist and touring bassist with Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, and others).56
They just keep reinventing the song. That’s what I feel dub does—it reinvents itself
(Mikey Dread).57
. . . authentically Jamaican, without a doubt. There’s nothing else to compare it to

in the world, prior to that. [The rest of the world] might not know dub music by
the name but when they hear it, it’s like “Oh, that’s Jamaica.” It started where the
emphasis was on the drums and the bass and a lot of echoes on the instruments
(Computer Paul, producer and multi-instrumentalist).58
. . . you do as many versions as you could possibly want, emphasizing different sec-
tions, arrangements, placing the vocals here and the vocals there. And then it be-
came a trend. . . . Some people think it’s just a kind of riff-raff situation, something
that was just lucky to be around. But it’s where the principles [of reggae music]
have been explored (Bunny Wailer, vocalist/producer).59
Within this constellation of meanings, “dub” implies two things overall.

First, it implies the site of the recording studio, and the creative manipulations
afforded by multitrack recording and sound processing. Second, it implies the
site of the sound system/dancehall, in the sense that it conforms to a standard
strategy of African-derived popular dance music. Like the extended vamp sec-
tion of a funk composition, the montuno section of a salsa composition, or
the merengue section of a merengue composition, dub serves that moment in
the dancehall when excess ornamentation is stripped away to emphasize the
elemental power of the rhythm pattern, to provoke more intense and eroti-
cally charged dancing, and to give an improviser free rein to excite the crowd
with his or her spontaneous virtuosity—in short, the moment(s) when the
dancehall “peaks.” The immediate distinction here is that unlike other styles in
which an instrumental improvisor steps forth to raise the intensity, the im-
provisation in the dub version is performed by a DJ. But more important is
that another level of improvisation was performed before the actual moment
by the engineer in his creation of the dub mix. In combination, these two
understandings fuse to imply a type of music created in the recording studio

through the process of remixing, functioning to service the hottest moments
in the dancehall. This music gradually took on a more concrete life as a re-
corded genre to be judged on its own terms.
Studio Technology and Compositional Strategies

of the Dub Mix
When we talk about dub, the producers take all the credit. But the people who
really deserve the credit are the engineers. —Clive Chin, 1999
What made dub unique in the context of pop music both in Jamaica
and worldwide was the creative and unconventional use recording engi-
neers made of their equipment (as, for example, in using acetate as the dub
plate). This enabled them to fashion a new musical language that relied as
much on texture, timbre, and soundspace, as it did on the traditional mu-
sical parameters of pitch, melody, and rhythm. In general, the most im-
portant understanding of the dub mix is as a deconstructive, B-side remix
of a 45 rpm single; the remix engineer draws on various strategies to ma-
nipulate the listener’s anticipation of musical events, and defamiliarize the
vocal song on the A-side. Over time, engineers’ unconventional use of
their equipment consolidated into the body of formal strategies that
largely define the idiom. Following is a summary of the most frequent
remix strategies and the sound processing equipment with which they
were realized.
Erasure and Fragmentation of Song Lyrics: The Poetry of Dub

Although dub music is largely an instrumental medium, one of the most
immediately recognizable sonic features of the dub mix is the way song lyr-
ics are omitted and/or fragmented, on one hand, and the way successive
“generations” of lyrics are juxtaposed against each other, on the other. The
fragmentation of recorded material is achieved by manipulation of the
mute switch, one of the simplest devices on the mixing console. The mute
switch allows an engineer to control the audible level of an instrument or
group of instruments contained on one or more tracks, placing a particular
track in or out of the audible mix at the press of the button. A more gradual
effect is achieved by use of the fader controls, sliding levers that allow the
volume of an instrument to be gradually raised or lowered. These controls
are central to what can be called a mixing strategy of fragmentation, the
abrupt introduction and removal of formerly continuous musical material.
In mixing dub versions, these controls were used to create abrupt shifts
in ensemble texture. In a typical dub mix, for example, the engineer might
d u b / 64
introduce the song with a snippet of the original vocal. Instead of continu-
ing throughout as on the familiar version, however, the vocal would then
drop out of the mix, appearing and disappearing in fragmentary fashion,
intermittently throughout the rest of the performance. “Say So” (a remix of
Paul Blackman’s vocal track of the same name) from the seminal LP King
Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown, is a good study of the simultaneous disso-
lution and distillation of meaning achieved through this subtractive textual
strategy.60 In his remix, King Tubby essentially reduces the lyrics of the orig-
inal to a form of minimalist poetry in which only twelve remaining words
are left to impart any textual meaning. On the first verse of the original
song, Paul Blackman sang:
You don’t have to run
away from me
All you got to do
is try and see
Try and see
if you really love me
All that you need
oh, I’ll give to you
All that your love needs, and all that’s true
Say so, if you love me girl
say so . . .
Tubby’s mix reduces this to:

You don’t have to run
All that your love needs
say so . . .
The same technique is used to strong effect on “King Tubby Meets the
Rockers Uptown,” Tubby’s well-known remix of Jacob Miller’s “Baby I
Love You So.”61 On the first verse of the original track, Miller sings:
Baby I love you so
and this is what I really know
and if you should ever leave
and go away
Baby I’ve been slaving every day, oh
Night and day I pray
that love will come my way
Night and day I pray
that love will come away . . .
that you won’t stay out late

Tubby’s remix reduces Miller’s sentiments to five bare syllables:
Baby I’ve . . .
that love . . .
One way of viewing such erasure is that it transformed song lyrics, after
the fact, from what Curt Sachs called “logogenic” music (in which com-
prehensible words are the basis of the song) into what he called “patho-
genic” sound (pure sound arising from the emotions).62 It might there-
fore seem pointless to search for any poetic qualities in these phonemic
fragments. Buttressed by sound processing, however, they often surpass
the one-dimensionality of the original lyrics in their cryptically evocative
power, allowing more open-ended opportunities of lyrical interpretation.
As one musician muses: “Sometimes I don’t even want to hear the origi-
nal. It’s more interesting to me to listen to the dub mix and let my imagi-
nation fill in what the original must have sounded like.”63 On the other
hand, when the original lyrics addressed political, religious, or cultural
themes, the remix process could sometimes distill the message into a more
powerful form. King Tubby’s “King Tubby’s Key” remix reduces Earl
Zero’s entire “Shackles & Chains” to a mere four lines, but the net mean-
ing remains equally potent, as suggestive lyrical fragments churn out of
the soundscape:
The shackles and chains must be broken . . .
. . . and who still of those, that were stolen . . .
. . . what about the half, the half that never been told?
. . . there must be an end . . . 64
As is so frequently the case in Jamaican music, there is also a competi-

tive economic motive behind an aesthetic choice. Mikey Dread remem-
bered that producers would ask engineers to include a snippet of the
original vocal within the dub mix, in order to place an indelible identify-
ing stamp on the music: “Back in the day people were scared of leaving
the instruments alone because they know that somebody would re-
release it and put a new voice on it. So they have to put something some-
where in the dub to make sure that maybe halfway through the tune the
guy don’t know what he’s gonna do when he get to that part [with the
original vocal]. You don’t want a man to take your riddim and go voice it
straight like it’s his—you have to put your trademark in there to stop the
pirates!”65
d u b / 66
Collaging and Multilayering of Song Lyrics
The juxtaposition of several generations of fragmented text, on the
other hand, was an additive strategy that produced an equally striking ef-
fect, through what might be called an aesthetic of accumulation. For exam-
ple, Tony Brevett scored a hit in 1974 with “Don’t Get Weary,” the first two
verses of which ran:
Don’t get weary, little girl

don’t get weary
You’re gettin’ weary, little girl,
don’t get weary
You pick yourself up from off the ground
for this is no time to lie around
If he says he love you, stick around
Why you gonna put him down?
Don’t get weary, little girl

don’t get weary
You’re gettin’ weary, little girl
don’t get weary
A thousand times or more
You told me you really love him so
You want the whole wide world to know
That you’ll never let him go
Don’t get weary . . .
Tappa Zukie follows the “talk-over” format of the sound system on his
deejay version of “Don’t Get Crazy.” Zukie chants in call-and-response
against fragments of the prerecorded vocal performance, using Brevett’s
“weary” theme as a point of departure for an exhortation of Rastafarian
faith, and largely transforming the romantic implications of the original
lyrics (original lyrics in parentheses):
(Don’t get weary, little girl

don’t get weary . . .)
No, no, no!
(You’re gettin’ weary, little girl,
don’t get weary . . .)
Seh! A sistah don’t get weary
I beg ya try a little theory
Sista don’t get weary
I beg ya try a little theory
For if ya born as a natty then you mus’ be a natty
You grow up as a natty say you mus’ be a natty
A-natty, natty, natty, natty, natty, natty . . .
A-natty, natty, natty, natty, natty, natty . . .
A-natty don’t eat fatty
(Thousand times or more . . .)

Thousand times I tell ya
A-natty, natty, natty, natty, natty, natty, natty
A-natty don’t eat fatty
A-natty don’t go a bar
A-natty dread stay far
for the baldhead go a bar
and he walk into a car
Natty dread stay far . . . 66
The deejay I-Roy cut his own version of the track, titled “Don’t Get
Weary Joe Frazier.” I-Roy mixes his rap with fragments of the original, re-
interpreting the “weary” theme in order to console the African American
boxer following his humiliating second-round loss to George Foreman in
the so-called Sunshine Showdown heavyweight boxing match held in
Kingston in January 1973. Frazier had a large following in Jamaica, and I-
Roy’s version was just one of several reggae songs consoling him:
Woah!
Tribute to the brother called Joe Frazier
“Smokin’ Joe” as I would say
he lost the big fight
But I tell you people this was really out of sight as I would say
(Don’t get weary . . .)
Never, never Brother Joe
Never you be late for the show
(Don’t get weary . . .)
I’m beggin’ you to return on the scene
There and then I know you will be keen
(Pick yourself up off from the ground . . .)
No use for lyin’ around as I would tell you
Got to train harder each and every day
(Stick around, why you gonna put him down?)
No matter what certain things and folks may say
Man Joe Frazier like I tell you
was sharp like a razor
But he was no match for brother Georgie . . .67
Like the distinction between a thematic “head” and the improvisation in

jazz music, deejaying became a fundamental method of elaborating core
thematic material, via the deejay’s running commentary on the original lyr-
ics. Studio engineers took this a step further, their additive approach allow-
ing singers, deejays, and instrumentalists to “converse” with each other
over several versions, and projecting the track over virtual time into an
intertextual call-and-response with its own previous incarnations.
The versions of “Don’t Get Weary” demonstrate thematic continuity
of a type. But the process sometimes resulted in disjunct textual mean-
ings. It was inevitable that “hypernarratives” would eventually result, in
which meaning remained suspended between two or more collaged texts,
d u b / 68
ultimately resolving to neither and inspiring novel interpretations through
their juxtaposition. An example of this is Jah Woosh’s deejay version of
Bob Marley’s “Talking Blues” as covered by the Maroons. Marley’s origi-
nal was a theme of personal tribulation and political challenge:
Cold ground was my bed last night,
and rock was my pillow too
Cold ground was my bed last night,
and rock was my pillow too
I’m saying talking blues, talking blues
Your feet is just too big for your shoes.68
In contrast, Jah Woosh’s string of dancehall exhortations completely ig-

nores Marley’s weighty theme:
(Cold ground was my bed last night
and rock was my pillow too . . .)
So mek we rub it in a Ghost Town
And mek we sing it in a Jones Town
Make we sing it and a dub it and a rub it
Let we do it like we never want to do it . . .
Cause the children dem a love it
And so the dawta dem a scrub it
A so the idren love it
The walk and the talk and the singin’ blues.69
Roland Barthes has claimed that only the act of reading itself can bring
temporary unity to a text,70 and the possibilities of interpretation clearly
expand via these types of additive and subtractive strategies; both ulti-
mately functioned to stretch the boundaries of textual meaning along the
contours of evolving technology and economic necessity. More than any
radical lyrical strategy, this aesthetic of accumulation reflected engineers’
and producers’ efforts to realize maximum commercial mileage from popu-
lar rhythm tracks.
How did vocalists feel about having their work manipulated in this way?
Max Romeo, who had some of his most inventive lyrics subjected to Lee
Perry’s postproduction whims, claims: “It doesn’t do anything negative to
the song, it more enhance the song. Because then it’s a matter of different
version and a lot of people love that type of difference.”71 Susan Cadogan,
whose most popular music was also mixed and remixed by Perry, assured
me: “They put in the voice at strategic points, so it makes sense.”72 Cer-
tainly, there is something to be said for the poetic qualities inherent in the
economy of expression and distillation of meaning that results from the
engineer’s top-down manipulations, resulting in something akin to mini-
malist poetry, Dadaist collage, or surrealist automatism. These additive and
subtractive processes held transformative implications for conventions of

textual meaning in pop songs, especially in an Afro-Caribbean culture with
a strong oral bias toward oral information and a related tendency to inter-
pret this information in a multitude of ways.73
An opposing stance on this issue was taken by the aforementioned “dub
poets” who, although not dub artists in the sense defined by this book,
were related to the deejays in terms of delivery style and production tech-
niques (and, as such, were often implicated in the dynamic of dub remix-
ing). Many of them resisted having their lyrics “rubbed out in the dub,”74
feeling that the postperformance manipulations of engineers compro-
mised the political messages they were trying to convey. The same posi-
tion was taken by some of the internationally successful reggae artists like
Bob Marley and Peter Tosh who occasionally released dub versions in
order to remain current in Jamaica, but were ultimately invested in the
sanctity of “the song” and its lyrical messages.75 Errol Brown, the main
engineer at Marley’s Tuff Gong studio, remembered: “Sometime I put
some delay effects on his [Marley’s] voice like some outer space thing, but
he had many lyrics, he didn’t like it.”76 And although the “riddim twins”
Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare developed an innovative approach to
playing dub live in concert while touring with Peter Tosh (which they later
perfected with Black Uhuru), Dunbar remembered Tosh’s dismissal of
their onstage dub innovations:
I remember when a lot of people used to curse dub and say “what kind of music
that?” We used to get cursed on stage with Peter Tosh. Peter used to curse us, saying
“what you think, Channel One and Joe Gibbs tune we a play?” But the audience
used to go wild. When Peter leave me and Robbie alone on stage for a minute, the
audience was saying “Jesus, this is it!” [Tosh] was always unwelcoming though, say-
ing “ . . . dub business deh a [belongs at] Channel One and Joe Gibbs.”77
In England, where the idea of “dub poetry” was often directly linked to
the actual technique of dub mixing, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson re-
solved this conflict through a more traditional approach, chanting his polit-
ical toasts without interruption before turning the tracks over to engineer
Dennis Bovell, who mixed the second half of each track as a dub back-
ground for jazz improvisations by the members of Johnson’s band.78
Obviously, such fragmentation could also be applied to instrumental
parts. In standard reggae recording procedure, the instruments—usually
guitar, bass, drums, piano, organ, and percussion—were recorded together
in the studio, with the band playing through an entire take to create a basic
track. As reggae is a dance music of West African heritage constructed as a
web of interlocking parts, the disruption of that structure by removing a
part produces a striking and disorienting effect that is fundamental to the
dub mix.
d u b / 70
Spatial and Echo Effects and the Use of Reverb and Delay Devices
Another fundamental strategy of the dub mix is the use of reverbera-
tion. The reverberation unit blends a series of simulated echoes sequen-
tially to simulate spatial dimension within a recording: by adding reverb,
the music may sound as if it is being variously performed in a theater,
arena, or cave when it was in fact typically recorded in the acoustically
“dead” (that is, completely dampened) environment of the recording stu-
dio. The first reverberation device in Jamaica is said to have been built by
Graeme Goodall around 1960, when he miked a Telefunken speaker that
had been sealed off in the bathroom of Federal studios.79 Little did Goo-
dall know that reverberation would grow to become one of the most iden-
tifiable stylistic markers of Jamaican music. The vast majority of dub mixes
are set in some degree of reverb and the effect is particularly important to
the types of deconstructions dub engineers performed; it provided a unify-
ing factor amidst all the sonic fragmentation outlined above. If fragmenta-
tion created dynamic tension in the mix, reverb (along with the listener’s
internalized sense of musical continuity) was the cohering agent that held
the disparate sounds together; as individual parts appear and disappear
from the mix, reverberating trails of their presences provide continuity
between one sound and the next.
There were two basic uses of reverb in most dub mixes. In the spatial
application, an engineer could use reverb to imply a series of spatial config-
urations in the mix. One important aspect of this was panning, which al-
lows for a spacialized placement of an audio signal during the process of
stereo mixing; sounds can then be heard as moving across a simulated
soundspace. These types of spatial manipulations were best experienced at
the extreme volumes of the sound system, where a listener experiencing
dub at high volumes would experience the virtual sensation of being drawn
into the various vortices simulated in the music.80
A contrasting application of reverberation can be called the ambient use,
in which the recording is saturated with such a high amount of reverbera-
tion that a purely atmospheric dimension begins to form. Because engi-
neers often generated these echoes by sending fragments of inaudible or
barely audible tracks through the various effects processors, it can some-
times seem as if this atmospheric layer of the song is arising organically,
without obvious connection to the music above which it swirls. In most
cases, in fact, this processed sound actually originates from the basic tracks.
One generally overlooked effect of the heavy use of reverb in dub music
is that it liberated the sound of the drum set, which had generally been bur-
ied in reggae mixes beneath the cloudy textures of the electric bass and the

“shuffle” syncopations of the electric organ. The spatialized soundscapes of
drum & bass pushed the funky minimalism of reggae drumming to the fore-
ground, and gave a new weight to the jazzy fills and accents that were the
trademarks of drummers like Sly Dunbar, Carlton Barrett, and Horsemouth
Wallace. A syncopated bass drum, rim shot, or timbale roll suspended
through reverberating, mutating space resulted in a music of charged empti-
ness. The combination of reverb with the minimalist drumming style also
helped realize the “antigravity” of the reggae groove, which had always im-
plied a certain “weightlessness” due to its heavy emphasis on the offbeat.
Although the effect produced by delay units is informally thought to be the

same as reverb, its effects are primarily rhythmic in the sense that the delay
effect is a timed replay of an audio signal, resulting in the characteristic
“echo” effect. This effect was used in several different ways in dub mixes, to
intensify the basic rhythm tracks or, later, to decenter them violently. The
rhythmic use of delay had in fact been a part of Jamaican popular music at
least since the heyday of Studio One, when Sylvan Morris had fashioned a
crude slapback echo effect by using both mechanical and handmade tape
loops (see chapter 3). By the 1970s, echo units were put to more radical
uses. In the same way that an impressionist painter might have used a sea of
repeated and modulated brushstrokes to blur or decenter a visual image,
dub mixers in the 1970s often used the repeated rhythmic “strokes” of echo
to alternately reinforce or decenter sonic “figures.” Sometimes, as we shall
see in the discussion of King Tubby in chapter 4, engineers timed the delay
so that echoing fragments repeated in consonance with the underlying
rhythm. Most frequently, however, delay was set to disjunct timings in
order to spin jarring rhythmic tangents against the basic riddim, especially
following an episode of disruption. Often, drum accents (especially the
crash cymbals or timbales) would trigger the echo effect while the rest of
the groove was muted out of the mix, echoing into space and creating a
moment of charged tension before the rhythm section was reintroduced.
This strategy, which Luke Erlich refers to as “the plunge,” is one of the
most recognizable strategies of dub mixing.81
An important element of this use of delay is that these tangents echoing
in rhythmic disjunction allowed the music to be experienced as a simultan-
eity of sonic planes, especially when these planes project over the negative
spaces created by sudden disruptions of the rhythm groove. For example,
King Tubby’s “Ethiopian Version” remixes Rod Taylor’s “Ethiopian
Kings,” which moves at a tempo of quarter note = 69 beats per minute,
while the delay unit is set at a completely disjunct tempo of approximately
d u b / 72
168 bpm.82 Consequently, disruptions of the vocal track (at 0:27), rhythm
guitar track (at 0:49), and drum set track (at 1:26) are all projected against
the basic rhythm, at the same delay rate. Thus, delay could be used to inten-
sify the groove, to decenter it violently, or to elaborate it into unusual
rhythmic and planar relationships.
As much as echo and delay were used to decenter rhythm, it also had the
effect of decentering harmony, such as on the bridge section of King Tubby’s
“Heavy Duty Dub,” in which the resolution of a chord progression is sub-
verted by the use of echo.83 A progression in A™ major moves through the
chords C minor–D™ major–E™7–F minor, at the rate of one chord per beat,
with the resolution expected (per the original version) at the next measure in
A™ major. However, King Tubby applies delay to the piano just as it attacks
the F minor chord; while the bass line modulates back to the A™ tonic and
then the E™7 dominant, decaying chord tones of F minor remain suspended
for a full measure. While this is by no means a particularly striking dissonance
(being merely the juxtaposition of three diatonic chords), the effect is quite
impressionistic, a sort of electronically extended harmony (comprising in
this case all the pitches of the A™ major scale) another characteristic effect in
dub music. The deeper significance here is that this tendency toward a system
of harmonic and/or formal resolutions subverted by sound processing
would later constitute one of dub’s most transformative contributions to
conceptions of form in popular music in the digital age.
Timbral/Textural Effects and the Use of Equalization

and Filtering Devices
The equalizer is a type of filter control that allows the engineer to accen-
tuate or filter out specific audio frequencies, usually for the purpose of
boosting an instrument’s presence during the mixing process (throughout
this chapter, I shall use the terms filtering and equalization more or less
interchangeably). Using the equalization and filtering controls, overtones
of an instrument can be manipulated until it sounds full, warm, and robust,
or until it sounds thin, shrill, and eviscerated. Applied to an entire ensem-
ble, a group can sound as if it is expanding or diminishing in size. Equaliza-
tion could also be used to help craft the ambient aspects of a performance.
In particular, the interplay of echo and equalization enabled engineers to
make simulated soundspaces sound as if they were continually morphing in
dimension and texture.
On his remix of Carl Malcolm’s “Miss Wire Waist” (titled “Wire Dub”),
engineer Karl Pitterson demonstrates how crucial this type of timbral ma-
nipulation was to dub.84 While other producers worked to create an “up-
scale” dub sound by bringing in instrumentalists such as Jackie Mittoo and

Tommy McCook to blow jazz-styled improvisations over dubbed-up rid-
dims, Pitterson achieved an equally striking degree of coloration by treating
Jimmy Becker’s simple, one-note, harmonica riff with distortion and equal-
ization to great colorative effect. The filter would find a particularly creative
application in the hands of King Tubby.
Use of Microphone “Bleed-through” and Secondary Signals

There are several other effects that dub engineers achieved through less
conventional means. One striking effect is the use of microphone “bleed-
through,” a secondary effect of microphone placement. In some cases, a
microphone placed in front of a particular instrument will pick up a bit of
the sound of another instrument (usually the loud instruments of the
rhythm section) in a different part of the room. The result, when com-
bined with reverberation, is a distant-sounding “secondary” signal, ex-
ploited by many of the prominent dub mixers.
Inclusion of Extraneous Material and Nonmusical Sound

Sometimes, engineers will allow material to remain in the mix that is not
part of the song itself, such as false starts, pretake studio dialogue, instru-
ments being tuned up, or even remnants of a previous performance on the
recording tape. In some cases, they will even subject this extraneous mate-
rial to sound processing. On King Tubby’s “Fittest of the Fittest Dub,”85
for example, we hear the squealing sound of the master tape coming gradu-
ally coming up to playing speed, followed by the random noodling of the
pianist. The beeping frequency of a test tone echoes through a delay unit
amid faint studio chatter. All of this extraneous noise fades into a filtered
vortext as the drummer counts the band in, after which the song proceeds
as normal. On King Tubby’s “Beware Dub,”86 this tactic is even more dra-
matic, with nine chaotic seconds of studio dialogue and a false start by the
band, all routed through echo and reverb units. The dialogue continues
even after the tune has started, with Tubby and producer/vocalist Yabby U
yelling instructions back and forth to each other.
Engineers also sometimes overdubbed various nonmusical sounds onto
their recordings. King Tubby’s dub mixes sometimes included various
sound effects, while several of Lee Perry’s mixes feature overdubbed ex-
cerpts of television dialogue, crying babies, telephones, and animal sounds.
Perry’s famous fake “cow” sound was added to so many recordings that it
became a signature of his late work at the Black Ark studio. The overdub-
bing of sound effects was used most extensively by Errol Thompson (espe-
cially in his work with Joe Gibbs), who made use of a wide array of over-
dubbed sounds such as doorbells, sirens, alarm clocks, and other effects.
d u b / 74
Backward Sound and Tape Speed Manipulation
The most frequent use of backward sound in dub mixes re-creates an ef-
fect used by sound systems, when the DJ yells to the selector (the person ac-
tually playing the records) to “lick it back to the top!” The selector would
then toy with the audience’s anticipation by manually rewinding the record
back to the beginning after it has played for only a few seconds. This
squealing sound of a record being spun rapidly in reverse was also used by
dub mixers, when they rewound their amplified recording tape back to the
beginning of a spool, and left this in as part of the final recording.
Engineers would also sometimes alter the playing speed of the tape. In-
itially, this was done to suit the vocal range of the singer, as changing the
tape speed also changes the key of the song. Eventually, as Bunny Lee re-
lates, they realized that slowing the tape speed also created a distortion that
resulted in thicker sound: “Sometime the singer needs it in a different key,
And you have to speed it up to change the key to suit him. Sometimes you
just mix, it sound better to you in the higher key. And when you slow it
down a little, the bass comes out heavier. So you just make it stay [at the
slower speed].”87
Tape Splicing
Lee Perry’s “Operation” and Prince Buster’s “Big Youth” are two exam-
ples of tracks composed via the splicing together of various recorded per-
formances, essentially creating sound collages that use reggae music as their
source material.88 In these instances, dub becomes a form of tape composi-
tion in a more literal sense, similar to musique concrète or its various off-
shoots in popular music (such as the early work of Frank Zappa). Particu-
larly interesting is that some of these tracks splice together performances of
completely different tempi, fundamentally subverting the music’s typical
function as dance music and providing the clearest parallels between Ja-
maica and experimental composition elsewhere. Because of the amount of
time and the technical facilities needed to perform this type of composi-
tion, however, it is comparatively rare in Jamaica, given the speed at which
musical product is typically turned out.
Abuse of Equipment
In general, Jamaican engineers have tended to push their equipment
beyond its intended limits. Sometimes they actually damaged their equip-
ment in order to achieve novel sounds. For example, King Tubby was fa-
mous for lifting and dropping his spring reverb unit, producing a violent
and clangorous sound that was particularly jarring when heard from the

giant speakers of the sound system. Lee Perry used this effect also, and
did other unusual things to his equipment that will be discussed in the
next chapter.
Sample Dub Mix

Horace Andy: “Mr. Bassie” (1971 Version) > Horace Andy: “Mr.
Bassie” (1978 Version)
Two versions of Horace Andy’s popular song “Mr. Bassie” are graphic il-
lustrations of the gradual shift in tempo, the emergence of dub as a mixing
strategy, and dub’s broader implications for the sound of Jamaican
music.89 The original version had been recorded and mixed at Studio One
by Sylvan Morris in 1972, composed by Andy as a tribute to the bassist
Leroy Sibbles.90 A four-bar B™ minor blues at a tempo of quarter note = 65
bpm, the rhythm is played in a funky, syncopated one drop pattern style
very similar to Lee Perry’s productions of the same period. In addition to
the regular roles of drum set, electric bass, and upbeat rhythm guitar and
organ, an alto sax doubles the bass line an octave higher, while a second
guitar embroiders the riddim with an interlocking single note line in the
lower register, adding another layer of syncopation. The instruments out-
line the progression:
|| B™- / / / | E™- / B™- / | B™- / / / | F7 / E™- / ||
Around 1978, Andy revisited “Mr. Bassie,” releasing a self-produced ver-
sion that, while a vocal mix, is completely shaped by the production values
of dub mixing. The tempo has been slowed to quarter note = 58bpm (re-
flecting a typical shift between reggae of the early and late 1970s), and the
key dropped a half step to A minor. The more dramatic change, however, is
found in the treatment of the bass line and the harmony. The bass, now
more closely adapted to the generic “Stalag 17” riddim, repeats a single line,
instead of modulating with the chord changes. Although the chords are
mixed in so sparingly as to function more as coloration than harmony, they
do change, outlining the progression:
|| A- / / / | A- / / / | A- / G / | A- / / / ||
This harmonic distillation of the minor blues results in a more modal
sound that in turn allows Andy more freedom in both phrasing and me-
lodic variation; his singing doesn’t always imply the progression out-
lined above.
The mix, credited to Prince Jammy, constitutes a crucial part of the
overall production. The slowed-down one drop arrangement is minimal,
emphasizing the drums and bass, but the song acquires another level of
complexity through the application of sound processing. The drummer’s
hi-hat, for example, is fed through a delay unit that turns his original
d u b / 76
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sound processing. Another analogy is the understanding of dub as a type of
“aural fireworks;” an episodic coloration in which “explosive” sonic events
take place against a static background that is nevertheless experienced as
progressing through time.
Given the heavy demand for dub mixes from sound systems preparing
for weekend dances, it is important to realize that these mixes were impro-
vised on the spot, with a minimum of pre-planning. Most dub mixing was
done on Friday evenings, when producers deposited their master tapes
with engineers, and sound system operators gathered at the studio so that
each could be given a unique mix of a currently popular tune. Under these
circumstances, an engineer might create dozens of different mixes of a
given tune in one remix session. Unlike the computerized mixing boards of
today, engineers had no way of preparing a mix beforehand; they usually
improvised their way through dozens of mixes of the same track. King
Jammy’s approach was typical of most engineers: “I don’t plan it before I
go into the mix, it just comes creatively. I don’t plan like ‘Okay, I’m going
to take out the bass at two minutes’ or whatever. It’s just an instant creativ-
ity.”92 Bunny Lee felt that “it was a vibes thing, we just play with all the
controls and what we get, we take. So no two dubs could sound the
same.”93 Sylvan Morris offered the most procedural description: “It is a
matter of feel, y’know. You might listen to the tune when you was mixing
it, or you keep listening to the original version of the vocals, and you think
to yourself, if you was to take out that at that moment, it would create an
effect. So when you are [remixing] it now, you might feel it out first . . . try
a thing here and take out this there and put a little echo on that . . . you
might vary the length of the echo, or the decay time. You play along with it
and see what sort of effect it give you.”94 Ultimately, the unity of engineer,
mixing desk, and music is in the end no different than the unity of musician
and instrument. As Sherwood describes it, “With dub, you’re actually
intercommunicating with the mixing desk—everything becomes one and
then suddenly, magic happens. You feel it going around the room and the
other people in the room feel it. It’s like a buzz you can’t describe when
you’re doing something like that.”95
Using the mixing board as an instrument of spontaneous composition
and improvisation, the effectiveness of the dub mix results from the
engineer’s ability to de- and reconstruct a song’s original architecture while
increasing the overall power of the performance through a dynamic of sur-
prise and delayed gratification. The engineer continuously tantalizes the lis-
tener with glimpses of what they are familiar with, only to keep them out of
reach, out of completion. This is what both Scientist and Adrian Sherwood
seem to suggest:
d u b / 78
What you want is the element of surprise, to keep them guessing. You have to keep
the listener in suspense, they don’t know what’s coming next. Once you have that
formula in mind—the element of surprise and suspense—then everything after that
is spontaneous. (Scientist)96
With the dubs, you’re working with a rhythm that’s hanging on the verge of col-
lapse all the time. You’re putting it to pieces, holding it together with delays and
adding and spinning the rhythm, taking out . . . one bar blurs into another or dis-
torts into the end of the four-bar figure, and then you pull it back, just when you
think it’s gonna collapse. You soothe people by bringing back the bass when you’ve
taken it out. There’s more space in it than anything. (Adrian Sherwood)97
One illuminating comparison is not from an African-derived example at

all, but rather from classical traditions of Japan, in which the perception of
sound in time is interpreted in terms of a philosophical/aesthetic construct
of wabi and sabi.98 The former term is said to describe a listener’s anticipa-
tion of a musical sound, while the latter describes the feeling of longing in-
duced by the sound’s decay. Andrew Juniper describes wabi/sabi as “sug-
gest[ing] such qualities as impermanence, asymmetry, and imperfection”
and embodying “the Zen nihilist cosmic view and seek[ing] beauty in the
imperfections found as all things, in a constant state of flux, evolve from
nothing and devolve back to nothing. Within this perpetual movement na-
ture leaves arbitrary tracks for us to contemplate, and it is these random
flaws and irregularities that offer a model for the modest and humble wabi
sabi expression of beauty. Rooted firmly in Zen thought, wabi sabi art uses
the evanescence of life to convey the sense of melancholic beauty that such
an understanding brings.”99 Despite the radical difference in cultural con-
text between Jamaica and Japan, this passage succintly describes the way a
dub mix works upon a listener’s desire for completion, a desire based on
their memory of a preexisting song.
This approach to pop song composition, which makes heavy use of tex-
tual fragmentation and atmospheric mixing, approximates Tony Grajeda’s
idea of a “feminization” of song form, marked by a dissolution of formal
boundaries, the disruption of traditional cycles of (harmonic) tension and
release, the embrace of negative sonic space (silence, absence) as a positive
musical value, and a deliberately crude, low-fidelity production aes-
thetic.100 But this gendering of musical traits presents problems in both
general and specific application to Jamaica. Most obviously, it is based
upon an essentialized view of gender traits that makes the masculine synon-
ymous with presence (and, conversely, the feminine synonymous with ab-
sence). In the context of Jamaica’s male-dominated music industry, more-
over, the idea of any local music as a “feminizing” force would probably
not go down too well, where dancehall music has been until very recently
dominated by “slackness” themes of gunplay, gangsterism, and (mostly)

male sexual braggadocio. Further, the gendering of Latin American and
Caribbean cultures as “feminine” is a problematic by-product of the histor-
ical Euro-American political and economic exploitation of the region.101
In light of this, it might be better to use the idea of an aesthetic of fragmen-
tation, or incompletion, that I introduced earlier in this chapter.
The Ganja Factor: A Caribbean Psychedelia?

Psychedelia expanded not only minds but recording technology as well.102
—Brian Eno, 1996
Just a quarter pound of herb

Make you wiggle an’ dance to the reverb.103
—Jah Woosh
Most Jamaican musicians and listeners agreed that ganja (marijuana) was
an important factor in the slow tempi, thick textures, and bass-heavy produc-
tion of roots reggae music. Given the tremendous influence of Rasta theol-
ogy on roots reggae, the Rasta espousal of ganja as a religious sacrament, and
the manner in which reggae was marketed as a countercultural music to
Euro-American audiences in the 1970s, the stereotype of roots reggae as
“ganja music” has persisted outside of Jamaica for decades. It is unsurprising
that dub, the genre of roots reggae that seems to share so much with certain
strands of psychedelic rock music, is a genre of Jamaican music particularly
saddled with this stereotype. As one website typically describes it:
The deep rhythmic bass of reggae combined with the effects of smoking large
quantities of ganja—particularly the herb’s tendencies to enhance one’s apprecia-
tion of tonal resonance and to distort one’s perception of time—when mixed to-
gether in primitive recording studios, begat dub. It was the custom within the Ja-
maican music industry to fill out the flip-sides of 45rpm singles with instrumental
versions of the song featured on the A side and, under the creative influence of can-
nabis, record producers such as Lee Perry started twiddling their knobs idiosyncrat-
ically, dropping out the treble and pumping up the bass, cutting up the vocal track
and adding masses of reverb to haunting phrases that echo through the mix. No
other music sounds more like the way it feels to be stoned.104
Among the characteristics he identifies as reflecting marijuana’s influence

upon artistic production, Erich Goode cites “a glorification of the irrational
and seemingly nonsensical, an abandonement of traditional and ‘linear’ rea-
soning sequences, and the substitution of ‘mosaic’ and fragmentary lines of
attack; and bursts of insight rather than chains of thought” as central.105
Scholars have long debated the extent to which mind-altering substances
can be credited with structuring aesthetic languages, but Goode’s words are
certainly accurate descriptions of the formal organization of many dub
mixes.106 The effects of THC (delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoac-
tive compound in cannabis derivations) on auditory perception are well
d u b / 80
known; when under its influence, the listener is acutely aware of changes in
the perception of spatiality, movement, detail, texture, and time.107 At the
very least, then, we should not consider it surprising that an engineer would
mix the music in a way that externalizes the characteristic modes of percep-
tion and sensation associated with a particular substance.
Nevertheless, the reality is more complex than the stereotype. What
complicates the issue is that in Jamaica, not all studio engineers were ganja
smokers. In fact, according to most of the musicians I spoke to, very few of
them actually smoked. All musicians were in agreement that King Tubby—
the prime exponent of dub music—was not a ganja smoker, and that smok-
ing of any kind was forbidden inside of his studio. Mikey Dread remem-
bered: “I never seen Tubby smoke—cigarettes, weed, nothing. Tubbys was
a clean-cut man. If you wanted to smoke, you have to go in the yard, or go
out in the street.”108 Bassist Robbie Shakespeare was emphatic that dub
was not “ganja music,” and maintained that “the engineers who mix dub
music no have a spliff.”109 Sly Dunbar agreed: “Tubbys never used to
smoke, Errol Thompson never smoke.”110 Mikey Dread put the issue in
commonsense perspective, distinguishing between the choices of musi-
cians and studio engineers: “Ganja is burning around the creation of most
reggae. But saying that it’s all about ganja is not true because when you
mixing a song you don’t want to be smoking. You have to be alert and
awake—you can’t be high and mixing at the board ’cause you going to mess
up everything. It might sound good to you when you high but then when
you wake up you might find that ‘I didn’t like nothing that I did yesterday.’
It’s not that kind of crazy atmosphere like people imagine, like the room is
full of smoke.”111
In general, musicians and producers all acknowledged that ganja played
an important role in the creation and reception of dub music, while resist-
ing the oversimplification that dub was “ganja music.” Winston Riley felt
that there were several things that enhanced the dub experience, ganja
being only one: “Ganja is a part of it. But even if a man sit back and drink
and listen to dub, him feel so nice because the music is so sweet. It play
upon the mind and a lot of things.”112 Paul Henton felt that some of what
was attributed to ganja was inherent in the sound of roots reggae itself:
“[Roots] reggae music, like a Bob Marley type of reggae music, has that ef-
fect on you. I could see where it could put you in that trancelike vibe. Even
if you’re sober, it’s kind of hypnotic.”113 Max Romeo was more explicit in
his distinction. Like many Rasta-influenced musicians, he offered a more
functional explanation for the mood and sound of reggae music in general:
“There is a misconception among a lot of people that reggae and dub is
ganja music. The thing is, dub is meditation music, and you can meditate

on anything. The meditation can be on life, on spiritual things, or on music
too. So dub is no more ganja music than rock & roll or classical is ganja
music.”114 The focus on meditation allows the music to be experienced and
interpreted in more varied terms than the narrow ganja stereotype. This
openness was best articulated by Bobby Vicious when he reminisced: “Dub
was really a revelation for the people in those times, because before that
time we had mainly dealt with vocal, not really instrumental. At a Tubby’s
session, they might play five, ten version of the same riddim, all with a dif-
ferent mix. In fact they didn’t call it version, they called it chapter. And each
chapter opened your mind a different way.”115
For their part, studio engineers acknowledged the role of ganja in vary-
ing ways. Philip Smart confirmed King Tubby’s ban on smoking in the stu-
dio, but also acknowledged that “smoking herb, the slower the music, you
can get into it more. You sit back and meditate and it’s like the music is hit-
ting you—you feel it through your whole body. So that was the revolution
of the whole thing—dub, Rasta culture—and the music started to move
there.116 Probably the best-known engineer to advocate ganja smoking is
Lee Perry, who has extolled the virtues of ganja throughout his career. An-
other advocate is Scientist, who was direct about the role of ganja in his
work. “The first time I smoke a spliff, I hear music differently. And I find
that some ways are more righteous and more conscious. So, yeah, what
you come up with in the music is an extension of the herb. All of that is the
influence of marijuana.”117
Considering the strong ganja connection and the historical moment in

which the music arose (loosely concurrent with the American counter-
culture), the question arises as to what extent can dub be considered a re-
gional Caribbean variant on Euro-American psychedelic music. As Michael
Hicks put it: “More than anything else, psychedelic music dynamized mu-
sical parameters previously stable in rock. Psychedelic drugs transformed
fixed shapes into shifting shapes. In turn, psychedelic rock activated the
music’s essential form, harmony, timbre, articulation, and spatial deploy-
ment.”118 Of course, any interpretation of dub as psychedelic music rests
upon (1) an unstable classification of cannabis derivations as hallucino-
gens;119 (2) an admission that the question itself is only really relevant in
the Euro-American zone within which psychedelic rock music exists as an
established genre category; and (3) a demonstrable influence of European
and American production trends in Jamaica. In the Euro-American con-
text, drawing such a link seems deceptively easy: with the exception of
transplanted sound systems serving immigrant Jamaican communities, fans
d u b / 82
of dub music in those cultural areas tend to use the music more for reflec-
tive listening than dancing—very different than the chaotically external set-
ting of the Jamaican sound system. Further, because of the traditions of
psychedelic and progressive rock, dub in England and Europe has tended
to be appreciated on purely sonic terms, as opposed to Jamaica where it
was largely understood to be a backdrop for deejays. With song lyrics re-
moved, the focus on the soundscaping elements grew much stronger.
In the most literal definition, dub should not be considered a form of
psychedelia; the latter is a historically and geographically specific subgenre
of American rock music initially associated with San Francisco, and later
more generally influential as a production style of late 1960s pop music.120
In terms of production trends, however, it must have had some degree of
influence on Jamaica although none of the engineers I spoke with men-
tioned psychedelia as an influence on their work (surprising, as all seemed
aware of productions trends in English and American pop music). British
reggae historian Dave Hendley felt that “Tubby’s sound—it was really
quite trippy. It was sort of like the psychedelic music that the rock guys
never got ’round to making. I see the parallels with it, like the use of echo
and that quite spacey sort of sound, but I don’t think that had any influence
on what the guys did in Jamaica. I think it’s just one of those coincidental
things where you could draw a parallel but certainly, I don’t think there’s a
direct influence from that kind of music.”121 My own impression is that
there must be at least some unknown history at work here. It wasn’t widely
known until 2006, for example, that the same British electronics whiz
(Roger Mayer) who devised Jimi Hendrix’s signature sound processors
was a Bob Marley fan who worked with Marley and the Wailers during the
1977 recording of Exodus.122 But until more information of this sort comes
to light, such direct influence will remain speculative.
In broader musicological and social terms, certain comparisons might be
fruitfully drawn. In general, the “term” psychedelic has been used to encom-
pass two related stylistic practices. One is music characterized by long-form,
open-ended song structures and extended instrumental improvisation (typ-
ified by 1960s pieces such as Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” or the
Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star”).123 In this case, the protracted musical explo-
rations paralleled and complemented the exploratory internal states stimu-
lated by psychoactive substances. If we consider the “juggling” of riddims
in the Jamaican sound system as a means of extending the grooves of short
pop songs into long-form vehicles for (deejay) improvisation, it is possible
to find a place for dub within this definition of psychedelia. The comments
of Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner, drawing a causal connection
between the effects of hallucinogens and a disruption of tonality, provide

another relevant point of comparison. In Kantner’s experience, psychedelics
were “not really conducive to acting functionally together with other people
in the right key . . . because people just wander off in other keys.”124 In Ja-
maica, it was not uncommon for sound system deejays to wander off-key in
their toasting; while this wandering reflects that they were not trained musi-
cians (and often drew the criticism of more established vocalists), it ulti-
mately forced a reconceptualization of harmony in Jamaican popular music.
Applied to the Jamaican context, Kantner’s comments imply that ganja may
have been one important catalyst in this reconceptualization.
The other practice associated with psychedelic music has less to do with
live performance practice, and more with studio production techniques.
Specifically, I refer to a characteristic use of sound processing effects and
mixing techniques such as panning, phase shifting, backward tape manip-
ulation, double-tracking of voices, and other techniques used to approxi-
mate and/or complement the perceptual distortions of the psychedelic ex-
perience. Well-known songs that make particularly artful use of these
techniques would include the Beatles’s “Blue Jay Way,” or the Jimi Hen-
drix Experience’s “Are You Experienced.”125 A connection is much easier
to draw between dub and psychedelic music on the basis of their common
reliance on these production techniques, and a visceral connection can
clearly be drawn between these performances and dub mixes created dur-
ing the period of roots reggae in Jamaica, such as selected works of King
Tubby, Prince Jammy, and Augustus Pablo and especially works from Lee
Perry’s Black Ark period (such as the Congos’ Heart of the Congos or
George Faith’s To Be A Lover). Sheila Whiteley refers to this connection
between the music and the psychedelic experience as “psychedelic cod-
ing”;126 musicologically, it was these aspects of dub that later contributed
to what Michael Hicks termed a global “dynamization” of the popular
song form.127
The broadest similarity resides in the fact that both dub and psychedelic
rock were conceived—implicitly or explicitly, depending on the circum-
stances—as complements to the experience of mind-altering substances.
Also, both were born of a period in which the use of such substances (es-
pecially in tandem with music) was considered a strategy for cultural trans-
formation and challenge to the prevailing order. Although few of the Ja-
maican engineers I spoke with claimed to have been directly inspired by
the studio techniques of Euro-American psychedelia, drummer Sly Dun-
bar did recall its surrounding counterculture as partial inspiration for the
dub music he and bassist Robbie Shakespeare created as part of the group
Black Uhuru in the 1980s: “We do it purposely because we come out of
the age with shows like Woodstock, so we feel the same vibe. Although it’s
d u b / 84
a different music, we try to do the same thing with the music.”128 Sly and
Robbie purveyed ganja-inspired, low-frequency dominated music during
a revolutionary period in Jamaican music and culture, and Sly’s comments
serve as the perfect local grounding for the observations of R. Murray
Schaefer concerning the rise of low frequencies in popular music: “we will
recall that the vibratory effects of high-intensity, low frequency noise,
which have the power to ‘touch’ listeners, had first been experienced in
thunder, then in the church where the bombardon of the organ had made
the pews wobble under the Christians, and finally had been transferred to
the cacophanies of the eighteenth-century factory . . . the ‘good vibes’ of
the sixties promised an alternative lifestyle. What was happening was that
the new counterculture . . . was actually stealing the Sacred Noise from the
camp of the industrialists and setting it up in the hearts and communes of
the hippies.”129
Curiously, Murray neglects to mention the sounds of warfare, which—
in addition to being one of the dominant soundscapes of the twentieth
century—is certainly a dominant influence on the Jamaican sound system
(itself essentially a form of low-frequency class and professional warfare).
In any case, it was the revived festival ethos of rave culture and the contem-
porary boom in electronic dance musics that stimulated a renewed interest
in dub music and its pioneers. The fusion of dub-inspired soundscaping,
hip-hop production techniques, postdisco club-based dance styles, digital
sound technology, and the digitally reconstituted visual iconography of
1960s psychedelia gradually fused from the 1980s to ignite the electronica
boom.130 In this light, dub might be at least partially positioned as a form
of psychedelic Caribbean, proto-electronica.
In the Sound System

The Selector as Macrocomposer
Up to this point, I have largely focused on the aesthetics of the dub mix
as a recorded form, a theme to which I shall return in chapters 3 through 6.
But these pieces were not conceived for home listening so much as they
were for play in the sound systems; as such, much of the drama of the dub
mix is lost when played at the comparatively low volume levels of home
audio equipment. Virtually all musicians agreed with Mikey Dread’s feel-
ing: “When you listen to a dub at your house, it sounds different than
when you go to a Jamaican dance where they string up a series of maybe
half a dozen double-sixteen or double-eighteen inch woofers, and you have
some horns playing midrange and some tweeters playing the top end. It

sounds different outdoors than you can ever imagine it indoors, listening
to a headphone or listening to a little boombox or in your car. So, the dub
have a different dimension that you can’t get through the speakers [at
home].”131
This commentary leads us again to the primary contexts in the dissemi-
nation of dub music, the sound system dances and dancehalls. It is these
sites that provide yet another level of reconfiguration, a site in which, in the
words of Norman Stolzoff, prerecorded music is given a new life.132 By
most accounts, the most popular sound systems of the early-to-mid 1970s
included King Tubby’s Hometown Hi-Fi, Arrows the Ambassador (also
known as Arrows International), Tippatone, and Emperor Faith. Other
prominent sounds of the time would include King Attorney, Black Har-
mony, and Ray Symbolic. It was in the dances held by these outfits, that a
dub mix was usually augmented with a live deejay, and sometimes even
through the manipulation of a sound system’s equipment. While not
nearly so elaborate as the sound processing equipment in a recording stu-
dio, sound system selectors were able to achieve fairly dramatic effects in
the moment due to the immense volume and spatial control at their dispo-
sal, altering the sound of a piece by varying the equalization (bass and tre-
ble) controls on their amplifiers. For example, the Arrows sound system
was known for the way its selectors would suddenly reduce the bass fre-
quencies to a minimum while pushing the treble frequencies to the maxi-
mum setting. The result was a high-end sound that earned them the nick-
name “the flying sound.”133 Part of the excitement of this variance was the
particularly dramatic effect created when the selector reintroduced the bass
frequencies (as previously mentioned, this top-heavy mixing strategy
began to be reproduced on commercial dub recordings shortly thereafter).
Despite the comparative limitations of sound system equipment, even ru-
dimentary manipulations like these caused quite a dramatic sonic effect in
the dancehall.
These songs also acquire new meaning when strung together by the se-
lector into extended “sets,” comprising a string of individual songs (the
local term for this process of connecting songs based on the same riddim is
“juggling”).134 In this sense the selector, characterized by Stolzoff as the
“musical director” of the sound system event, becomes a type of “macro-
composer” creating a new metacomposition that is thematically cohesive
and configured to the social dynamics of the dance. Interestingly, the strat-
egy of disruption, previously cited as a micromusical characteristic of the
dub mix, is reasserted in the selector’s on-the-spot composition of a set. In
most DJ cultures around the world, the DJ’s ideal is to mix pieces of music
seamlessly into each other, typified by concepts such as “beat matching” or
d u b / 86
“beat mixing,” a skill that allows a DJ to create an imperceptible transition
between two pieces of similar tempo.135 In Jamaica, however, the opposite
is often the rule. For the most part, transitions in sound systems sets are
marked by abrupt transitions and interruptions typified by the DJ’s com-
mand to the selector to “pull up” or “haul and come again”; that is, to inter-
rupt the music violently and abruptly, in order to return to the beginning
of the track. This disruption is such a central strategy of recent Jamaican
popular music that live reggae bands have even incorporated the “pull-up”
into their stage performances.
Sample Mix and Sound System Excerpt

Leo Graham: “Three Blind Mice” > King Tubby & The Upsetters:
“Three Times Three” > Jah Love Sound System (Featuring Deejays
Brigadier Jerry, Josey Wales & Charlie Chaplin): Set Excerpt
Including “Three Times Three” (ca. early 1980s)
With its scratchy, percussive articulation and syncopation of the “one
drop” rhythm pattern, Leo Graham’s “Three Blind Mice” is a typical early
1970s Lee Perry production.136 The song proceeds at a slow tempo of ap-
proximately quarter note = 63 bpm, and is mostly based on the following
six-measure chord sequence in F major:
|| F C7 F F | F C7 F F | F B™ F F | F B™ F F | F B™ F F | F C7 F F ||
The sequence underneath Graham’s verses is altered to:
|| F C7 F F | F C7 F F | F B™ F F| F C7 F F|
| F B™ F F | F B™ F F | F B™ F F | F C7 F F ||
The chord sequence is anchored by a halting, 6-note bass line, doubled
in octave unison by one of two guitarists; the other guitarist plays the up-
beat chordal pattern. After a harmonized trumpet and saxophone theme
(based on the melody of the children’s song “Three Blind Mice”), Leo Gra-
ham sings a medley of children’s songs adapted to Jamaican themes, as the
horns play a harmonized background line of upbeat accents along with the
chordal instruments. Graham’s verses are separated by a second statement
of the horn theme; following his second verse, the theme plays a third and
final time as the song fades.
King Tubby’s remix, “Three Times Three,” marked by a much starker
and aggressive mood, is typical of his early work. The most immediate
difference here is that the vocals have been entirely removed, and the em-
phasis placed on the drum & bass. With the tape speed noticeably slowed,
the bass is heavier in the mix, the tonality lowered approximately a quar-
ter tone to the midpoint between the keys of E major and F major, and
the tempo approximately lowered to quarter note = 58 bpm. The guitar
and piano, playing the upbeat chordal pattern, are heard intermittently

throughout (usually at the beginning of a chorus). In the absence of
Graham’s vocal, three elements define the new mix. The first is the horn
theme, which remains from the vocal take and is now the song’s primary
organizing element. The second is King Tubby’s application of filtering to
the drum set, which introduces an improvised textural element into the re-
petitive rhythm structure. The third is the technique of drop-out, which
occurs here at approximately 1:40, when the drum set drops momentarily
out of the mix.
King Tubby’s dub mix of “Three Blind Mice” is the point of departure
at an early 1980s session of the Jah Love sound system, captured on a com-
mercial cassette I purchased in March 2002 from Mackie’s, a roadside cas-
sette vendor at Half Way Tree in Kingston. This session features the DJ
Brigadier Jerry, alternately improvising lyrics based on the “Three Blind
Mice” theme and scatting nonliteral rhythmic phrases. Assuming the speed
of the original recording is correct, the playback speed of the record has
been lowered by an additional quarter tone, now placing the key squarely
in E major. Even as captured by an inexpensive hand-held microphone in
the audience, it is obvious that the bass frequencies have been emphasized
by the selector to a greater degree than in the original dub mix. At 2:05, the
track is abruptly interrupted, and Brigadier Jerry uses the break in the music
to inform the crowd of the system’s upcoming events. At 2:25, the track
starts again from the beginning, with Brigadier Jerry intermittently joined
by the deejays Josey Wales and Charlie Chaplin, improvising a lyrical theme
based on Max Romeo’s 1973 song “Every Man Ought to Know,” which
adapted the lyrics of a well-known hymn to a Rastafarian theme.137
It is interesting to note that “Everybody Should Know” is based on the
four-measure chord sequence:
|| F C7 F F | F C7 F F| C7 | F C7 F F||
that differs from the six-measure chord sequence underlying “Three Blind
Mice.” As a result, there are essentially two planes of harmony operating si-
multaneously here: the harmony present in the original recording and the
harmony implied by the DJs’ superimposed singing over the original track.
The track plays to its full conclusion this time, ending at approximately
five minutes into this portion of the dance. Brigadier Jerry and the other
DJs continue to chat with the crowd until the selector puts up a different
record and the dance continues.
The dancehall is not the only context in which audiences can enjoy per-
formances such as those described above. These dancehall metacomposi-
tions are often circulated on sound system cassettes sold by street vendors
around Kingston, and subject to a varying combination of drop-outs, talk-
overs, degenerating fidelity (as cassettes are copied and recopied over several
d u b / 88
“generations”), and sound effects overdubbed by the vendors themselves.
As such, the street-sold sound system cassette can be analysed as constitut-
ing an art form within itself that in turn feeds back into studio practice. In
this way, dub became vertically integrated into the musical culture of Ja-
maica. Robbie Shakespeare acknowledged this: “Everytime you mention
dub, you have to get to so many people, you can’t remember some of them
often. Tubbys have to come up. Bunny Lee have to come up. Niney,
Scratch, Channel One, Coxsone, Treasure Isle. You have to name the musi-
cians. The sound operator with him dub plate. You have to name the little
man who used to believe inna it and walk and sell it on the street. So much
people fe get credit. You have to just give the whole music fraternity—the
old school—the credit.”138
So, as much as these songs can be analysed as individual works, they
need to be understood in terms of the macroset of the sound system, and in
terms of its broader role within the audio culture of Jamaica.
Economic Implications of Version-based Music

Dub appealed to human greed and spiritual need. Not only outmaneuvering the
scientists and eccentrics by appealing to both body and intellect, its overground ex-
posure and structural liberation provided the perfect recycling product for mass
consumption. With the timely advent of “version,” its manufactured addictive-
ness was guaranteed.—Kevin Martin, from the notes to Macro Dub Infection
As a remixed piece of music, the dub mix manipulates a listener’s mem-

ory in several ways. Much of the genre’s compositional tension is generated
through subversion of the listener’s expectations, based on the vocal song
with which they are previously familiar. More generally, the dub mix ma-
nipulates a listener’s basic expectation of the standard formal progression
between verse and refrain, between tension and release, and basic continu-
ity of groove. It is these various modes of yearning for formal “complete-
ness” that are central to the experience of dub and I make the point here
that this yearning must be at least partially satisfied in the marketplace. As
Max Romeo states, the success of the dub version “has to do with how big
a hit the vocal was; the people getting used to hearing the vocal and there-
fore they get off on the dub . . . it gets more listenership because the people
dancing to the dub music also will buy the actual single to hear all the
words of the song.”139 With its shards of previous vocals, the version effec-
tively acts as an advertisement for other versions. Paul Gilroy sees the ver-
sion functioning in the marketplace as “a calculated invitation to embark on
an archaeological operation, tracing [a song] back to its original ver-
sion.”140 Given the reality of multitrack recording, however, even this idea
of an “original” version must be problematized. Where, exactly, does the

“original” version of an endlessly reconfigurable form exist? Is it the mate-
rial documented at the initial recording session? The first commercially-
released version? The version most familiar to the public? The “archaeolog-
ical operation” is potentially endless in this perpetually unfinished form.
In his discussion of postmodern arts, Frederic Jameson refers to forms
that replicate and reproduce the logic of consumer capitalism, resulting in
an “aesthetic of the commodity” that reflects a deep interpenetration of the
aesthetic and economic.141 We can use Jameson’s observation to draw a
distinction between dub as an aesthetic process, and its presence in the mar-
ketplace as product. The compositional “hyperreality” that results from the
dizzying progression of versions is both a reflection of the manipulative
potential of multitrack technology and an aestheticized sublimation of the
profit motive.142 The sound of dub is the sound of profit consolidation, as
fiercely competitive producers do their best to maximize profits from suc-
cessive reconfigurations of minimal source material. Finally, dub is, very
literally, the sound of competition. As we have seen, one reason songs were
deconstructed in the first place was to clear a space for the DJ’s patter, itself
a form of promotion meant to sell records, advertise the sound system, and
lambaste competing systems. Thus, the version-encrusted song surface of
the dub mix is simultaneously a signifier of the engineer’s musical artistry, a
visceral sonic signifier of the work’s ritual history in the sound system, and
(like torn layers of advertisements on a billboard) a signifier of a song’s
commodity history in which producers fought to sell consumers serially
manipulated versions of old music with minor variations.
The process versus product distinction allows us to understand how (1)
the practices of dub music work to subvert various hegemonic economic
structures of the music industry, and (2) despite this, Jamaican musicians
and songwriters continue to feel cheated in terms of compensation for their
creative labor. The situation in Jamaica is not unique. Michael Chanan has
observed that the early years of the recording industry were crucial in es-
tablishing the industry’s long-term capital base: musical traditions that had
previously only existed in oral form (and were thus considered “public do-
main” folk forms exempt from claims of individual authorship) were being
concretized into commodities that could generate long-term profit.143
Quite possibly, Jamaica is a vivid example of this integration into the
world music economy taking place in a very short and intensive period of
time, with the technologies of reproduction raising the stakes exponen-
tially. Intellectual property issues began to consolidate in eighteenth-
century Europe, following three centuries during which the invention
and dissemination of the printing press gave rise to the need to regulate
stored information. This need was also concurrent with the rise of new
d u b / 90
and significant ideas regarding the centrality of individuals and individual
creators (typified by the exaltation of art music composers), and the simul-
taneous erection of legal structures for the protection of expanding indus-
try.144 Jamaican musical traditions, on the other hand, had remained orally
based until the era of sound recording and never passed through the inter-
mediate stage of printed music that was fundamental to the establishment
of copyright norms in Europe and the United States. Consequently (and
despite the presence of scores of talented musicians and songwriters), the
idea of music as the de facto property of the “public domain” remained in-
fluential well into the 1970s and largely holds true today. The very use of a
term like “dub” as a genre designation generated by the studio-based pro-
cedures of musical reproduction and reconfiguration, exists in direct sub-
version of the notion of “copyright” (which, in literal terms, regulates
which parties have the legal right to copy). And certainly, this state of affairs
was further complicated by the unusual nature of the music itself, which in-
troduced ambiguity into the musical criteria upon which claims of author-
ship and originality could be based.145
This issue only became pressing when Jamaican artists such as Bob Mar-
ley began to reap large profits from their international recording activities.
The entire industry entered a turbulent restructuring process; reggae prior
to Marley had been merely another local island style and, as many Jamaican
musicians explained to me, “no one ever thought it would get that big.” It
was the producers, situated as middleman between artists and foreign
music corporations, who stood to benefit most from this state of affairs.
Similarly to the place of resales in the market for visual artworks, the origi-
nal musicians receive no proceeds from successive versions; they were only
paid once at the original session. It was for this reason that all version-
derived music was temporarily banned from Jamaican radio for a period in
the 1970s, because of pressure from the musician’s union.146 This might
seem a significant victory for musicians but, as we have seen, the radio net-
works could not compare to the sound systems as disseminators of popular
music. Even as copyright regulations are gradually implemented, they will
likely benefit producers more that artists: copyright laws ultimately benefit
the controllers of recordings more than the actual creators of recordings147
and Jamaican producers continue to maintain vertical control over the pro-
duction and manufacturing of music.
There are broader consequences of this state of affairs. In Jamaica, the
lack of preserving and documenting institutions (such as stable traditions
of music journalism and music scholarship), the vagaries of the local mar-
ket, and an international market eager to exploit this situation—all im-
plies a common situation in the history of black musics. Instead of being

recognized as an important and generative moment in the history of popu-
lar music, dub runs the risk of becoming a mere footnote to those subse-
quent musical movements built upon its innovations. Timothy Taylor, for
example, warns that although contemporary “electronica” has strong ante-
cedents in black dance music, historical writings tend to construct its his-
tory as based in the Western tradition of experimental/electronic music.148
This situation is not new within the historicizing of black popular musics.
In the 1950s, Ralph Ellison observed this same process taking place in the
historicizing of jazz music. “Being devoted to an art which traditionally
thrives on improvisation, these artists often have their most original ideas
enter the public domain almost as rapidly as they are conceived to be
quickly absorbed into the thought and technique of their fellows. Thus the
riffs which swung the dancers and the band on some transcendent evening,
and which inspired others to competitive flights of invention, become all
too swiftly a part of the general style, leaving the originator as anonymous
as the creators of the architecture called Gothic.”149
The situation can be placed into broader cultural and historical perspec-
tive by Chinua Achebe’s observations on the tradition of Igbo mbari
houses in Nigeria, a fairly typical West African conceptual antecedent that
recalls the fluid formal structure of some West African performance prac-
tices (and, in a more philosophical sense, the more general grounding of
African arts in the demands of specific occasions, with less value placed on
preservation than on the moment):
The purposeful neglect of the painstakingly and devoutly accomplished mbari

houses with all the art objects in them as soon as the primary mandate of their crea-
tion has been served, provides a significant insight into the Igbo aesthetic value as
process rather than product. Process is motion while product is rest. When the
product is preserved or venerated, the impulse to repeat the process is compro-
mised. Therefore the Igbo choose to eliminate and retain the process so that every
occasion and every generation will receive its own impulse and experience of crea-
tion. Interestingly this aesthetic disposition receives powerful endorsement from
the tropical climate which provides an abundance of materials for making art, such
as wood, as well as formidable agencies of dissolution, such as humidity and the ter-
mite. Visitors to Igboland are shocked to see that artifacts are rarely accorded any
particular value on the basis of age alone.150
It will probably be a while before the complicated issues surrounding

version-based music in Jamaica are worked out to the satisfaction of the
various parties involved. We can read in the comments of Ellison and
Achebe an interpretation that dub’s functional departure from Western au-
thorial ideals was historically facilitated by certain cultural factors that sur-
vived the transition to the diaspora, and that this tendency has been rein-
forced in more recent history by economic factors unique to the Jamaican
d u b / 92
music industry. Ultimately, the body of social practices that make up the
Jamaican music industry imply that the vanguard of Jamaican music will
remain an art form in flux, ultimately configured to the improvisational
dynamics of an oral culture.
The engineers who created dub in the 1970s were working within very lim-
ited technical means; Errol Thompson, Lee Perry, and the engineers at
Tubby’s were all initially working on four- or eight-channel mixing con-
soles, and had limited sound processing equipment at their disposal. Al-
though their remix decisions were certainly predicated upon musical crite-
ria, the fact that engineers fashioned themselves as “scientists” (that is,
technicians) meant that in some ways, they were in an ideal position to
guide reggae’s stylistic traits beyond its traditionally “musical” norms. In
this way, they might be considered important forerunners of the digital age
of popular music production, in which reconfiguration has become more
important as a compositional strategy than traditional conceptions of com-
position. The works they created are a testament to their ingenuity and
creativity. Many musicians echoed the sentiments of Computer Paul:
What I know that is genius about dub music is it defied all the principles of record-
ing. There’s no way you can mix a dub song and don’t have your needle, like on the
mixer, going over like into the red. And American engineers say “No, no—that’s
distortion, pull it down!” You’ll never get the sound, cause that’s part of the com-
pression and the overall vibe of it. Or, “That echo is too loud!” Jamaica’s the first,
I’ve never seen anybody who was not Jamaican do it—they’d get an echo and have
the echo feeding back into itself and it keeps going and it could run for the entire
song! With that tape echo that they were using and looping back in the old days, it’s
amazing, man—it is artistic music.151
The status of technological devices is never fixed; their social applica-

tions vary greatly between cultures, and they vary between social classes
within the same culture.152 In this chapter, I have demonstrated the way
that the use of sound technology changed as it became embedded in a Ja-
maican cultural context (essentially adapted from the consumerist, domes-
tic function it had come to serve in middle America). This different concep-
tion of what this technology represented (and the uses to which it could be
put) was cultural and class-based; it also demonstrated the ways that both
creative artists and consumers often devise differing applications of techno-
logical devices than those envisioned and/or intended by their creators.153
If reggae of the 1970s represented the cutting edge of popular cultural
consciousness in the Anglophone Caribbean, then dub (and the roots
rhythms upon which it was based) would become the musical cutting edge.

Under Lee Perry, Errol Thompson, King Tubby, and many others, dub be-
came a genre and art form unto itself, with the composer acting both as de-
constructionist and soundscape architect. Virtually all reggae singles after
1972 were issued with dub versions on the flip side;154 this practice was fol-
lowed in time by both “showcase” albums (pairing both vocal and dub ver-
sions) and, eventually, entire albums consisting exclusively of dub mixes.
(The earliest such collections would include Herman Chin-Loy’s 1971 col-
lection Aquarius Dub, producer Clive Chin’s 1973 Java Java Dub, and
Prince Buster’s early 1970s The Message Dubwise.) From the early 1970s,
Perry, Tubby, and Thompson were each associated with different studios,
and would emerge as exponents of the new form. Despite their mutual ste-
wardship of the new sound, however, the dub work of these three engi-
neers would evolve along different paths as they established their individual
studio orbits. The distinctive ways in which each would elaborate his basic
dub vision model reflected their differing, pre-dub paths through Jamaica’s
studio system.
d u b / 94
chapter three
The “Backbone” of Studio One

%
Sylvan Morris’s most immediate significance in the history of Jamaican stu-

dio craft is based on his role in refining the recorded sound of ska, rock
steady, and reggae as chief engineer at Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One, and he
remains the engineer most closely associated with the studio. Given that
Studio One has never been a center for dub music, however, Morris’s semi-
nal contributions have typically been overlooked in historical accounts of
dub music. Among all the musicians I spoke with, his reputation is based
primarily on his ability to engineer live sessions; most musicians of the
roots era consider him among the country’s top engineers in terms of re-
cording live instruments. As engineer of some of the most enduring popu-
lar music ever recorded in Jamaica, however, Morris laid a crucial founda-
tion for the dub music that followed Studio One’s heyday in the 1970s. And
as engineer at Harry J studio during the roots era, he also mixed many of
the most influential recordings of dub music: Augustus Pablo’s East of the
River Nile, portions of Burning Spear’s two-volume Living Dub collec-
tion, and the first volume of Bunny Wailer’s Dubd’sco. No lesser a dub lu-
minary than Augustus Pablo praised Morris as his preferred engineer for
remixing, citing the engineer’s “spiritual” sound. Morris himself defined
dub music as “a different styling of the original which is done in many
forms.”1 This chapter is intended to put his engineering work, which spans
more than four decades, into proper perspective.
Born in Kingston in 1946, Morris had been a prodigy of sorts, working
demanding electronics jobs when most of his age mates were still students.
He remembered his first job:
I actually came into it in an unusual sense in that my parents had a friend. He used
to come and see me fool around with wires, tryin’ to make radios and all dem likkle
thing. . . . I got a basic knowledge and I started to build like some little small am-
plifiers and things. He said to my parents that I seem to have a certain knack for
this thing. So he went up by Comtech now, it’s a place that he did business with
The “Backbone” of Studio One / 95

and he seemed to have been a very good client there. It was on Easton Park Road
and they used to repair two-way radios, VHF. At that time, that was very hi-tech
in Jamaica. Because that place used to repair like the aircraft radios, the police ra-
dios and when they have any problem they would send it there. So we used to
work on those things.
At that time, if you were say fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, they didn’t really
want to take you because you were a bit too young. So I told them that I was
twenty. . . . To be truthful, my impression is that they were trying to get rid of me.
But they wanted to do it decently. So when I arrive there, them have some old ra-
dios and they just said to me “Yeah mon, here’s some radio mon, go and fix them.”
They think I would get frustrated . . . but all the radios fixed in about two weeks and
the man mouth wide open! . . . So, them put me on staff. I started go to school at
the same time—Hanover Street, Jamaica Technical High School because I had ap-
plied and got a entry. And I was working during the day, at the bench repairing
two-way radios. And at the nights I was going to school. I spent about a year and a
half with Comtech. So that was my training.2
Following a brief stint at WIRL (West Indies Records label), Morris

began to work for Byron Lee’s Dynamic Studios around 1965, where he as-
sisted Graeme Goodall as chief engineer. Morris credits Goodall as his
mentor in the recording industry:
Graeme Goodall was an engineer at the time, he was putting up the studio. Graeme
was another person who sorta brought me into the recording field, to get familiar
with the studio equipment and console and everything—he sort of schooled me
there. ’Cause the field what I was leaving from was VHF, [which is] way above
audio. He was quite a nice chap, I really have to give him commendation. He was
one of the individuals, I suppose, who sort of kept me in the business. He showed
me everything. He was like a friend to me. I mean, it was real strange to see a man of
a different nation, a white man—he treated me as if I was his son or something.3
Morris remembers joining Dynamic and assisting Goodall during a

transitional period: “I helped him put up the studio at that time. It was
three tracks, can you imagine? I know that sounds weird, but it was a three
track! Well, it jumped two to three, very quickly and then in a flash from
three to four. Because the three wasn’t feasible.”4 After a year or so at Dy-
namic, Morris moved to Duke Reid’s studio for six months before settling
in at the Brentford Road studio of Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One operation
around 1967, where he replaced Dodd’s cousin Syd Bucknor as chief engi-
neer.5 While Bucknor, Dodd, and Goodall had previously handled record-
ing duties, most Jamaican musicians and producers credit Morris with de-
veloping the distinctive sound that Studio One is known for. Morris
himself considers Studio One the turning point in his career.
At Studio One, Morris was often assisted in his engineering duties by
singer Larry Marshall, while at different times, Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles,
Richard Ace, and Robbie Lyn arranged music, ran sessions, and functioned
d u b / 96
with Morris as de facto producers. Morris recalled: “Coxsone wasn’t there
when we was doing the work. Most of the times it’s just me and the musi-
cians. Jackie Mittoo, ’cause he was musical arranger at that time, and when he
left, you had Leroy Sibbles.”6 Sibbles and keyboardist Jackie Mittoo are espe-
cially cited by many musicians as unsung heroes whose musical genius guided
Studio One into the roots era and enriched Jamaica’s bank of riddims immea-
surably. Dudley Sibley echoed the sentiments of many Jamaican musicians
when he explained: “You can’t leave out the great Jackie Mittoo. Jackie would
hardly go home. Jackie would live at Studio One. Night and day Jackie would
be at Studio One, thinking how to evolve this music. Him really play a great
part, him a the brainchild in the riddim.”7 If anything, Sibley’s comments are
an understatement, considering Mittoo’s arrangement with Dodd, under
which the keyboardist allegedly agreed to compose five new riddims per
week—theoretically totalling thirteen hundred riddims during his five-year
stint at Studio One!8
When it opened in 1963, Brentford Road was configured as a monaural
(one-track) studio. By the time of Morris’s arrival, the studio had been up-
graded to two tracks. The subsequent purchase of a second two-track re-
corder allowed him to “bounce” tracks back and forth; Morris remembered
how his attempts to maximize the capability of this limited equipment pre-
figured dub music:
Coxsone had a long console. We had two two-track machines. It was like he had
coupled two together, [resulting in] four tracks. And we feed it into two tracks. So
we’d do the riddim [that is, rhythm guitar, rhythm piano, and organ] on one, bass
& drums on one, then we’d run it from that, mix it from the same time while sing-
ing. After we did it that way, and then we’d transfer it back again. And then carry it
back again. Sometimes we did that as much as four generations. We never really do
the voicing at the same time, we just did rhythm tracks. It’s very few occasion that
we do live voices. So this is how the actual dub thing started. People couldn’t really
believe that’s two tracks we working with.9
Reggae is well known for the emphasis placed on bass lines, and Studio
One in particular was known for its bass-heavy sound. This was partially at-
tributable to the many influential bassists who passed through Brentford
Road during its heyday (including Boris Gardiner, Errol “Bagga” Walker,
Wally Cameron, and Leroy Sibbles), and partially to the role Morris played
in deliberately boosting the low end of the music:
When I used to build my sound, I noticed that the sound that I get from the back
of the speakers in them days had a bassier sound than coming from the front. The
front was stronger but there’s a very low bass sound that you get out of the back.
So I designed a box, and made two apertures at the back, right? And put a mic
there. That’s where I pick up my sound from actually, from the back of the speaker.
It’s very deep, so this is how I got a lot of those deep sounds. Plus, Coxsone had a

Pultec equalizer which sort of enhanced that sound ’cause it sorta boost the very
low 40Hz region. That’s how you get the Downbeat sound.10
Morris also explained the ways he achieved the characteristic delay heard
on Studio One recordings of the period such as Larry Marshall’s “Throw
Me Corn” or The Bassies “Things A Come Up to Bump”:11
What I did on most of the recordings in those days, I used to feed back the playback
head into the recorder, so you get this tape delay sound. If you notice on most of
the voices, if you listen very carefully you’ll hear it. This was our signature sound in
those days.
There was another thing that Coxsone brought, an instrument by the name of
Soundimension. It was made out of four heads. So you had a record head and you
had three different playback heads that could be moved around. There was a circu-
lar tape loop about a foot and a half [long]. It was a delay, similar to what I did with
the tape recorder. But that one was fixed. With this one, you could actually move
it—you could move the playback heads. So you could get different distances and
one, two, three different delay times.12
The Soundimension was a freestanding echo unit that was the creation
of Ivor Arbiter, a British technician best known for his Fuzz Face distor-
tion pedal and Sound City line of amplifiers, used by many leading British
rock guitarists of the 1960s and 1970s. His tape-based echo unit remained
popular during the late 1960s, even though tape-based echo systems were
gradually being replaced by newer technologies. Arbiter advertised the
Soundimension as a “compact portable device, providing echo and rever-
beration effects when used in conjunction with any audio amplifying
system. . . . Effects possible within the Soundimension include single echo
repetitions with variable delay, multiple ‘flutter’ echoes, and simulated re-
verberation giving if required, the atmosphere of a large concert hall.”13 In
Sylvan Morris’s hands, it was these effects that helped create the classic Stu-
dio One sound. Coxsone Dodd, in fact, was so taken by the unit that he
named one of his session bands the “Sound Dimension.”14 Equally signifi-
cant, as Morris recalls, the Soundimension’s effects were gradually incor-
porated into instrumental playing techniques:
This brother named Eric Frater, them call him “Rickenbacker.” He was one of the
innovators of the “chenking” on the guitar [that is, the characteristic upbeat strum
pattern]. So, when he played the “chenk” on the guitar we’d get it now with delay
so you’d get “che–kenk.” Or “che–ke–chenk,” depending upon how you put it.
From there, [other guitarists] were trying to create it not realizing it was a piece of
equipment that we were using! So they actually played it themselves. And after the
equipment broke down sometimes, Eric would start to create it himself.15
The Soundimension was one of the few sound processors in Studio

One’s setup for quite a while, although Morris relates: “There was lot of
d u b / 98
processors we used after a while. I wasn’t really a specializer. I could use
anything.”16 The minimal equipment resulted in a characteristic sound.
Paul “Computer Paul” Henton echoed the prevalent description of the
studio’s sound when he opined: “If you listen to Studio One, there’s no
clarity. But the music was so good that it compensated for the loss of engi-
neering quality. You just felt it.”17 Henton’s comments should not be con-
strued as deriding the engineering skills of Morris, who was cited by all the
musicians and engineers I spoke with as one of Jamaica’s finest engineers.
More likely, it reflected the limitations of the equipment Morris had at his
disposal. He described his solution to the technical limitations he encoun-
tered at Brentford Road:
What was happening down there, I’m gonna be totally frank to you—some of the
mics, they had taken such a battering before I came there that they weren’t really giv-
ing out the right frequencies, seen? There were some of the mics that didn’t have any
[high frequencies], some of them that didn’t have any bottom. Their frequencies
[were] all over the spectrum. I realized it because when I go and I listen to the piano,
or when I put the mic on the piano, the sound that I get, I’m not getting the full
range. So what I had to do was actually create the sound that I heard when I lis-
tened—the real sound that I thought I heard. So this is how come I came to be this
type of engineer. Because I had to get the sound in my head—the sound of the actual
instrument or the singer or whoever, [and reproduce it through] the electronics.18
However the sound was achieved, Morris’s tenure coincided with Stu-
dio One’s most commercially successful period. With brilliant musicians
such as Mittoo, Sibbles, and many others involved, Studio One hit a sec-
ond peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s as reggae developed out of rock
steady. Similarly to Lee Perry’s work with the Wailers from the same pe-
riod, Coxsone Dodd was in tune with the changing cultural mood and had
found a profitable equation between pop songcraft and Rastafarian senti-
ment with artists such as Horace Andy and the Gladiators.19
Sylvan Morris on the Mix I

Carlton and the Shoes: “Love Me Forever”
In technical terms, a facility such as Studio One was not on par with Ameri-
can and British studios of the time, and it is to Morris’s credit as an engineer
that a song like Carlton and the Shoes’ 1968 “Love Me Forever”20 achieves
production values roughly on par with international standards while still re-
flecting a characteristically Jamaican aesthetic. The song is introduced by a
harmonized saxophone and trombone theme, mixed dry and very forward
in the recording. As with most rock steady songs, the unison guitar and bass
line is very prominent in the mix, even overshadowing the drum set al-
though the one drop bass drum pattern is very audible. This is not a prob-
lem for the rhythm per se, as the drum set is buttressed by a driving,

sixteenth-note tambourine pattern that blends in with the hi-hat.21 Typi-
cally, the rhythm piano and rhythm guitar occupy the same central region of
the sound space, having all been recorded onto the same track and blended
together through the application of reverberation. Overall the rhythm track
is best described as having a very warm, bottom-heavy sound. The harmon-
ized vocals of Carlton Manning and the backing vocalists are positioned in
the foreground, a mild delay blurring the edges of the singing very slightly,
and setting them apart from the instrumental backing. A tenor sax plays
interlocking syncopations between the vocals and the rhythm section. The
sound Morris achieves here is not dramatically different from that which
was being produced on thousands of rhythm and blues and rock and roll
records of the period.
Larry Marshall, “Throw Me Corn”

Considered by many to be one of the great Studio One songs, Larry
Marshall’s proverbial “Throw Me Corn”22 is mixed in a very different fash-
ion. From the beginning, it is clear that the tracks here have been
“bounced” back and forth several times to accomodate Marshall’s double-
tracked vocals, which are mixed far to the front of the soundscape, with a
bit of flutter delay added (probably via the Soundimension). This bounc-
ing results in a sound characteristic of Studio One; over several genera-
tions, the rhythm track becomes fairly distant-sounding and the high fre-
quencies become progressively less audible, with Leroy Sibbles’s electric
bass standing out as the most audible of the rhythm instruments. The
bouncing also results in an audible layer of tape hiss. The cloudy sound of
white noise replicating through the delay unit (as heard during the first few
seconds of this track), is actually a distinctive feature of many Studio One
songs, a degeneration of fidelity that was later exploited by Lee Perry to
particularly creative effect during the Black Ark period.
Morris left Brentford Road in 1972, ostensibly due to financial disagree-

ments with Dodd. Following his departure, the bulk of the engineering
work at Brentford Road was handled by Dodd himself for several years
prior to the arrival of Overton “Scientist” Brown. Although Dodd was not
a trained recording engineer, he did have a bit of electronics experience,
having learned carpentry and built speaker cabinets in his youth.23 At-
tempting to stay abreast of the latest trends, Dodd even branched out into
dub mixing by the late 1970s, releasing records under the moniker “Dub
Specialist.” His work can be found on LPs such as Juks Incorporation, Bet-
ter Dub, Dub Store Special, and others. The earnestness with which Dodd
d u b / 100
regarded himself as an engineer is reflected, for example, by the cover of
Lone Ranger’s late 1970s Badda Dan Dem LP, which contains a sci-fi car-
toon portrait of the producer as engineer, seated at a futuristic hybrid of a
mixing desk and spaceship console. The cover art was drawn by artist Ja-
maal Pete, who provided sci-fi illustrations for several dub albums at this
time, including Scientist’s seminal Scientific Dub. I do not cite Dodd’s
work here in order to make a claim for him as an engineer on par with the
other engineers discussed in this chapter. Rather, I mention it to examine a
mixing aesthetic that is an important feature of Studio One’s 1970s output,
and that also reflects indirectly on the skills of Sylvan Morris.
Dub Specialist (Clement “Coxsone” Dodd) on the mix

The Gladiators: The Gladiators
Studio One recordings from the early 1970s have a characteristic sound typ-
ified by, for example, several tracks from the Gladiators debut LP Present-
ing the Gladiators. Although the cover information credits Dodd as sole
engineer of these sessions, several songs (such as “Hello Carol”) clearly
sound as if they have been engineered by Morris. Other tracks (such as
“Love and Meditation”) are mixed in a manner more typical of Studio One
in the mid-1970s, and seem an attempt to replicate the studio’s 1960s
sound. The thuddy-sounding bass has been recorded directly into the con-
sole and placed very prominently in the mix. The vocals of Albert Griffiths,
Clinton Fearon, and Gallimore Sutherland have been mixed flat, without
any reverb or equalization, and positioned in the mix to sound as if they are
being sung from a distant corner of the room. The drum set is audible, but
is largely indistinct in the mix; it can be felt more than heard and its role as
a timekeeper is aided by a tambourine. In standard fashion, the chordal in-
struments are clustered together in the mix and evidently subjected to a bit
of phase shifting (although this might actually be the tape-hiss effect noted
previously on “Throw Me Corn”). As raw as this mix is by professional
standards, it holds its own charm as a percussion-heavy, cloudy sound typi-
cal of many Jamaican recordings of the period. Some have also attributed
aspects of the Studio One sound to other factors. A number of musicians
have commented that Dodd was the only producer who allowed ganja to
be smoked on his premises, and cited this as an important component of a
unique studio atmosphere that was in turn reflected in the sound of the
music—especially during the 1970s.24
“Musical Science”
For the most part, Coxsone Dodd’s own dub mixes were performed on
particularly popular tracks that had been recorded during Sylvan Morris’s

tenure as engineer. “Musical Science,”25 the title and cloudy mix of which is
probably meant to evoke Obeah (Jamaica’s neo-African tradition of black
magic), is typical of Dodd’s dub mixes. Dodd didn’t possess an engineer’s
facility with studio equipment, and the mixing strategies on Dub Store Spe-
cial are minimal, mostly amounting to low-fidelity drum & bass versions
with passages of very basic drop-out. From a production and engineering
standpoint, then, the most valuable aspect of Dodd’s basic mixes is that they
allow the listener a peek at the sound and quality of Studio One’s rhythm
tracks. Compared with the earlier vocal versions mixed by Morris, these raw
mixes amount to a testament to the latter’s engineering skills; he was able—
with minimal equipment at hand—to bring the raw sound of these tracks to
a professionally competitive standard. Bunny Lee spoke for many when he
claimed: “Sylvan Morris really was the backbone of Studio One. When him
leave, you don’t really hear the Studio One sound again, it changed.”26
Morris at Harry J Studio

After leaving Studio One, Sylvan Morris’s next long-term engineering
position was at Harry Johnson’s 16-track Harry J studio on Roosevelt Ave-
nue, which had opened in 1972 with electronics installed by Bill Garnett.27
Here, his work took an interesting turn. As one of the latest and most ad-
vanced facilities on the island, Harry J’s was heavily booked by artists such
as Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, whose work was aimed toward the inter-
national market. Johnson reportedly had a deal with Island records boss
Chris Blackwell, and much of the reggae Jamaica aimed at the international
market was recorded at his studio. As such, Sylvan Morris’s work here rep-
resents the “mainstreaming” of dub techniques that originally had their or-
igins in local studios that catered to the sound systems.
At Harry J, Morris earned a reputation as a talented, temperamental en-
gineer whose work varied according to his relationship with the artist and
his opinion of the music being recorded, but who could achieve a sound
comparable to the most advanced American studios of the day.28 Morris
admits: “I hardly used to sit around the board. I used to stand when I’m re-
cording. ’Cause I want to feel the music. If them see me not dancing, they’ll
probably stop playing and ask me what’s wrong. I’d say I don’t like the bass
line, or it’s too slow, or do something else, do it over . . . and they respected
me a lot to that point.”29
One of Morris’s major achievements at Harry J’s was his engineering of
the first four albums released by Bob Marley and the Wailers on Chris
Blackwell’s Island Records. Along with Jimmy Cliff ’s soundtrack for Perry
Henzell’s film The Harder They Come, Marley’s Catch A Fire, Burnin,’
Natty Dread, and Rastaman Vibration albums were more responsible than
d u b / 102
any other for stamping Jamaican music authoritatively on the map of world
popular music. Of course, it has recently become fashionable among reg-
gae historians to emphasize Marley’s distance from Jamaica’s sound system
culture, in order to prove their own knowledge of the full breadth of Ja-
maican music. This claim is partially justified; Marley’s music and image
have been disproportionately promoted as the heart and soul of reggae
music, leading to the disregard of scores of talented Jamaican artists who
remain virtually unknown outside of the country. But only partially:
Marley’s post–Lee Perry music might not have sold in as large quantities in
Jamaica as it did internationally, but the Wailers composed many popular
riddims during their Island years (1972–1981), a number of which were re-
recorded by other artists, and which eventually entered the canon of ge-
neric riddims.
The truth of the matter is that Marley’s music for Island Records broke
new ground, and in no way so much as in the recorded sound of the music.
The mixing of Marley’s music dramatized his position at the forefront of
Jamaica’s musical and cultural vanguard, while simultaneously proclaiming
Jamaica’s important cultural presence in the postcolonial world order. The
aggressive bass lines of Aston Barrett were as tough as anything being pro-
duced in Jamaica, and rank among the most celebrated riddims of the roots
era. The interplay of Carlton Barrett’s drum set and Bunny Wailer and/or
Seeco Patterson’s Nyabinghi-influenced hand percussion work brought a
thick African undertone to the music. What set Marley’s music apart was
the clean, precise way in which the rhythm tracks were recorded, calculated
to make them attractive to the international audience. This was a significant
departure from the distorted, drum & bass orientation of most dancehall-
oriented reggae. Comparison of Marley’s recordings with cover versions of
his songs by other Jamaican artists demonstrates the specific choices that
were made in the production of his music.
Sylvan Morris Vs. King Tubby, On The Mix

Bob Marley & The Wailers: “Crazy Baldhead” / Johnny Clarke:
“Crazy Baldhead Man”
Certainly one of Marley’s most enduring riddims, “Crazy Baldhead”30 is
given a mix that pushes Aston Barrett’s bluesy bass riff to the foreground.
Strictly speaking, the song is not mixed in a drum & bass style, as chordal
instruments can be heard. Nevertheless, they are placed very low in the mix
while the bass line is doubled by the second guitar and possibly a keyboard
bass as well. This bass line, along with Carlton Barrett’s one drop pattern
(which emphasizes a hi-hat pattern playing quarter-note triplets against the
bass), is undeniably central to the song, and provides a stark foundation for

Marley’s jazz-inflected vocal phrasing. Yet, as powerful as Barrett’s line is
on its own terms, it is given extra power by an unprecedented clarity in the
recording. The final mix of “Crazy Baldhead” was not actually done by Syl-
van Morris; it is credited to Chris Blackwell and Aston Barrett and was
completed in England. But such a powerful mix could not have been pos-
sible without the clarity Morris achieved in recording the basic tracks at
Harry J’s. One relevant definition of “clarity” in this context would relate
to the boosting of the high end in the mix, in a manner typical of British
rock production of the period, aimed at the American market. Alex Sadkin,
an engineer at Criteria Studios in Miami (who also engineered some of
Marley’s Island-era music), commented: “When I started at Island Records
. . . the first thing I noticed about working with [Island president Chris
Blackwell] was that they always had the hi-hat really bright and loud on
British records, whereas it wasn’t like that on American recordings. . . . So I
started hearing a whole different kind of sound picture [i.e. in relation to
Jamaican music].”31
Johnny Clarke’s cover of “Crazy Baldhead,” on the other hand, was
produced by Bunny Lee and mixed by King Tubby; it paints a very differ-
ent sound picture. Clarke’s version is strong on its own terms, yet differ-
ent terms than those that shaped Marley’s original. Clarke retains Marley’s
original lyric and phrasing; sonically, however, the track forgoes the politi-
cal fervor and brooding quality of Marley’s version for a more uptempo
interpretation driven by a dance-friendly tambourine. The rhythm track,
probably recorded at Dynamic or Channel One with the Aggrovators as
backing musicians, lacks the high-end clarity of the original, while the
Aggrovators’ articulation is a bit softer, lacking the hard edge of the Bar-
rett brothers. With the chordal instruments playing throughout and
mixed fairly frontally, Clarke’s version is ironically less drum & bass–
oriented than Marley’s but probably more effective as a dance track in the
dancehall setting.
It is worth mentioning here that in his international phase, very few of
Marley’s pieces were remixed into dub versions.32 In Aston Barrett’s recol-
lections, this abstention was largely to avoid compromising the messages in
the song lyrics. According to both Barrett and Marley’s engineer Errol
Brown, however, a dub album had been planned, but was shelved by
Marley’s death in 1981: “We were leaving that to do at a later time. We were
just giving them the full course—breaking the message to four corner of
the earth, you know? But we [would] do some local mix in Jamaica, or we
mix some dub, rough mix for the sound system guys. Myself, of course,
and the engineer [Errol Brown], we would put them together at our place
d u b / 104
at Hope Road. Errol Brown would come and call me and say ‘It’s your time
now.’ Come tone up that foot drum and get that hard snare and that
bass.”33 Brown himself recalled that an album of Marley dubs had actually
been prepared, but was never released aside from a few dub plates for
Barrett’s sound system: “We did a couple, I remember ‘One Drop’ and
‘Ambush’ and a couple of others from Survival. We did a dub LP but they
never put it out. Aston Barrett had a sound [system], and we just did some
dub things for his sound.”34
So, while Marley’s music departed from the drum & bass aesthetic of-
fered in Jamaica’s dancehalls, the recordings suggest that Sylvan Morris, as
well as other members of Marley’s production/engineering team (such as
Blackwell, Sadkin, and Brown) were committed to a vision of drum & bass
as the musical and conceptual cornerstone of Jamaican reggae, while simul-
taneously dedicated to the elevation of drum & bass to a standard compar-
able with work being produced in the world’s most sophisticated recording
studios. As Barrett’s comments illustrate, this achievement was the result of
several engineers’ contributions over time, and culminated in the construc-
tion of Marley’s own Tuff Gong studio, located in the back of his home on
Hope Road:
Our first engineer was Errol Thompson [at Randy’s]. He was good, still good up
until today. I teach him a lot of new tricks, you know . . . to get that drum sound
which is the heartbeat of the people. We did some of the early tracks at Harry J with
Syl Morris. That’s the main man, he do all those tracks. He’s a good man because
he’s coming from Studio One. And we take it up in England and finish the over-
dubbing. Because Harry J studio was 16-track. We go over to England and transfer
them to 24-track. The next engineer was Karl Pitterson. He had experience too
from Dynamic Sound. We bring him into Tuff Gong and to work with us on the
road too. And then the next one what come in professionally was Errol Brown. His
uncle [Byron Smith] was engineer for Duke Reid. . . . We set up the best studio, not
only in Jamaica but in the whole Caribbean. And the best pressing plant, Auto-
matic. Press two 45 at once and two LP at once.35
Brown himself agreed that Tuff Gong represented a new era of fidelity in
Jamaican music: “All the old studios, Treasure Isle and Federal, they didn’t
have no top end. When I got to Treasure Isle, we used the filter to bring up
highs that wasn’t there before. So it was just a vision from my youth, be-
cause I always like hearing the tweeter. . . . I brought that to Marley and
Burning Spear—Hail Him and the next one, Farover. Plus, I like to hear
separation in the instruments, where you can pick out the instruments out
in the mix. Now, it started to sound normal. ’Cause we were set up for it.”36
Similar observations can be made about Sylvan Morris’s dub work; the
challenge at Harry J’s would be to approximate the raw, “ghetto” sound

typical of dub music produced at studios like King Tubby’s and Channel
One, while working with tracks that had been recorded on more sophisti-
cated equipment. Mikey Dread’s position on this was representative of sev-
eral Jamaican musicians, who felt that dub needs to be mixed on fairly sim-
ple equipment in order to retain a direct and authentically Jamaican feel:
“It’s more flexible when you have less controls to work with than when you
have a big board, because it’s just like you’re like a kid in a candy store.
You’re gonna want to mess around with everything. . . . Like the foreign
dub, the stuff that they do outside of Jamaica. They get too carried
away.”37 Robbie Shakespeare, on the other hand, preferred the flexibility
and detail made possible by more tracks: “The Tubby’s days was four-track.
The drum and bass would be tied to one track, the riddim to one track, and
then two tracks would be for vocals. And sometimes they would put drums
on one track, bass on one track, riddim on one track, and one track for just
vocals. Compare that to now where every instrument is on a track by itself.
You can do a lot more tightening up with it.”38
Morris’s dub mixing seems to reflect Shakespeare’s position. His mixes
do not challenge the capabilities of his equipment in the same edgy way as
do King Tubby’s, nor are they so whimsically creative as Lee Perry’s.
Rather, Morris’s mixes tend to be restrained and finely detailed in a way
that reflects a precise technical knowledge of his equipment and a methodi-
cal approach to the art of the dub mix.
Sylvan Morris on the Mix III

Augustus Pablo: “Natural Way” > Sylvan Morris: “Nature Dub”;
Bunny Wailer: “Armagideon” > Sylvan Morris: “Armageddon Dub”
Although one is instrumental and the other vocal, Augustus Pablo’s “Natu-
ral Way” and Bunny Wailer’s “Armagideon” are both suspenseful, minor-
key songs with heavy Rastafarian themes. In his dub mixes (titled “Nature
Dub” 39 and “Armageddon Dub,” respectively) Morris relies heavily upon
delay to simulate dramatic environments that extend the lyrical themes into
pure sound territory. Both mixes are crafted around the central feature of a
hi-hat that has been treated with delay to stand out in starkly in the mix. Al-
though “Nature Dub” contains remnants of Pablo’s melodica, it can really
be considered a feature for Morris’s treatment of Leroy “Horsemouth”
Wallace’s drum set playing, subjected here to a series of dramatically vary-
ing delay settings, each implying a very different spatial environment.
Morris’s dub mix of Bunny Wailer’s epochal “Armagideon” uses delay very
effectively to create pools of echoing sound that well up into tremulous
sonic squalls, creating a mood of foreboding and paranoid tension. The
d u b / 106
soundscape matches Wailer’s disembodied voice, which emerges from hid-
den corners of the mix to startle the listener with his now-fragmented nar-
rative of biblical apocalypse:
. . . nation rising up against nation . . .
. . . and from that day on, there is trouble . . .
. . . wars and rumours of wars . . .
. . . have patience my idren, have patience . . .

chapter four
“Jus’ Like a Volcano in Yuh Head!”

%
In the beginning Dynamics and the bigger men wouldn’t do it and en-
gineers such as Byron Smith and Karl Pitterson never used to mix the
dubs. Those engineers wouldn’t sit down and work the board like Tubbys.
In my knowledge he was the first and that’s how Tubbys got such fame.
All of them dub things used to carry on at Tubby’s.1
—Producer Roy Cousins
Tubbs changed the business in that time with the dub thing. Because the
other studios weren’t really into that. They were more into balancing the
songs and gettin’ it a certain way. But Tubbs changed that, people start
to look at the business from the sound. This started a whole different era.
—Philip Smart to the author, 2003
If any single figure can be considered central to the rise of dub as an in-
fluential genre, that figure would certainly be Osbourne Ruddock, profes-
sionally known as “King Tubby.”2 King Tubby, who described dub music
as “jus’ like a volcano in yuh head!”3 had a long and varied career in the Ja-
maican music industry: cutting dub plates for sound systems and produc-
ers, building and repairing electronic equipment for sound systems, operat-
ing his own sound system, founding two recording studios, and producing
original music. As such, he was involved in the sound of Jamaican music at
virtually every stage of the technical and creative process.
King Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi

Osbourne “King Tubbys” Ruddock’s impact on the sound of Jamaican
music was rooted in the years he worked as an electronics repairman and
sound system operator. Born in Kingston in 1941, King Tubby was an
electrician by trade, and a music lover by hobby. It was through repairing
electronic equipment for various Kingston sound systems that he eventu-
ally founded his own sound system in the mid-1960s, King Tubby’s
d u b / 108
Home Town Hi-Fi. The system was based in Tubby’s neighborhood of
Waterhouse, in West Kingston. He recalled to Stephen Davis that “I used
to fool round [with] sound system from 1964 as a hobby. . . . We never
really get famous until around May 1968. Top sound those times was Sir
Mike, Sir George, Kelly, and Stereo from Spanish Town. Then we came
on as Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi. We say we wasn’t going in that big,
just play in we home area which was Waterhouse. But eventually we get
big.”4 Although the “Hi-Fi” appelation was often used by sound systems
that catered to uptown clientele,5 Tubby’s sound became strongly asso-
ciated with the Waterhouse area.
By the 1970s, Jamaica’s rival political parties were beginning to court lo-
cally based sound systems around Kingston. According to Bobby Vicious,
however, Tubby’s system largely transcended these divisions, and this was
one reason for its popularity:
All the gang warfare was set up at that time [in the 1970s]. You had Emperor Faith,
which was up from the Red Hills area, so they had their following. Arrows was
from the East, and pretty much if Arrows played certain places it would be a big
war, big trouble. But Tubby’s is a sound system that could play in just about any
part of the city. Even though it was from Waterhouse, it didn’t carry just a local fol-
lowing. It wasn’t a PNP [People’s National Party] sound or a JLP [Jamaican La-
bour Party] sound. It was Tubby’s, and everybody respected that sound system.
Anybody from any area could come, and it would just make it neutral and those
dances would be great.6
Another reason for the popularity of Tubby’s system was that by 1970,
his most popular DJ was U-Roy (Ewart Beckford), who had updated the
tradition of “toasting” over prerecorded music, and almost singlehandedly
sparked the DJ boom of the 1970s with his talk-over versions of popular
Treasure Isle songs.7 So, in addition to the latest hits, Tubby was playing
stripped-down dub plate semi-instrumentals that U-Roy could toast over.8
His facility with electronics was a third factor providing King Tubby an
edge over his competitors. Many Jamaicans echoed the sentiments of
Bobby Vicious: “Nothing compared to Tubby’s. Tubby’s was the legend,
you know. And I’ve seen a lot of sound systems, man. Even today, with all
the technology we have today, you still don’t hear any sound system like
Tubby’s. They’re big and they’re huge and they’re heavy, but nothing com-
pares to the sound that Tubby had.”9 Even competitors such as Duke Reid
and Coxsone Dodd sometimes had their dub plates played on Tubby’s
system, in order to hear their product played back on optimal equipment.10
According to Lloyd Bradley, King Tubby was the first soundman to employ
separate amplifiers to boost the various frequency ranges of music he
played;11 he is also said to have been the first to employ customized sound
“Jus’ Like a Volcano in Yuh Head!” / 109

processing (such as reverb and echo effects) in the sound system to intensify
the experience for the audience.12 Philip Smart remembered an early 1970s
dance at Up Park Camp, when Tubby unveiled this latest innovation:
He unveiled delay on a sound amplifier at that dance. The first time any other sound
man ever heard delay, [was] when U-Roy came and take up the mic and say “You’re
now entertained by the number one sound in the land-land-land-land . . .” [imitates
echo]. Everybody wondering where that came from! Everybody came ’round, all
the sound enthusiasts coming and looking to see what made that sound. The next
day Tubbs was swamped. Every sound man want an amplifier, they’re making or-
ders. He didn’t give them the delay. He kept that as a secret until people found out
how he did it. It was actually a three-head cassette deck, but he had it made into the
amplifier so you couldn’t see it.13
Patrons at sound dances would even be treated to a bit of a visual specta-

cle, courtesy of King Tubby’s customized equipment: “It was beautiful to
see Tubby’s sound system. . . . To give you a description, it was two boxes
[amplifiers] about three feet wide. About eighteen inches high, by about
another eighteen inches deep. So picture these two boxes, right? The front
of them, all chrome—like a mirror, I mean chrome, both of them. And at
that time they didn’t use LEDs, so they used big lights, they were colored
lights—red, gold, green [Rasta colors], and they’re all right across the top.
So now, you see these lights and front like chrome plate and the big knobs
all across. And that was all built by Tubby’s.”14
The sound system context in turn influenced King Tubby’s studio work:
after witnessing the crowd’s response in the dancehall, he would then elab-
orate upon these effects in the laboratory setting of his studio, and eventu-
ally use them to craft records. Smart noted that every effect released on
record had first been tested on sound system audiences: “The test tone, the
delay, and rewinding the tape, the crashing of the spring reverb, all of those
things we do on the dub [plates] first, so that when them playing against
another sound it stand out. That’s where you make your engineering test.
Then the producers used them on their songs afterwards.”15
Of course, innovation in popular music has never carried a guarantee of
social acceptability. As both Scientist and Sylvan Morris recalled (see chapter
2), the music coming out of West Kingston was not readily programmed by
Jamaica’s mainstream radio stations. The growing popularity of Tubby’s
sound system was one catalyst that gradually forced it above ground and
onto the nation’s airwaves. Bunny Lee remembered: “Tubbys used to cut the
dubs for the different sound systems, including his own, that the radio never
want to play—it was strictly ghetto youths. So Tubbys’ sound was a kind of
radio station and people start to ask for it at the record shop. Eventually the
radio station have to start a play it or else them would a look stupid.”16
d u b / 110
Among sound system aficionados, King Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi re-
mains legendary in Kingston to this day. By 1970, it was among the most
popular sound systems in Kingston and remained so for several years. Ulti-
mately however, social tensions and a charged political climate doomed his
enterprise, which remained strongly associated with the rough culture of
Waterhouse. The DJ I-Roy claimed to Steve Barrow that King Tubby’s
Home Town Hi-Fi “build a name that [it] is pure bad man [who] follow
the sound now,”17 and King Tubby’s equipment was reputedly destroyed
on two occasions by hostile policemen. Bobby Vicious witnessed one such
incident that took place in Morant Bay, to the east of Kingston:
Tubbys had played two dances there before. The first dance was right across from
the Goodyear Tire factory. Very successful dance, just tons of people—half of
Kingston moved to Morant Bay [for that event]! That dance went off fine, without
a problem. So, they kept a second dance about a mile down the road from where
the first dance was. Well, people didn’t like the fact that all these people from King-
ston were moving up there. . . . At that time there was a policeman named Trinity.
They call him Trinity because he wore his guns in the side just like a Western—cow-
boy hat, boots, everything. And in the middle of the dance, Trinity came, stopped
the dance [and said] “Everybody from Kingston on this side, everybody from Mor-
ant Bay on that side.” If you’re from Morant Bay you go home. If you’re from
Kingston you get locked up—all the men. Not the women. They told Tubbys, “you
shouldn’t play back there again.”
[But] the guy who kept the second dance, did the dance again. On the same
lawn. Tubbys came, they strung up the sound. They played the first record, and
that’s when the police guy came in. We’re talking about 4 o’clock in the evening be-
cause this is how early the sound systems would come in. And [Trinity] said “I
thought I warned you guys not to play in Morant Bay anymore.” And he took his
gun out. And he fired some shots into the speakers. And [King Tubby’s famous]
chrome amplifier, he went up to the amplifier—“boom!”—put a shot right into it.
Right into the amplifier. And that was it, that dance never started, never went on.18
King Tubby’s Studio

Despite this unfortunate end, the success of both King Tubby’s Home
Town Hi-Fi and his ongoing electronics repair operation had financed his
growing home studio operation. In fact, according to Philip Smart, the elec-
tronics enterprise was Tubby’s primary source of income: “He built amplifi-
ers, that was the main thing. Building amplifiers and winding the transform-
ers. Nobody made transformers big enough for the power amplifiers that
Tubbs was building. It would be hard to get it, you have to send to England.
So Tubbs say ‘the hell with that, I’m going to wind my own.’ So him start
winding that, and the amplifier him build, him wire his own transformer for
it. And he had mad orders for amplifiers, people from all over the country. So
it was a wait. ’Cause it’s not like he did it in a mass production. He did it by
hand—he put it together himself, although he had other people working.”19

But Tubby’s reputation as an engineer was also growing at this time. In
some accounts, he had actually cut some of the U-Roy/Treasure Isle dub
plates used on his sound system (he had worked for a time as a mastering en-
gineer at Duke Reid’s downtown studio on Bond Street). Later, he began
voicing and cutting dub plates at a small studio built into the back of his
own home at 18 Dromily Avenue in Waterhouse. Bunny Lee claimed: “Tub-
bys and myself start that studio when U-Roy was abroad [in England], we
start voicing Slim Smith and Roy Shirley [on] some specials there. And then
from that, Lee Perry and myself just start voicing full-time. Some Slim Smith
tunes like ‘Just A Dream’ was mixed there. Before Slim died, Slim do a lot of
voicing there too. Tubby’s make a little board himself.”20
Philip Smart also remembered the original mixing board as being de-
signed and built by Tubby himself: “When I first went to Tubbs, he had
built his own console. This was in his bedroom. He had turned the bed-
room and the bathroom into the studio, that whole half of the house. He
built it from scratch, it must have been like six faders or eight faders, and
then he had one four-track [tape recorder] and the two-track [tape re-
corder] and the dub [acetate] machine. Some of the stuff he got from
Treasure Isle; I think he got the dub machine from Treasure Isle. He didn’t
even have the voice room yet when I started going there. He had a mic in
the same control room, wired up by a curtain by the window and that’s
where they voiced from, right there in the same room.”21 And Dave Hen-
dley recalled: “Tubby’s did your head in because it was actually a bedroom
or had been a bedroom, in the back of the house. There was furniture in
there like you’d have in a normal house, and light fixings. And then one
side, this crazy four-track board, a couple of four-track tape machines. So it
was weird. You had all this studio stuff like it was all in your mum’s back
bedroom. So that was slightly surreal. But the vibes there were electrifying.
Really good sound coming through two big Tannoy monitors chained to
the ceiling. The sound was really heavy, crystal clear.”22
Faders, Filters and Flying Cymbals: Enter Bunny Lee

It was after he learned of the dub plate innovations of Rudolph
“Ruddy” Redwood and the proto-dub work of Errol Thompson at
Randy’s studio, that Tubby upgraded his studio in 1972.23 He had been en-
couraged in his experiments by a number of reggae notables including Lee
Perry and especially Bunny Lee, the leading reggae producer of the mid-
1970s. Born in Kingston in 1941, Lee was one of the most successful of a
younger generation of ghetto producers that emerged to challenge the
dominance of Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd in the late 1960s. Because of
his close relationship with King Tubby and his penchant for innovation,
d u b / 112
Lee is one of the central figures in the history of dub music. Lloyd “King
Jammy” James recalled him as “a great vibes man, always boosting you up.
He would make anyone work wonders.”24 Lee became Tubby’s most con-
sistent client during this period, and helped broker Tubby’s purchase of a
MCI 4-channel mixing console from Byron Lee’s Dynamic Studio. Philip
Smart referred to Lee as “the godfather of the whole thing,” and recalled:
When producers like Bunny started to encourage Tubby to actually set up the stu-
dio, that’s when he looked into it and then he got the board from Dynamics, and he
bought the second four-track [tape recorder], so he had two, he could transfer from
four track to four track.
When they put in the new console we were doing more and more work there, con-
stantly. We were cutting maybe 200 dub [plates] a week. It was like a pressing plant.
We’d actually get tons of letters from sounds all over the country, letters coming
from all over Europe, and we would read them and cut what they asked for, and we
mail them back. So that was a whole ’nother business.
[Tubby’s] mom was living in the house with him there. He got another house
across the street and move his mom over to the other side of the street. And he
turned the whole house into everything—he had the sound [system] inside the
house, him had an office where them work on the amplifiers and design stuff. And
then him have the area where them wind the transformers.25
Founded by Grover C. “Jeep” Harned, Music Centers, Inc. (MCI) rep-

resented the cutting edge of American recording technology for more than
two decades. Harned, who was honored by the American Recording Acad-
emy in 2002 for his contributions, was an important figure in the standard-
ization of the American recording industry and his company eventually be-
came the world’s largest manufacturer of recording studio equipment.
Prior to founding MCI, Harned had served in the U.S. Army, received a
bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Mississippi State University,
and opened a home electronics/record store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
From the late 1950s, Harned worked in partnership with Mack Emerman,
whose Criteria Recording Studio in Miami quickly became one of the lead-
ing recording facilities in North America. Much of Criteria’s appeal was
due to Harned’s custom-built recording equipment; the studio was also an
important catalyst in the rise of South Florida as a major recording center
and the hub of a regional recording scene that included the Caribbean.
Thus it was hardly surprising that as Jamaica’s top recording facility, Byron
Lee’s Dynamic Studio took its cue from Criteria.26
Like many of Harned’s early consoles, the four-track MCI console at
Dynamics had been custom-built. Given Tubby’s facility with electronics, it
enjoyed a new life in at his own studio, providing Tubby a crucial edge over
his competitors and leading Scientist to remark, “Dynamics sorry the day

they sold it to him!”27 One oft-repeated piece of dub lore holds that shortly
after acquiring the board, Tubby customized it by replacing rotating vol-
ume knobs with sliding volume controls (faders) that could be used to slide
individual tracks gradually in and out of the mix.28 But while this is an
often recounted description of King Tubby’s console, it is not consistent
with the types of mixing consoles actually available at that time, most of
which were already equipped with sliding fader controls.29 Philip Smart
suggested that Tubby did not in fact replace rotating knobs with sliding
faders, but replaced the original faders with a different type that offered less
resistance to the fingers. Unlike later consoles, the MCI board was not
equipped with mute buttons, so the altered faders enabled quicker manipu-
lation of the various effects, which had to be achieved by speed of hand.
King Jammy confirmed the importance of “the faders on that board, ’cause
we could rout any effect to the faders and do it manually, so we could con-
trol the rhythm of it.”30
In any case, all of the engineers at Tubby’s studio are in agreement that
the possibilities of the MCI board had been underexploited by Syd Buck-
nor, then the engineer at Dynamics. Bunny Lee remembered: “I tell Tub-
bys, ‘Syd Bucknor didn’t know how to use this board.’ [Tubby] acquired
the board and two four-track machines that was with it. Cause Dynamics
step up their thing to eight-track now, they thought that [the other] equip-
ment was obsolete. . . . Tubbys and myself experiment with it. And it used
to have a knob on it that change the sound.”31 The “knob” that Lee refers
to is almost certainly the famous high-pass filter heard on so many of the
mixes from King Tubby’s studio. Lloyd “King Jammy” James joined King
Tubby’s studio as an engineer in 1976, and also remembered this as a dis-
tinctive feature of the MCI board: “it was a very unique board because it
was custom built for Dynamic Sounds. . . . it had things that the modern
boards nowadays don’t really have, like a high-pass filter that made some
squawky sounds when you change the frequency. . . . We would put any in-
strument through it—drums, bass, riddim, voices. That high-pass filter is
what create the unique sound at Tubby’s.”32 A large, rotating knob located
on the upper righthand portion of the console, this high-pass filter ranged
across ten settings from 70 Hz to 7.5 kHz, and provided a wider range on
the low end of the frequency spectrum than most similar circuits (which
tended to shut off around 1 kHz). This broader frequency range was what
enabled the “sweeping” sound heard on so many mixes from the studio.33
Bunny Lee’s significance extends over four decades and several stylistic
periods of Jamaican music, but he is probably best remembered for his
string of “flying cymbal” productions in the mid-1970s. As mentioned ear-
lier, the flying cymbal was a drum set pattern widely attributed to Carlton
d u b / 114
“Santa” Davis, who imported the offbeat hi-hat cymbal “splash” of disco
music and fused it with the one drop drumming pattern.34 This cymbal
splash provided the perfect springboard for the creative application of
Tubby’s high-pass filter, resulting in a corrosive, “sweeping” sound that was
particularly dramatic when heard at the high volumes of the sound system.
Bunny Lee remembered, “When I start this flying cymbal, is some outer
space thing I come with. Man, it was magic!”35 According to Philip Smart,
however, it took some time for mastering plants to adjust to this new fea-
ture: “Bunny was recording flying cymbals, I was trying to mix some of
them but it went to the mastering and it come back—they say that the highs
are too high in it and all of that.”36 In time, they perfected the effect and it
became the ideal medium for King Tubby’s experiments with the high-pass
filter. Smart also agreed that Lee’s flying cymbal sound was a perfect adver-
tisement for the studio and its unique console: “Everybody had to come
there to mix their sound to get that effect, ’cause no other console had that.
Everybody was saying ‘Bwoi, make sure you put that sound in it!’”37
The most representative collections of Bunny Lee–produced tracks fea-
turing flying cymbal drumming and creative use of the high-pass filter
would include those released under Tubby’s name (such as The Roots of
Dub and Dub From the Roots) as well as material credited to Johnny
Clarke38 and Tubby’s mixes of material produced by Winston “Niney the
Observer” Holness.39 For the most part, however, the initial mixes at
Tubby’s were performed on fairly limited equipment. According to King
Jammy: “It was four tracks you know, it was limited. We didn’t have a lot of
sound processors—we had just an echo, a reverb, the mixing console and
likkle one equalizer. We also have a unique way of using the 10 kHz test-
tone, which we turned into a form of percussion.”40 According to both
Bunny Lee and King Jammy, King Tubby often improvised homemade
delay units by using tape loops; even traditional musical instruments were
subject to modification by King Tubby. Scientist, for example, remembered
their modification of electric guitars during the early 1980s: “One of the
things we did was to take a conventional guitar and each one of the strings
would have its own output. So we could EQ any particular string, each
string it had like its own effect on it. But that’s something that you’d have
to modify a guitar to do.”41
King Tubby also relied upon less conventional procedures to realize spe-
cific effects. As with Lee Perry’s, some of the uniqueness of his sound was
achieved by deliberate abuse and misuse of his equipment. The most fre-
quently used such effect was Tubby’s technique of banging on his spring
reverb unit to produce a jarring, clangorous sound. In a spring reverb unit,
the reverberation effect is produced by passing a sound signal through a

coiled metal spring. In fact, one reason these units have fallen out of favor
over time is that vibrations in the environment tend to induce a ringing of
the spring, resulting in an unwanted “twanging” sound that can mar a re-
cording. But this was precisely the effect that King Tubby exploited for aes-
thetic purposes. Philip Smart recalled that to achieve this particular effect,
“it’s like you lift it up and drop it [the unit].”42 On “A Heavy Dub” (his
remix of Delroy Wilson’s “Just Say Who”), the intermittent fist-attacks jar
the listener violently out of the soothing, aquatic textures of Wilson’s
lover’s mood. The technique was especially effective when applied to songs
with a political or apocalyptic theme, such as “Marcus Dub” (a remix of
Johnny Clarke’s “Them Never Love Poor Marcus”). As Clarke castigates
the local politicians who betrayed Garvey to American authorities, Tubby
repeatedly pounds the reverb unit, creating a thunderous sound that im-
plies divine retribution for their actions.43
Thus, the innovative sound created at King Tubby’s was largely born
of its founder’s ingenuity. Mikey “Dread” Campbell observed: “[Tubby]
would figure out an effect he wanted and then design and construct the
circuit that would give him that . . . if the man don’t think a sound sound
like he want it, he would go into the circuitry there and then and change
it to create the particular effect he want. . . . It’s because he truly under-
stood sound, in a scientific sense, that he was able to do what he did. He
work hard, too. Even when him not at the board, he still thinking, trying
things out. Like all the great musicians practice all the time, so did King
Tubby.”44
King Tubby’s home studio was small in size, and not equipped for the re-
cording of live musicians. Rather, it was used for remixing and adding vo-
cals (“voicing”) to basic rhythm tracks that had been recorded at other stu-
dios such as Dynamic and Channel One. Nevertheless, its expansion into a
full-fledged remixing facility was the pivotal moment in the development of
dub music. Unlike other engineers who worked closely with live musicians
in the studio, Tubby worked with tapes that had been musically crafted by
other producers, and deposited with him for remixing. This emphasis on
remixing probably inclined Tubby to develop dub as a distinct form.
“Computer Paul” Henton felt: “There’s no way you can think of dub music
without thinking of King Tubbys. Because when everybody else was pro-
ducing a lot of other artists and doing other things, his focus was just on pi-
oneering that dub sound.”45
In the same light, the studio was especially conducive to the work of the
younger generation of ghetto-based producers such as Bunny Lee, Vivian
d u b / 116
“Yabby You” Jackson, Glen Brown, and Augustus Pablo who, unlike older
and more established businessmen such as Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid,
didn’t own their own studios. What these younger producers did own,
however, was the recorded material on their master tapes and, as discussed
in chapter 2, they found inventive ways to maximize the creative and mar-
ket potential of this material. From both an engineering and production
standpoint, then, dub music acquired its most strongly identified locale
with the upgrading of King Tubby’s studio to a full-fledged remix facility.
In King Jammy’s opinion, “[Tubby] developed the style that everybody
took on to. He developed the style that made dub music very popular.”46
This was a style of dub that reflected the roughness of its surroundings
as well as the rapid pace of production. Dave Hendley visited Tubby’s stu-
dio in 1977:
The reason why everyone went to Tubby’s was because it was cheap. Cheaper than
everyone else. Obviously, because you could only voice or mix. You’d go into
Tubby’s in the evening, and the backyard would just be full of artists and produc-
ers mingling. They’d be sitting on the old speaker boxes of Tubby’s Hi-Fi. The
people would wait in the backyard for their turn to go into the studio. It was pretty
constant for the engineer. People would be working the whole time, virtually non-
stop. As one session ends, another one starts. . . . Usually, the dub cutting was
done Friday evening, because most of the big dances are at the weekend. So
soundmen would come in Friday to cut the dub for the weekend dances. Or, some-
one like Bunny Lee would pitch up at seven o’clock in the evening with a suitcase
full of tapes and that’s it—Jammys would be there till like three or four in the
morning. Mixing and voicing. But there’s some phenomenal records in there of
doing four LPs in one night. They’d just run the thing once to get the timing on
the stopwatch and then just mix it. I’ve never seen anything mixed with more than
one take at Tubby’s.47
Although King Tubby didn’t work with live musicians, his dub sound
was in some ways the most organically “musical” of his contemporaries, in
the sense that his knowledge of electronic circuitry enabled him to exploit
the idiosyncrasies of his equipment in novel and inventive ways. It is pos-
sible that this attention to sonic detail also reflected his personal tastes in
music. All of his associates attest to King Tubby’s deep love of jazz, and it
seems plausible that his sensitivity to jazz’s labyrinth of split-second crea-
tive decisions was reflected in his refashioning of the multitrack mixing
board as an improvisational instrument, as well as in his pioneering of the
dub remix as an act of real-time improvisation. Thus it can be speculated
that Tubby’s urban-bred, jazz-mutated dub sound grew out of his electron-
ics expertise, his sound system experience, and his personal affinity for im-
provised music.
The pieces mixed by King Tubby tend toward the darker side of the
emotional spectrum. His early mixes were minimal in construction and

often sounded stark, moody, and suspenseful. His later mixes extended this
mood with corrosive-sounding passages of filtering, ominous trails of
echoing voices, and jarring ruptures of the song surface. Certainly, the set-
ting of the studio was a factor; by the 1970s, the Waterhouse area had be-
come so violent that local residents had nicknamed the neighborhood
“Firehouse,” and the participants on an evening mixing session at Tubby’s
would often lock themselves in the studio until dawn while gunfire raged
around them. Eventually, this culture found its way into Tubby’s mixes,
through overdubbed sounds of machine-gun fire, emergency sirens,
screeching brake tires, the bracing sound of the engineer dropping his
spring reverb unit, and the endless succession of gunplay-inspired “straight
to the head” titles. More important, it was very evident in the structure of
the sound. Whereas the work of a producer like Lee Perry was ultimately
comforting in its benevolent otherworldliness, King Tubby’s sound
seemed much more turbulently of its world. What was most provocative
was that the cutting edge of sound technology was evolving in what was
rapidly becoming one of the world’s roughest and most impoverished
areas. Remixing the heaviest riddims crafted by the ghetto’s leading pro-
ducers, the engineers at King Tubby’s transmuted the tension of daily exis-
tence into a style of music clearly emblematic of its social origins.
King Tubby on the Mix

Ken Boothe: “Silver Words” > King Tubby: “Silver Bullet”
“Silver Bullet” is King Tubby’s remix of Ken Boothe’s 1975 song “Silver
Words”48 and is typical of his early mixes, amounting to an atmospheric
excursion of drum & bass with dropouts, track bleed-through, mild filter-
ing, and echo providing compositional interest. Tubby dispenses with
Boothe’s vocal altogether, and reduces the musical accompaniment
(played here by the Soul Syndicate band) to a staccato guitar line straddling
a cloudy, compressed foundation of bass, drums, and shaker, all intermit-
tently processed through regions of mild reverberation. The most inter-
esting passages occur on the song’s bridge, which alternates between the
IV and I chords with a harmonized, legato trumpet and tenor sax line on
top. King Tubby manipulates the listener’s anticipation by his treatments
of this horn line. The line is heard just faintly on the first pass (0:43–1:09),
offering the listener the spectre of something familiar, but unattainable.
The second time through the bridge (1:50–2:15), Tubby punches in the
horns abruptly at full volume, then punches them out just as suddenly,
again denying the listener a sense of completion. In the final analysis, “Sil-
ver Bullet” is fairly basic as dub mixes go, reflecting a fairly literal interpre-
tation of “drum & bass.” Many of King Tubby’s early mixes unfold with a
d u b / 118
similarly austere sensibility. In the absence of the more sophisticated sound
processing units that he would shortly acquire, he manipulates filter set-
tings to cast different shadings above the openings he carves out of the
song surface by the dropping out of tracks.
Reggae music of the early 1970s continued to reflect the strong influence
of African American soul music, which had ramifications for the sound of
dub music as well. Many of King Tubby’s early mixes play upon the trans-
planted emotional dynamics of soul music: the vocal take of “Silver
Words” with Boothe’s soul-influenced singing; or the horn line, which is
strongly reminiscent of the Memphis Stax-Volt sound and would have
been perfectly at home on an Otis Redding or Sam & Dave recording. In
the dub version, these inherited emotional qualities, in combination with
the limited equipment at King Tubby’s disposal, result in an almost blues-
like sensibility in which expressiveness is realized within an economy of
technical means. This economy would gradually change as the studio was
upgraded, and with the emergence of more strident, “militant” rhythms
later in the decade.
Johnny Clarke: “Enter His Gates With Praise” > King Tubby: “This
Is The Hardest Version” / Dennis Brown: “Live After You” > King
Tubby: “Dubbing With The Observer”
Tubby’s use of his console’s high-pass filter was the technique that most
distinguished his work from the other engineers mixing dub music. In
King Jammy’s opinion, “That high-pass filter, that’s what made Tubby’s the
number one, the king of dub.”49 With this particular piece of circuitry at
his disposal, King Tubby established himself as dub’s foremost colorist:
using the filter to manipulate frequencies of sound in the same way a
painter manipulates frequencies of light, he was more concerned than
other engineers with the elevation of texture and timbre as primary musical
values in dub music. Several of his versions are primarily studies in textural
manipulation, the music ebbing, flowing, stretching, and contracting as he
pulls the sound through a cycle of filtered frequencies.
King Tubby’s remixes of Bunny Lee’s “flying cymbal” rhythms are par-
ticularly important in this regard. “This is the Hardest Version”50 is King
Tubby’s remix of Johnny Clarke’s “Enter Into His Gates With Praise,” a
rhythm track heavily reliant on the flying cymbal sound. After Clarke’s re-
sidual vocalizing sets up the groove, Tubby goes to work, using the faders
to reduce a six-note bass pattern to two punchy and propulsive attacks,
and the high-pass filter to gut the rhythm section, giving the bottom-
heavy drum & bass mix the tinny sonority of a transistor radio. The entire
performance, which violates most standards of fidelity in popular music, is

ultimately a feature for King Tubby’s filtered morphing of the hi-hat cym-
bals. Another such example is “Dubbing With the Observer,” which is a
remix of Dennis Brown’s “Live After You.”51 The mix begins with horns
filtered to produce a strangulated sound similar to what Lee Perry achieved
with a phase shifter in his Black Ark productions (although much harsher),
while a continuously filtered rhythm guitar is the reference point for con-
trasting passages of harsh ensemble accents.
Tommy McCook: “Death Trap” > King Tubby: “Living Style”

Tommy McCook’s “Death Trap”52 instrumental is built on a slow “flying
cymbal” pattern typical of the rhythms produced by Bunny Lee and the Ag-
grovators during the mid-1970s. This version pitches the vamp in E™ minor
with a bridge section on the A™7 chord, and McCook’s multitracked flute/sax-
ophone theme is essentially composed of two pitches harmonized a third
apart but given a much bigger impact through the heavy application of rever-
beration. The rhythm section work is typical of roots reggae, but the tempo
here is slow enough to hover between the spheres of erotic langor and ganja-
inspired near-stasis. Created from fairly sparse musical resources, the original
song’s open-ended vamp leaves Tubby little to work against in the way of ver-
tical events, while its minimalist horn theme provides little melodic material
for development. King Tubby thus follows an atmospheric remix strategy,
“softening” most of the rhythmic syncopation via the application of reverb,
and crafting an atmospheric soundscape above the drum & bass foundation.
His application of reverb elongates the simple phrases of Tommy McCook’s
saxophone and flute theme into atmospheric trails of sound that feed back
through the unit until they dissolve into squalls of harmonically ambiguous
white noise. Tubby sticks to this format of drum, bass, and space until the
song’s bridge, when he reintroduces the offbeat instruments, briefly giving
the music a funkier and more syncopated rhythmic edge. But the release of
this modulation is subverted at its end: just as the band modulates back to the
E™ minor chord, Tubby pulls the bottom out of the structure, and the har-
monic resolution dissipates in a reverberating haze of free-time flute obbli-
gato. Somewhat the sonic equivalent of J. M. W. Turner’s late seascape can-
vases (but set in the Caribbean), the ambient “Living Style” seems an exercise
in “liquidating” the tightness of the reggae groove while exploiting the pitch
ambiguities that result when musical sounds treated with reverb bleed into
each other and blur the boundaries between “music” and “noise.”
Jackie Mittoo: “Sniper” > King Tubby: “Dub Fi Gwan”

If fragmentation of the song surface through the dropping out of parts was
central to dub’s dynamic tension, King Tubby was the master practitioner of
d u b / 120
this strategy. In most cases, it was the console’s mute switch that allowed en-
gineers to loosen songs from their rhythm section moorings and puncture
reggae’s repetitive groove patterns so dramatically. This mixing technique
became particularly effective when used in conjunction with delay/echo ef-
fects that gave the illusion of decentering musical time (more on this below,
this chapter). As mentioned previously, however, the MCI console was not
fitted with mute switches, so the dropouts are actually achieved through
quick manipulation of the fader controls.
This technique is used to dramatic effect in “Dub Fi Gwan,” King
Tubby’s remix of Jackie Mittoo’s “Sniper.”53 Mittoo had recorded an origi-
nal version years earlier as “Totally Together” for Studio One, reworking
the groove of Santana’s “Evil Ways” into a minor-key organ vamp.54 Ac-
cording to Bunny Lee, this was just one of several Studio One pieces that
Mittoo re-recorded while visiting Jamaica from Canada, where he had relo-
cated: “Me and Jackie do a lot of work. I went to Canada and said ‘Jackie,
what’s happening—nothing out man?’ And Jackie was a sour man because
him start these things and the people forgot him. All of what Jackie do at
Studio One, we do it over. We do an album named Keyboard King, that’s
the album that brought back Jackie. Keyboard King album come out and
tear down the place, man!”55
Harmonically, “Dub Fi Gwan” is shaped by Mittoo’s legato organ and
based on a Dorian minor modal vamp alternating between the I minor and
IV7 chords. Using reverberation, the instrument’s tones are blurred by
King Tubby into an ambient harmony leaving the insistent drum & bass
pattern to lend form to the structure. A predictably repeating snare roll sig-
nals the oncoming cymbal crash, which sears the soundscape in a detona-
tion of reverberation and echo, while the rest of the instruments are mo-
mentarily muted into the void. At other points in the song, Tubby allows
the roll to remain audible, but punches out the cymbal crash itself while al-
lowing reverberations of the excised sound to spill over into the sound-
scape. What was a fairly minor element in Mittoo’s original take has been
transformed here into the defining formal feature of the tune.
Vivian Jackson (Yabby You) & The Prophets: “Fire Fire” (A.K.A.
“Fire Inna Kingston”) > King Tubby: “Fire Fire Dub”
As mentioned earlier, the effect produced by delay units is primarily rhyth-
mic in the sense that it is a timed replay of an audio signal that results in
the characteristic “echo” effect. King Tubby tended to apply this effect in
two ways, both of which exploited the rhythmic capabilities of the equip-
ment. Most frequently, he would use the unit to spin rhythmically disjunct
tangents against the basic rhythm, a strategy discussed in chapter 2. This

technique was especially powerful following a disruption of the rhythm;
the listener is momentarily disoriented as fragments of sound spiral into
the momentary void. King Tubby’s second frequent use of delay focused
on the drum set, and might be described as a type of “rhythmic intensifica-
tion,” an effect that Sly Dunbar considers to have originated at Tubby’s stu-
dio: “King Tubbys was the first person which say put on that delay and
make the drums play double time.”56 The technique entailed putting cer-
tain tracks (usually the drum set) through a delay unit that is timed exactly
at double-time to the basic tempo. The result is a double-speed drum track
rushing alongside the basic pulse, which effectively adds a new, layer of
electronically created polyrhythm. “Tickling” is the word Bunny Lee
coined to describe the unique, ping-ponging sound of delay-replicated per-
cussion rushing in double-time to the underlying rhythm. King Tubby’s
“Fire Fire Dub” is a remix of Yabby You and the Prophets’ “Fire Inna
Kingston,”57 and an excellent example of this application of delay. After
using the unit to warp the hi-hat and snare rim into double-time, King
Tubby routs them through the high-pass filter, while constantly varying the
settings. The result is a high-register rhythmic latticework constantly shift-
ing in color against the basic track. The sound anticipates the frantic,
double-time snare patterns of “jungle” music, leading some to speculate
that the junglists were directly inspired by Tubby’s rhythmic application of
delay (more discussion of this in the coda).
Jacob Miller: “Baby I Love You So” > King Tubby: “King Tubby
Meets the Rockers Uptown”
The 1977 release of King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown (a compilation of
tracks produced by Augustus Pablo and remixed by Tubby) represented a
high point in the development of dub, providing one of the enduring
album-length classics of the genre. There are two likely reasons this record-
ing has attained its classic status. The first is that by mid-decade, Tubby had
fully elaborated his language of remixing, facilitated by both the natural de-
velopment of his aesthetic, and the continuous upgrading of his studio
equipment. The second reason is the quality of the rhythm tracks that
Pablo supplied for the sessions. Sonically and thematically, the sound Pablo
developed with his Rockers production outfit strongly reflected the mood
of the times. Ponderous minor-key grooves and some of the most striking
electric bass patterns of the decade support heavily Rastafarian lyrical
themes, often augmented by liturgical Rastafarian hand drumming styles
and Pablo’s plaintive sounding melodica. With King Tubby, Pablo’s brittle
melodica improvisations were cut and stretched by into works of deeply
evocative power.
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The title track of King Tubby Meets has come to be Tubby’s most rec-
ognized remix, far surpassing the popularity of its vocal incarnation as
Jacob Miller’s “Baby I Love You So.”58 So popular was the track, in fact,
that Island Records eventually rereleased the single with the dub version
placed on the A-side. One reason for its popularity was Pablo’s dynamic
backing rhythm, built from an insistent, eighth-note bass pattern anchor-
ing a I minor–IV minor chord sequence very similar in structure to some
of Pablo’s other riddims such as the one used for Tetrack’s “Look Within
Yourself.” “Rockers Uptown” is in fact one of Pablo’s most celebrated
riddims, and has remained one of the most venerated riddims of the
roots era. It was multiply versioned by Pablo, used later as a vehicle for
jazz improvisation by musicians such as Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alex-
ander, and resuscitated in the digital era as well.59 The riddim itself had a
history dating to the earliest days of dub music in 1971 when it first sur-
faced on Herman Chin-Loy’s Aquarius Dub collection (as “Jah Jah
Dub”), credited to Pablo. Ironically, according to Philip Smart, the origi-
nal backing track had been engineered that year at Dynamics by Karl Pit-
terson, on the very same MCI board that would later be used to trans-
form it at King Tubby’s studio.60 Pablo had subsequently cut other
versions on the riddim, including Norris Reid’s “Black Force” vocal and
his own melodica instrumental “Cassava Piece.”61
The vocal side is introduced by a four-bar vamp with Miller humming in
unison with remnants of the melodica line of “Cassava Piece.” He then be-
gins the lyric, essentially a four-bar verse of one-measure phrases. Miller’s
sentiments are simplistic, trite even, but the performance is redeemed by
the force of the musical arrangement. From the first notes of the dub mix,
however, it is clear that King Tubby has transformed the song into some-
thing of far greater depth than the original. The soundspace has been ex-
panded through the use of reverb, and the snare drum accents have been
routed through a delay unit, rushing along at double-time to the underly-
ing groove. Tubby has essentially turned this into a glorified drum & bass
showcase, with occasional snatches of melodica, piano, and guitar filling
out the mix. He introduces a brief fragment of Miller’s voice at the mod-
ulation to the bridge, which soon gives way to Pablo’s melodica, and the
performance continues in this fashion, with successive fragments of
Miller’s vocal, Pablo’s melodica, and chordal instruments. The perfor-
mance ends as Tubby drops the rhythm section out of the mix, leaving
Miller’s voice suspended on an echoing syllable. Although the disruptive
elements in particular were to become more pronounced in some of his
subsequent work, the song is a virtual compendium of the techniques
Tubby used to de- and reconstruct vocal songs.

Other Engineers at King Tubby’s Studio
Over time, King Tubby trained a series of engineers who took on in-
creasing shares of the studio’s mixing duties over time, and who would
each contribute in their distinctive way to the language of dub music. The
best known are “Prince” Philip Smart, Lloyd “King Jammy” James, and
Overton “Scientist” Brown.62 In general, the sound of his protégés tended
to be less dense and more distilled, focusing on specific aspects of what
Tubby had developed and in some cases extending his innovations into
new areas.
Philip “Prince Philip” Smart

King Tubby’s first assistant was “Prince” Philip Smart (b. St. Andrew,
1952), who grew up in the Harbour View area of Kingston and had at-
tended St. George’s College and Dunrobin High School. Smart described
dub music as “a ghetto thing. It was like the rootsy people started to gravi-
tate towards the dub thing and everybody going to dances want hear the
dubs. They didn’t want to hear no vocals after a point, it was ‘Just play all
dubs, we don’t need fe hear no vocals!’ ”63 Smart had been involved in
music since his high school years, when his enthusiasm for record collect-
ing blossomed into a neighborhood sound system enterprise: “Collecting
records, I been doing that for a long time. So the natural progression—you
collect records, you good at it, and you could play at parties and make the
people move. We had our own equipment and a couple more friends put
together a little resources and we started playing parties. Until we turned
that into a business, we had our own mobile disco.”64
It was while running this sound system that he met Errol Thompson,
another Harbour View native who had recently joined Randy’s studio as
chief engineer, and whose family also ran a sound system. Smart credits
Thompson with inspiring him to pursue a career in sound recording:
“Errol was kinda the man that was instrumental in inspiring me to become
an engineer. After school, we’d go to Randy’s and try to get into the studio.
They wouldn’t let you up at first because the studio thing is under tight se-
curity. They have to know you real well. One time we all left from Harbour
View and went there and got in and see it and then I start getting to go in a
likkle at a time. You get in on some sessions and you just stay quiet and you
watch Bob Marley recording or you watch whoever it is at the time. So it
was just like in the studio you actually see how a recording is done and the
whole vibe of the thing. . . . I met Clive [Chin], he went to school alongside
a friend of mine, Augustus Pablo.”65
d u b / 124
Smart also credits the engineer Karl Pitterson as an early mentor in
audio electronics, the two having worked together at a Kingston electron-
ics store. Smart also worked in an auto repair shop for a time, until being
introduced to King Tubby by his school friend Augustus Pablo: “When I
first went to Tubbs, I went there with Augustus Pablo. Me and Pablo going
back for a long time from school. Pablo started doing recording at Tubby’s.
’Cause the word got out in the industry [about] the music Tubbys was re-
cording. . . . It had to be probably like ’70 or ’71 when I was introduced to
Tubbys. I used to just stand and watch while they worked. You know when
Pablo did his productions he recorded tracks in like Randy’s, we’d take the
tape ’round to Tubbs so we could cut the dub so we could play it back at
home or on our set. We started doing that frequently—anything Pablo
played on, got like a cassette copy of it or two-track copy take it around to
Tubbs and cut it on a dub plate and play it on the set. So that was the next
step. We were there almost every day.”66
After several years of hanging around the studio, Tubby recognized the
youngster’s talent and invited him to mix. Smart recalls that it was his mix
of Johnny Clarke’s “None Shall Escape the Judgement” which established
him as a credible engineer in the eyes of many, including Bunny Lee:
“When [Lee] was working on “None Shall Escape The Judgement,” I
voiced Johnny [Clarke] on the riddim. I think Earl Sixteen was on it be-
fore. But when Johnny voiced on it, I said, ‘Bunny this tune is a hit tune!’
And him say, ‘Well, if you feel it’s a hit tune, mix it off and me put it out.’
So him just leave me, I mix it off, I give it to him and he put it out and it
just take off. Bunny was very confident with me after that. After that
song—carte blanche!”67
In addition to numerous single B-sides, Smart is credited with mixing
Bunny Lee’s Rasta Dub ’76 compilation, DJ/producer Tappa Zukie’s Tappa
Zukie in Dub LP, and portions of Brad Osbourne’s Macka Dub collection.
He also claims the seminal Creation of Dub, an excellent and very influential
LP that had been widely attributed to King Tubby.68 Smart’s tenure at King
Tubby’s board was relatively brief; by 1975, he had relocated to the United
States and, although he returned briefly to both Jamaica and Tubby’s stu-
dio, he permanently relocated to the United States shortly afterward,
founding his own HCF studio in Freeport (Long Island) New York. Never-
theless, he assumed a large share of the mixing duties while at Tubby’s, as
King Tubby concentrated on his lucrative electronics business: “He got
more work with winding transformers so he started to give me the bulk of
the studio work. He got some major contracts. When they were building
this hotel, they came to him and asked him if he could make transformers to

maintain the steady currents for the air conditioners. He had to build 200
transformers, or whatever it was that they ordered. . . . He left the studio
part in my hands. He never really gave anybody the keys to close up the stu-
dio and anything until he gave it to me. Even if it’s four o’clock in the morn-
ing, he would come back and lock up and I’d go home. He gave me a set of
keys and I could open up, lock up, come in and leave when I have to. I was
his right hand man at that point.”69
Prince Philip Smart on the Mix

Johnny Clarke: “Enter into His Gates with Praise” > Prince Philip
Smart: “Ja Ja In De Dub”
In general, Smart’s style is more restrained and less dramatic than King
Tubby’s, emphasizing drum & bass in the mix and using sound processing
more selectively. A good point of comparison between the two engineers is
Smart’s “Jah Jah in De Dub,” a 1976 remix of Johnny Clarke’s “Enter Into
His Gates With Praise,”70 which King Tubby had previously remixed into
“This is the Hardest Version” (discussed earlier in this chapter). Smart’s
version completely eschews the heavy filtering of Tubby’s version, relying
on very selective application of reverb, dropout and relying on the momen-
tum of the straight rhythm track to carry the tune.
Prince Alla: “Bosrah” > Prince Philip Smart: “Tapper Zukie

in Dub”
In 1976, Smart remixed a batch of tracks for producer Tappa Zukie that
were collectively released as Tappa Zukie in Dub.71 The title track “Tapper
Zukie [sic] in Dub,” stands as one of the most remarkable dub mixes ever
created at King Tubby’s studio. The dub mix was versioned from Prince
Alla’s “Bosrah,” a medium-slow one-drop vamp composed around a promi-
nent bass riff A™7 and minimalist drum set pattern, and moving between the
A™7 and G™ major chords. The form is divided into a clear verse–refrain–
verse–refrain structure, with a horn theme separating the song into two
halves. The open form and sparse rhythm pattern sets the stage nicely for
Smart, who immerses the rhythm track within streams of white noise,
which dominate the soundscape, creating an ambient metanarrative to the
composition.
Lloyd “King Jammy” James

King Tubby’s was my teacher, so I just carry on from where he left off.
—Jammy to the author, 2000
After Smart’s departure, an interim period of several months followed

in which mixing duties were handled by Pat Kelly (b. Kingston, 1944), a
d u b / 126
vocalist and engineer who had studied electronics at Kingston Technical
and the Massachusetts College of Technology in the United States. But
Kelly’s stint was only temporary; as Philip Smart recalls, “Kelly wasn’t
really into that heavy dub kind of thing.”72 The next major assistant at
Tubby’s studio was Lloyd “King Jammy” James, who began taking on
some of the studio’s mixing work in 1976 (Note: prior to the mid-1980s,
James was credited in recordings as “Prince Jammy”). James defined dub
music as “a roots, grass roots, hard rock riddim. That’s how I take it to
mean. It was developed from riddims from the vocal tracks.”73 At King
Tubby’s studio, it was Jammy who helped guide the sound of dub music
into the era of harder “militant” rhythms in the late 1970s.
As James has been the subject of a full-length biography by Beth Lesser,
my biographical sketch here will be brief.74 Born in Montego Bay in 1947,
James knew King Tubby from an early age. His family had moved to the
Waterhouse area while James was in his teens, and the youngster often
spent time hanging around Tubby’s yard. Following primary school, James
worked around Kingston as an electronic technician (at one point working
at Chin’s Radio Service alongside Pat Kelly),75 and repairman for sound
systems such as El Toro, Lord Kelly, and Prince Patrick. From around 1962,
he also ran a small sound system that played private parties around Water-
house. Eventually, he gravitated toward King Tubby and worked at the
latter’s electronics shop, repairing sound equipment and “building amplifi-
ers and stuff.”76
James relocated to Toronto, Canada, for several years in the early 1970s,
and his time there was varied and productive. He enrolled in electronics
courses at a local technical college, operated a small sound system, contin-
ued to work as an electronic technician, and built and operated his own
basement demo studio, which was booked by vocalists visiting from Ja-
maica. James returned to Kingston at Tubby’s invitation to replace Philip
Smart as engineer in late 1975,77 and it was during this period that he was
renamed “Prince Jammy” by Bunny Lee.
Like Philip Smart before him, Jammy assumed much of the mixing
work as King Tubby focused on more general electronics work. In time,
he developed a reputation as one of the foremost engineers mixing dub
music, and he remained at Tubby’s through 1980. As might be expected,
Jammy’s early dub mixes (collected on albums such as Kaya Dub) sound
fairly close to King Tubby in style. Eventually, however, Jammy’s style of
mixing dub developed into a leaner, more concise version of his
mentor’s. In his words, “I had my own style, I didn’t want to clash with
anybody’s style. I created my own type of reverb that I used, like some
feedback sounds and things like that.”78 In general, Jammy’s work is less

experimentally inclined and emotionally dark than Tubby’s, refining
many of the effects and strategies introduced by Tubby. This concise ap-
proach gave his mixes a unique power.
Jammy’s mixing style reflected the period in which he emerged. As the
1970s progressed, the soul-influenced reggae of the early 1970s was gradu-
ally augmented by the so-called militant riddims, which themselves might
be thought of as reflecting the increasingly heated political climate of the
Michael Manley era. Many of these new patterns (such as the “steppers”
riddim) are credited to Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. Generally,
Robbie’s minor-key bass lines were anchored by Sly’s pulsing bass drum
and embroidered with his syncopated snare drum and timbale accents. In
the same way that King Tubby made profitable use of Santa Davis’s flying
cymbal sound a few years earlier, Jammy crafted a dub sound that made use
of these newer, harder riddims. Many of his mixes feature long stretches of
drum & bass cast in an atmosphere of reverb, with the syncopated drum-
ming used to trigger trajectories of brittle-sounding delay. Unlike much of
King Tubby’s work, Jammy’s mixes tend not to feature extended passages
of chordal instruments. He often introduced and punctuated his mixes
with a characteristic roaring sound produced by sudden application of cav-
ernous reverb and panning to the drum set.
Jammy’s career as a dub mixer also benefited from the growing interna-
tional popularity of dub. Thanks largely to the legacy of psychedelic and
progressive rock, dub music in England and Europe was appreciated on its
own terms, as opposed to in Jamaica where it was often considered a mere
backdrop for DJs. Jammy frequently traveled to England in the company
of Bunny Lee, and was poised to capitalize on this, developing a strong
international reputation at this time; he freely admits, “I was catering
mostly for Europe in those days.”79 He also kept his ears open for new
sounds while abroad: “Inna the ’70s and early ’80s, dub music was big in
Europe. I used to visit Europe, and I used to come in contact with people
in the music business and listen to albums from Europe. Engineering and
production angle, that’s what I was looking for.”80 In addition to selling
strongly on the local Jamaican market as B-sides, his mixes were also com-
piled onto albums aimed at the European market, such as Jammy’s in Lion
Dub Style, Kamikaze Dub, Slum in Dub, and Uhuru in Dub.81
Jammy was not only a studio engineer; around the time he returned to
Jamaica, he began to branch out into record production. Following his
1978 production debut of Black Uhuru’s debut album Love Crisis, he estab-
lished himself with other Waterhouse artists such as Half Pint, Echo Mi-
nott, and Junior Reid. Like King Tubby, Jammy’s first studio was set up in
the front room of his family house, but eventually, as will be discussed in
d u b / 128
chapter 7, he would become one of the most important producers in the
history of Jamaican music.82
King Jammy on the Mix

Ronnie Davis: “Sun Is Shining” > Prince Jammy:
“Jammy’s A Shine”
“That is the best mix I ever did! That record mash up Jamaica and En-
gland and Europe and them places completely!”83 This was Jammy’s ex-
clamation upon hearing the delay-replicated rimshot that introduces his
famous remix of Ronnie Davis’s cover of the Wailers’ “Sun Is Shining”
(titled “Jammy’s A Shine”), one of the most powerful pieces of dub
music ever realized at Tubby’s studio, and a textbook study in his ap-
proach to disruption.84 Jammy remembered, “that is one of my favorite
Bob riddims, so I really put my heart and soul into that mix.”85 His remix
transforms a straightforward rhythm take into a canon of continuous dis-
ruption in which trails of rhythmically disjunct echoes function as the
“connective tissue.” The track is introduced by a lone timbale shot elon-
gated into a stream of brittle echo. An organ melody is the next to enter
(0:05), supported by the offbeat guitar and piano of Bob Marley’s fa-
mous guitar riff. Against this foundation, Jammy punches in brief, teas-
ing slivers of drums and percussion, raising the listener’s expectation for
the entrance of the complete groove. But when the drums do finally enter
at 0:26, Jammy immediately drops the other instruments out and intensi-
fies the drum pattern with delay. A fragment of bass at 0:35 again hints at
completion of the groove, but the drums disappear at 0:48, to be re-
placed by the entrance of bass and guitar at 0:56. Only at just over a min-
ute does Jammy finally allow all the instruments to play the fully orches-
trated rhythm pattern.86
Horace Andy: “Government Land” > Prince Jammy:

“Government Dub”
Jammy’s mix of Horace Andy’s “Government Land”87 is an excellent exam-
ple of the way a dub mix can heighten the drama of a preexisting song. In
the original, Andy’s singing remains at a fairly static emotional level, with
the web of interlocking rhythm section parts steady and consistent, and no
real dynamic variation overall. Four verses and a fade-out vamp follow a
four-measure introductory vamp on a D minor chord, with an accompany-
ing horn theme. Each verse is divided into two halves, the first being a four-
measure vamp in D minor, and the second being a repeated two-measure
progression with B™ major and D minor played for one measure each. The
mood is created by Andy’s lyrical theme of social justice (“Give up the land,

government man . . .”) and a suspenseful, minor-key, one drop rhythm that
creeps along at a tempo of quarter note = 124.
Jammy’s dub mix, by contrast, uses sound processing to impose a level
of dynamic and emotional variety that surpasses the original. The mix be-
gins dramatically with the reverberating roar of drums that is a trademark
of Jammy’s mixes. This roar leads directly into the intro vamp/horn theme,
in which a reverberating electric piano is now prominent in the mix. The
intro section ends as Jammy applies a bit of panning to the drummer’s cym-
bal crash, an effect he will use at the conclusion of each verse. The first verse
is largely devoted to subtly filtered drum and bass, with reverberating frag-
ments of the horn background and chordal instruments appearing inter-
mittently, punctuated by cavernous reverberation applied to the drum set.
The second and third verses continue in this fashion, each featuring lengthy
trails of delay that heighten the suspense, and each concluded with passages
of dropout during the final measures, building a level of tension that is re-
solved with the reintroduction of the rhythm section at the beginning of
the subsequent verse. In the third verse, the drum and bass drop out during
the two penultimate measures of the verse prefaces a fractured restatement
of the horn theme in the first half of the refrain section. The second half of
the refrain (on the D minor sequence) finds Andy’s vocals returning briefly
to haunt the mix before the song opens up to the final vamp on D minor,
with fragments of the horn background intermittently audible. A final pas-
sage of dropout sets the stage for the final, repeating statement of the horn
theme, over a drum & bass background colored with filtering and panning
effects. The fade-out builds tension very effectively, with more frequent
“bomb” effects created by applying reverb to the drum set and increasingly
dramatic panning effects. The climax of the mix occurs at exactly 3:52, when
Jammy pans the drummer’s fill wildly across the soundspace.
In spite of my consistent claims for the “nonlinear” aspects of form in dub
music, this is a dub mix with a clear buildup of dramatic tension, yielding a
clear climax. The power of Jammy’s dub mix is helped immeasurably by the
musicians’ performance on the original rhythm track. The drummer (either
Horsemouth Wallace or Noel Alphonso) uses cymbal accents to heighten the
drama of the slow tempo, and the bassist (either Michael Taylor or Leroy
Sibbles) creates tension by varying the bass line, using foreshortening to
create very effective rhythmic suspensions, especially toward the end of the
tune. All of these musical effects are exploited by Jammy in his dub mix.
Prince Jammy: “Flash Gordon Meets Luke Skywalker”

Buttressed by a strong local reputation and a particularly dub-friendly audi-
ence in the United Kingdom, Jammy indulged some of his most experimental
d u b / 130
whims on the 1980 album Scientist & Prince Jammy Strike Back. “Flash Gor-
don Meets Luke Skywalker” pushes the reggae song structure as far as it can
be pushed while still maintaining a functional connection to dance music.88
Following twelve seconds of pre-song detritus that includes studio chatter,
fragments of a previous bass line, and a phantom drum roll (all routed
through a delay unit), the song proper suddenly bursts forth in a haze of frag-
mented drum, vocal, and horn lines, all unified by Flabba Holt’s repeating
bass line. The most marked departure, given that this is music ostensibly
mixed with the dancehall in mind, is Jammy’s treatment of the drum track.
On a song that lasts nearly four minutes, the drum pattern is only audible for
just over a minute; the rest of the time he teases the listener with fragments of
the drum and chordal tracks—a cymbal splash here, a reverberating snare hit
there, a guitar or piano chord elsewhere. It is Holt’s bass line, morphing
through a series of filtered frequencies, that provides formal unity as Jammy
works the divide between musical sound and sonic debris. Were the bass line
to be removed, the listener would be left with a form of purely “ambient”
music (by contemporary definitions). Jammy remembered that this particular
remix “featured the bass through the high-pass filter. On some mixes I might
feature specific instruments; that’s why there’s not much drums on that one. I
was featuring the bass because it had such a dynamic line.”89
The other fascinating feature of “Flash Gordon Meets Luke Skywalker”
is that while it is, in structural terms, the polar opposite of the aforemen-
tioned “Government Dub,” it can nonetheless be heard as containing a
clear climax despite its radically deconstructed state, which would seem to
subvert any suggestion of linear development. At 3:23, the rhythm parts
(again, minus the drums) are finally allowed to coalesce underneath the
fragment of a horn theme and an emphatically descending organ glissando.
Despite its brevity, this seven-second sliver is the most structurally and
thematically-coherent section of the mix. Unsurprisingly, the track fades
out shortly thereafter, suggesting that Jammy and other engineers were not
merely deconstructing vocal takes, but consciously working to create a ten-
sion with the original take.
As studio bands like Sly and Robbie and Soul Syndicate were in increas-
ing demand to record and perform internationally, their places at King-
ston sessions would often be filled by the Roots Radics, the band that
would define the sound of reggae music in the 1980s. As King Tubby con-
cerned himself with building a new studio, King Jammy became more in-
volved with independent production work. Jammy’s place at Tubby’s
board would be assumed by Tubby’s next assistant, an engineer who de-
fined the sound of dub as reggae music evolved into the early dancehall
phase of the 1980s.

Overton “Scientist” Brown
Tubbys is somebody I saw everyday of my life for about five, six years. Not a day
pass and I didn’t see him. We was very close. A lot of people thought I was his son!
—Overton “Scientist” Brown to the author, 2001
Overton H. “Scientist” Brown was born in Kingston in 1960, and both

Bunny Lee and King Jammy take credit for introducing him to King Tubby
around 1980. Scientist defined dub as: “creation from the engineer. The en-
gineer takes original music, adds sound effects and implements more
changes to give it a type of texture. It’s coming solely from the engineer.”90
Scientist’s work reflected the harder mood in Kingston during the early
1980s; in production terms, it also reflected a local Jamaican variant on the
“big sound” production values (especially drum sounds) of Western popu-
lar music during the 1980s. Like Philip Smart or King Jammy before him,
Scientist was drawn to music through an interest in electronics:
In my early days I was a technician, building amplifiers and what I noticed is when
you play regular type of music, you find that amplifiers behave normal. You use the
same amplifier and you start to play reggae, you have heavy low-end and crisp
highs, and that same amplifier start to freak out. So I noticed especially when a mix
came from Tubby’s, you have these amplifiers that tested normally, you’d start to
have all these abnormal behaviors. So a friend of mine introduced me to Tubbys
and me and him talked about stuff like this and he even had some of the same find-
ings. So that’s what drew me to music.91
As with his predecessors, Scientist was initially hired by King Tubby to

help wind transformers. It is less widely known, however, that he also
worked a brief stint during this time as an engineer at Studio One, and he
takes credit for pushing Coxsone Dodd to expand his bare-bones approach
to recording:
When I was working with Mr. Dodd, he was accustomed to doing it one way. Back
in [the early days of the studio], you find that it was only two tracks. And you prob-
ably only have one or two mics on the drums, if any! So it cause a kind of a situation
but when I got to 13 Brentford Road where we had more mics and more modern
things, that’s when you could kinda hear a difference on those records. That is
where that sound kinda start changing. I came in introducing EQ into tape and to
those people, it was crazy because everybody used to record flat. I tried to EQ the
mix, and it [had] never really sounded that way . . . all of those first Sugar Minott,
Willie Williams, Michigan & Smiley, I did those and if you note, you find that is
where that sound kind a start changing.92
The period to which Scientist refers is well represented on compilations

such as Heartbeat’s Rare Reggae Grooves from Studio One and Soul Jazz’s
Studio One Disco Mix, which feature artists such as Lloyd Robinson, Peter
Broggs, The Gaylads, and others. Scientist also mentions productions
such as Sugar Minott’s “Oh, Mr. D.C.” as representative examples of his
d u b / 132
engineering at this time. His comment that “a lot of people don’t know that
Freddie McGregor played [drums] on a lot of those overdubs” is telling, as
several Studio One tracks from this period seem to be older recordings
(some dating as far back as the Sylvan Morris era) refashioned with later
drum set overdubs.93 A particularly tinny hi-hat cymbal is a prominent fea-
ture, and even minor alterations such as this provide more high-end infor-
mation than had been the norm on Studio One recordings of the early
1970s, most of which had been engineered by Coxsone Dodd himself fol-
lowing the departure of Morris. Other tracks such as Michigan and Smiley’s
“Rub-A-Dub Style” were actually engineered by Scientist, and clearly reflect
his efforts to record with more microphones and to utilize equalization. The
high and midranges are much more balanced, there is clearer separation of
the instruments, and the overall sound quality is significantly improved.
Scientist’s stint at Brentford Road coincided with Studio One’s last pe-
riod of significant commercial success. This creative burst was partly attrib-
utable to the updated sound he brought to Dodd’s old rhythm tracks, and
partly to a new generation of vocalists such as Johnny Osbourne, Sugar
Minott, and Freddie McGregor. The apprenticeship was brief, however;
Scientist recalled Dodd’s suspicion of his association with King Tubby,94 as
well as a lack of acknowledgment that must have been especially frustrating
during a period in which many Jamaican engineers had developed interna-
tional reputations: “Musically, it was good. You can’t beat the music. The
only problem I had with Mr. Dodd was poor documentation of the his-
tory. You work on these records and you would never see your name on it.
You wouldn’t get no credit. I start going ’round Tubby’s because Studio
One is not where you get exposure.”95
Eventually, Scientist made his way to the mixing board at Tubby’s and
remained there through 1982–83, when he moved to Channel One in order
to focus on live recording. His early work reflects the influence of the
studio’s previous engineers, and the autumnal Scientist and Jammy Strike
Back album (1980) provides an excellent comparison, showing both engi-
neers working out in dub’s final stylistic era over a selection of Linval
Thompson–produced tracks. Ultimately, Scientist developed a mixing style
that was uniquely his. He remembers that initially, his innovations were
not widely embraced by producers used to the styles of Tubby, Smart, and
Jammy: “A lot of those sound effects that you hear on a lot of those al-
bums, when I was first doing it I was highly criticized. And everybody in
Jamaica was more hoping for it to be a failure than a success. It was some-
thing new. I was this kid that come on, and want to change things over-
night, because everybody there used to it a particular way. But it eventually
changed reggae.”96

Linval Thompson, Junjo Lawes, and the Roots Radics Band
The emergence of a new generation of producers, musicians, and stu-

dios provided the professional opening for Scientist and the medium for
his innovations. Just as King Tubby and Prince Jammy were best known
for their work with producers like Bunny Lee, Yabby U, and Augustus
Pablo, Scientist’s most-recognized work was done for the leading produc-
ers of the dancehall era. Most prominent among these were Linval Thomp-
son and especially Henry “Junjo” Lawes. He also produced several dub al-
bums in conjunction with the British-based Jamaican producer Roy
Cousins. Lawes was the most successful of these producers, known for his
production of the hugely popular DJ Yellowman in the early 1980s, as well
as vocalists such as Johnny Osbourne, Barrington Levy, Michael Prophet,
and the Wailing Souls. He also produced a series of highly influential dub
albums on the Greensleeves label, featuring Scientist’s work. Thomspon re-
membered that Scientist’s ascension as the mixer of choice at Tubby’s was
concurrent with Tubby and Jammy’s outside activities, and that it also ben-
efited from the growing market for dub in England: “Me and Junjo Lawes,
we couldn’t get Tubby to mix all the songs all the time, so Scientist was
there, and Scientist used to just mess around and find a sound, and every-
body been liking that sound in England. We was the ones who really make
Scientist, me and Junjo—it wasn’t nobody else.”97
In the studio, both Thompson and Lawes relied on the Roots Radics,
the latest studio band to shape the sound of reggae music. The Radics were
built around the nucleus of Errol “Flabba Holt” Carter on bass, Eric
“Bingy Bunny” Lamont, Dwight Pinkney, and Noel “Sowell” Bailey on
guitars, Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson on keyboards, Lincoln “Style” Scott on
drums, and Christopher “Sky Juice” Blake on percussion. Computer Paul
described their ascension as Kingston’s top session unit: “With every era of
the music, the studio musicians evolve. Like Upsetters, with Fams [Family-
man Barrett] and alla dem, they were playing for all of the hits. Then Bob
Marley came in, said ‘Wow, I like the sound,’ work with it, took them on
tour. Once they go on tour, the music has to continue surviving here, so
that’s when Sly & Robbie came in, as the next generation. Sly & Robbie
now started working with Peter Tosh, and then they started touring with
Black Uhuru after that—they went away. That’s when Roots Radics slid in.
And Roots Radics had about a good five-year run, and that’s when Steely
and Clevie came in and the music started changing to get computerized.”98
With riddims that were sometimes almost narcoleptic in their combina-
tion of heavy downbeats and slow tempi, it was Roots Radics who ushered
reggae music into the dancehall era, as the cultural dominance of Rastafari
d u b / 134
gave way to the harder-edged mood of the 1980s. Musically, the most im-
portant distinction between dancehall and the roots reggae that preceded it
was in the style of drumming, as can be illustrated by a comparison of two
versions of the Studio One classic “See A Man Face.”99 The song was orig-
inally recorded in the early 1970s by Horace Andy at Studio One, and the
drumming on this version is a typical one drop arrangement with straight
sixteenth-note time played on the hi-hat cymbal, the bass drum played on
beats two and four, and interlocking syncopations improvised on the rim of
the snare drum. The rest of the instruments conform to their typical func-
tions: the bass line emphasizes strong beats, and the chordal instruments
play the characteristic upbeat comping pattern. A later version of “See A
Man Face” recorded by Peter Ranking for Don Mais’s Roots Tradition
label around 1980 finds the drumming pattern reversed in a manner more
typical of American popular music, a style of drumming some refer to as
“rockers.” Here, the bass drum accents beats one and three, the snare is
played on beats two and four, and the rest of the instrumental parts con-
form to the standard reggae arrangement. This change in the drumming ef-
fectively made the music less polyrhythmic in feel. Drummers such as the
Roots Radics’s Lincoln “Style” Scott (inspired by the innovations of Sly
Dunbar and Santa Davis) had a much harder, heavier feel than more roots-
oriented drummers such as Carlton Barrett or Horsemouth Wallace, who
had essentially developed out of the rock steady style of drumming.
Channel One Studio

In the studio, this new style of playing gained much of its power from
the work of a younger crop of engineers. In particular, it reflected the rise
of the Hoo-Kim brothers’ Channel One studio on Maxfield Avenue. The
studio, which was owned by the brothers Ernest and Joseph “Jo-Jo” Hoo-
Kim, had opened in 1972. Following a brief stint by Syd Bucknor, Stanley
“Barnabas” Bryan and studio co-owner Ernest Hoo-Kim became the
studio’s chief engineers, working on a four-channel API console that had
been installed by Bill Garnett.100 In a few short years, Channel One became
the most popular place to lay rhythm tracks for independent producers, es-
pecially after they upgraded to sixteen tracks in 1975.101 Subsequent engi-
neers would include Anthony “Soljie” Hamiton, Lancelot “Maxie”
McKenzie, and “Crucial” Bunny “Tom Tom” Graham.
More than anything else, Channel One is remembered for its drum
sound, the clarity of which was unprecedented in Jamaican music. In the
opinion of Computer Paul, who began playing sessions on guitar at the
studio as a teenager, “Channel One sound was fresh because everything got
clear, all of a sudden you could hear the hi-hat, you could hear the snare

drum, you could hear the kick drum. So it was a new sound. That within it-
self was pioneering.”102 Opinions are varied on who deserves credit for this
sound. Scientist, who began engineering sessions at Channel One around
1983, takes some of the credit for it, claiming “That was one of the things I
was known for, getting that drum sound.”103 Computer Paul credited
much of it to drummer Sly Dunbar: “A lot of that had to do with Sly, be-
cause he was always into getting the best quality drum sound.”104 Clive
Chin also credits Dunbar: “Sly tell them to mic every damn thing ’pon the
drum! He want everything miked, I mean at least twelve mics on him
drums alone!”105
Along with his rhythm partner Robbie Shakespeare, Dunbar anchored
the studio’s Revolutionaries house band and he fondly remembers Channel
One as “Wicked studio man, the best! Best studio ever in Jamaica!”106
Some of the most famous photos of the roots era feature Sly and Robbie,
idling outside Channel One’s famous black studio gate while on break from
recording. Asked about the studio’s drum sound, Dunbar acknowledges
several people, including “Scientist, Bunny Tom-Tom, Maxie, Soljie, and
Barnabas who was like a little whiz kid. But Ernest [Hoo-Kim] was the key
man who got the sound, he say that “This is the sound that I want.” Ernest
is a man which love bass and drum, and he take great pride in getting a
sound and creating a record. He would take hours and stay on a bass line.
To this day when you say Channel One—drum sound and bass killing
mon! It took us like probably about two years to develop that kind of
sound. Before a session it take like two hours, testing the drum and getting
it right.”107
Computer Paul remembers that Channel One was also one of the earli-
est studios to introduce the use of electronic instruments such as synthesiz-
ers and electronic drums (Syndrums) into Jamaican music: “Channel One
with Sly dem, them go put a lot of synth sounds into drumming. So it
change the whole feel, ’cause we were just used to kick, snare, and hi-hat.
They brought in Syndrums and synthesizers.”108 In fact, Sly and Robbie’s
increasing electronic work at Channel One would set the stage for their
emergence as the Taxi Gang, one of Jamaica’s top production teams from
the early 1980s. Their experiments would culminate in their production of
the vocal trio Black Uhuru, which was marked by a hard, urban and
thoroughly electronic sound that expanded Channel One’s vision in a man-
ner consistent with the cutting edge of engineering and sound processing
in England and America.109
At the time of his arrival, Scientist was poised to capitalize on the pro-
duction innovations taking place at Channel One. Most of his dub albums
feature tracks that had been recorded at Channel One, and given dub mixes
d u b / 136
at Tubby’s. Linval Thompson felt that it was through this equation between
Roots Radics, Channel One, and Scientist that early dancehall reggae hit its
commercial and stylistic groove: “That was the right studio for the roots
dancehall sound. We used to make the riddim at Channel One and then we
take back the riddim track over to King Tubby’s and mix it at King Tubby’s
so we kinda get a sound. Me and Junjo Lawes, we kinda conquer that
sound. And that’s a sound they are crazing about right now. Every echo
slap, only King Tubby’s could give you that mix with Scientist.”110
Scientist on the Mix

Wailing Souls: “Bandits Taking Over” > Scientist: “The Corpse
Rises” / Peter Ranking: “See A Man Face” > Scientist: “See A
Dub Face” / Sammy Dread: “Follow Fashion” / Scientist:
“De-Materialize”
As might be expected, Scientist’s early work (featured on albums such as
the Bunny Lee–produced Scientific Dub [1980]) sounded fairly similar to
that of his predecessors at King Tubby’s. It was with the heavy riddims of
Roots Radics as his foundation, that he found his sound and became the
remix engineer of choice in the early dancehall era. Scientist exaggerated
Roots Radics’ hard sound while also giving it a spacy, electronic garnish.
Part of this hardness resulted from the way he blended melodic and percus-
sive elements of the music by refashioning bleeping test-tone frequencies
into pitched percussion sounds. Another key element was an emphasis on
the low register, reinforcing the low end by alternately applying large
amounts of reverberation to the bass and snare drums. This application of
echo was one of the distinctive elements of Scientist’s dub language, result-
ing in a violently reverberating snare drum “slap” that sounded like the
cracking of a whip and a bass drum that, at sound system volume, impacted
with the force of a cannon blast. As a result of this low-end emphasis,
Scientist’s mixes grew to sound harder, more urban, and more electronic
than those of the earlier engineers at Tubby’s. A particular treatment of the
upright piano added to this effect. A dub remix of Freddie McGregor’s
“Jah Help the People” finds Scientist fashioning a unique variant of the
instrument’s sound by combining it with the rhythm guitar and routing
both through the delay unit in a way that blended and accented their re-
spective metallic sonorities. Chords that had previously sounded like col-
lections of individual pitches now sounded like hardened metallic chunks
(Lee Perry had achieved a similar effect on songs such as the Heptones’
1976 “Sufferer’s Time”).111
At the same time, Scientist was able to introduce several fluid elements
into these stark rhythm patterns. On some tracks he would extend dub’s

processes of fragmentation beyond the mere dropping out of tracks such as
on “De-Materialize,”112 an aptly titled remix of Sammy Dread’s “Follow
Fashion.”113 The first thirty seconds feature a riddim atomized into echo-
ing shards by sporadically muting the drum track and feeding it through a
delay unit, resulting in a passage of fragmented drumming with no under-
lying beat audible. Similarly to King Jammy’s strategy on “Flash Gordon,”
the bass again functions as the cohesive element as the delay unit scatters
timbale accents and test tones about the soundscape. Like Tubby and (to a
lesser extent) Jammy, Scientist also made use of the studio’s high-pass filter,
but was more likely to apply it to the electric bass than to the high-register
instruments, as the former engineers had done. Dub mixes such as “The
Corpse Rises”114 (a remix of the Wailing Souls’ “Bandits Taking Over”)115
were built around scalar distortions of electric bass, as Scientist funneled
the instrument through the high-pass filter to bend its sonority from that of
a mouth harp, to a foghorn, and finally, into the familiar soundshape of an
electric bass. He also sometimes applied the filter to lead guitar lines, which
made the instrument sound something like a kazoo or harmonica.
“The Corpse Rises” and “See A Dub Face”116 also feature another of
Scientist’s favorite techniques, which was to build mix by building on the
instrumental tracks as they “bled” through onto the vocalist’s (or other
instrumentalist’s) track. Most often, a “bleeding” drum track was fed
through a reverb unit, resulting in a spooky, alien sound that evoked im-
ages of the drums being beamed in from another planet, or the vocalist ex-
isting in another world from the musicians (and even the listeners). On
“See A Dub Face,” Scientist introduces the rhythm section for two mea-
sures, and then pulls them out, leaving only the bled-through drum tracks
to continue with a cavernous echo. He soon reintroduces the bass, which
morphs through several modes of filtering as it looms over the drums. He
then builds the structure back up, only to scatter it with echo as the bass
continues throughout the performance. This mixing strategy was a viola-
tion of more standard recording practice, in which the ideal was as much
separation between the individual instruments as possible. But in exploit-
ing this by-product of the spatial arrangement of instruments in the re-
cording studio, Scientist was actually resuscitating an aesthetic practice that
had been used more than fifty years earlier by engineers recording classical
music. Peter Doyle has noted that as a result of improvements in recording
technology in the 1920s, “recordings became capable of picking up room
ambience, of carrying, in other words, significant sonic information about
the spaces in which they were recorded.”117
Scientist’s sound was self-consciously futuristic, and his album covers
were accordingly adorned with sci-fi imagery, especially a series of cartoon
d u b / 138
sagas depicting the engineer as hero, doing battle against a host of human,
alien, and electronic life forms. Mainly designed by Greensleeves artist Tony
McDermott, they provided a convenient channel for a local Jamaican con-
sumption and reinterpretation of images and themes from global (mainly
American) pop culture such as video games (Scientist Encounters Pac Man
at Channel One, Scientist Meets the Space Invaders), horror films (Scientist
Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires), science fiction films (Scien-
tist & Prince Jammy Strike Back), and athletics (Heavyweight Dub Cham-
pion, Scientist Wins the World Cup). In each case, sound is the weapon with
which the hero does battle. As much as this casts an eye toward the futurist
iconology of dub mixers, science fiction, and cartoon superheroes, it also re-
fers very plainly back to the battle ethos of the sound clash.
Eventually, Scientist would go on to engineer sessions at Channel One,
concluding this phase of his career with a brief stint at Bob Marley’s Tuff
Gong studio before leaving Jamaica for the United States in 1985. He de-
scribed his time within the Marley complex: “Very enjoyable. Rita Marley,
Errol Brown and the rest of the staff was very professional and organized.
Bob Marley and his empire was not about exploiting the music like other
studios. It was a place where musicians felt at home and didn’t have to
worry about the gangster runnings. I wish Bob Marley was around to
enjoy what he had started.”118

chapter five
Tracking the “Living African Heartbeat”

%
Pragmatic has often been understood as being excessively attached to the

data received from reality. However, the problem is tackled in exactly the
opposite direction: how can we turn our fantasies into a certain degree
of public interest?
—Inaki Abalos and Juan Herrera, from “End of the Century Still Lifes”
All these records are righteous creations, you thinking only righteous
when you making music, you think in a holy mood, in a spiritual mood,
and just think righteous alone.”
—Lee Perry to the author, November 2001.
Although his most influential work was created inside of Jamaica, Lee
Perry must be considered one of the most creative popular music pro-
ducer/engineers of his generation, worldwide. Perry’s innovations were
rooted in the creative currents brewing in Kingston studios during the
1960s. His career differs somewhat from that of other innovators of dub
music such as King Tubby and Errol Thompson in the sense that the for-
mer two, both being engineers, approached the art of mixing from a
fairly technicalized standpoint. Perry, on the other hand, had worked var-
iously as a talent scout, vocalist, songwriter, producer, and conceptualist,
as well as an engineer. As such, his oeuvre operates on several simultane-
ous levels, and its significance transcends the mere engineering aspects of
his work. Nonetheless, Perry is probably second only to King Tubby in
the pantheon of dub music’s innovators. He defined dub music as “[a
style that] make the music more understandable, and easier to dance. It’s
not full of too much horns and too much keyboard. It give you more
space to dance, it’s much more enjoyable, nicer, much better than when
you have all the instruments play [at] one time. It’s different than the rest
of reggae music.”1
d u b / 140
Perry is the subject of People Funny Boy, a full-length biography by
David Katz that stands, along with the same author’s Solid Foundation, as a
major achievement of reggae historiography.2 My biographical sketch here
will be deliberately brief. Perry was born Rainford Hugh Perry around
1936 in the town of Kendal in the northwestern rural parish of Hanover.
His family was poor, and Perry quit school at an early age to work in a
quarry, moving boulders with a bulldozer. Later in his career, he would
identify the sounds of crashing stones he experienced at his worksite as one
source of his knack for sonic experimentation.3 He also gained a local repu-
tation as a talented dancer, which would figure into his later work as a pro-
ducer. Perry was still in his teens when he arrived in Kingston during the
mid-1950s, apprenticing with Coxsone Dodd and his Downbeat sound
system shortly thereafter. When Dodd established his Studio One label
around 1959–60 and began recording Jamaican music, Perry stayed on,
working successively as a producer, songwriter, talent scout, and auditioner
for the steady stream of singing hopefuls who passed through Dodd’s Ja-
maican Recording Studio. Vocalist Dudley Sibley remembered the close re-
lationship between mentor and protégé: “Lee Perry was Coxsone right-
hand man in the sense that Coxsone never used to travel alone. So he used
to have Lee Perry who used to travel with him inna the car. Perry used to
be the hands-on man who watch everything Coxsone do—both in the stu-
dio and on the road. If Coxsone is in the studio, Lee Perry is in the studio
with him. Scratch learn from Coxsone, and that’s how he evolved to be one
of the greatest producers. Him really learned from Downbeat.”4
In fact, it is Perry who is credited with bringing future star vocalists Del-
roy Wilson and Toots Hibbert to Dodd’s attention.5 Vocalist Max Romeo
(later one of Perry’s most successful artists) considers Perry’s work for Stu-
dio One a largely underacknowledged contribution that laid the founda-
tion for his later innovations as a producer: “Lee Perry produced most of
the songs that came out on Coxsone Dodd label anyway at that time. . . .
He did a lot of it, a lot of Wailers, a lot of Gaylads and all these people. So
that give him the experience and expertise and in my experience he’s a gen-
ius when it comes to producing.”6
Perry also recorded a string of his own risqué ska singles for Dodd during
this time (usually under the name “King Perry”), which partially placed him
within Jamaica’s ongoing “slackness” tradition of sexually suggestive songs.
These included titles such as “Roast Duck,” “Pussy Galore,” and “Chicken
Scratch,” the last of which earned him the most enduring of uncountable
nicknames.7 From sound system to recording, the business was tough as
system operators fought to establish a foothold in a volatile economy, and
competition frequently boiled over into violence between followers (and
Tracking the “Living African Heartbeat” / 141

hired goons) of Coxsone and those of his main rivals Duke Reid (who op-
erated the Trojan sound system) and Vincent King Edwards (who oper-
ated the system known as King Edwards the Giant). “Little” Lee (as he was
then known because of his short stature) would avoid the violence through
several means, including the protection of his friend Prince Buster, a rival
system DJ formerly with Coxsone and a former boxer who, like many, was
captivated by Perry’s quirky genius.8 A number of Perry’s song lyrics from
this period strongly oppose violence and the domination of the weak by
the powerful; years later as Kingston became torn between by warring po-
litical factions, Perry would occupy a similar position, decrying the street
violence from the otherworld of his backyard Black Ark studio. As a vocal-
ist, Perry possessed a soft, wistful voice that wasn’t particularly effective on
the driving, uptempo numbers of the ska years, but that worked well on
midtempo material; as such it began to come into its own within the slower
and more spacious structures of rock steady and reggae.
Although the advent of dub was still nearly a decade away during his
tenure with Coxsone, Perry’s dub vision grew directly from his experiences
in the 1960s, as well as several other important influences. One was his on-
going fascination with the Afro-American rhythm-and-blues music played
by the early systems, an interest that would manifest itself throughout
every phase of his career; Perry’s oeuvre is particularly rich with covered
songs, riffs, dances, and catchphrases borrowed from African American
music of the 1960s and 1970s. Another important inspiration was Jamaica’s
various forms of neo-African spritualism. Perry was fascinated by the
music of Jamaica’s Afro-Protestant faiths such as the pocomania sect, which
supposedly provided the inspiration for the beat of his 1968 song “People
Funny Boy.” In fact, Perry once famously exclaimed, “Them poco people
gettin’ sweet,”9 and can be heard getting “happy” himself at the climax of
his early 1970s recording “When You Walk,” as backing vocalists drone a
“hallelujah” chant behind him.10 Another influence was the aura (if not the
actual practice) of Jamaica’s Obeah tradition of neo-African black magic.
Perry has steadfastly denied any involvement in Obeah,11 but he neverthe-
less drew on much of its imagery to fashion an image for himself as a sonic
spellcaster.12 Finally, there was his fascination with the sounds and textures
of Jamaica’s tropical setting. Thick, cloudy, smoky, and humid, Perry’s dub
music sounded uncannily suffused with the sound of Jamaica’s natural en-
vironment, buzzing with a tension that suggested he was receiving his in-
spiration directly from the island’s natural forces. The black rhythms of the
American mainland, the alternating frenzy and ecstasy of Jamaica’s Afro-
Protestant cults, the invocation of ancestral Africa via the celebration of
“roots” and nature, the spell-casting power of Obeah, a savvy eye toward
d u b / 142
the international market, and successive developments in recording technol-
ogy were the elements around which Perry would craft his own, hermetic
sound world. In time, it would develop into a “progressive” stream of reg-
gae, fairly independent of commercial trends. But his work developed
through several stages before he realized his farthest-flung sonic visions.
Early Productions, 1966–1971

Perry eventually tired of his subordinate role under Dodd and left Studio
One during 1966, working with a succession of rival producers including
Clancy Eccles, Bunny Lee, Sir J.J. Johnson, and Joe Gibbs. It was his acrimo-
nious splits with Dodd and Gibbs, respectively, that prompted several songs,
including “I Am the Upsetter” and “People Funny Boy.” The first became an-
other of his most enduring nicknames, the generic name he gave all of his
studio bands, as well as the name of the independent label he established in
1968. The latter was one of several hit songs credited with the introduction of
the downtempo shift that gradually morphed rock steady into reggae.
Perry became a full-fledged independent producer in 1968, one of a
younger crop of producers such as Eccles, Lee, and Winston “Niney” Hol-
ness, associated with the new sound that would be called “reggae.” He was
particularly close with Lee at this time, who remembered: “Everywhere I go
I always carry Lee Perry as my spar [friend] because he and I working to-
gether for years, from West Indies Records, to Dynamic Sound, to Randy’s
studio. We always run the session the same day, sometime I do it first and
them him do it after. So sometime you’d find that we have music on the same
tape!”13 Perry swiftly consolidated his reputation as a talented songwriter
and a brilliantly eccentric producer. He scored early commercial successes
during 1969: “People Funny Boy”; the Inspirations’ “Tighten Up”; and, es-
pecially, a instrumental remake of Fats Domino’s “Sick and Tired” titled “Re-
turn of Django,” featuring veteran tenor saxophonist Val Bennett.14 The
musicians backing most of these productions were the first edition of Perry’s
Upsetters, and included Hux Brown on electric guitar, Winston Wright on
organ, Gladstone Anderson on piano, Clifton Jackson or Jackie Jackson on
electric bass, and Lloyd Adams or Hugh Malcolm on drums.15
Most of the early Upsetter productions were either originals, instrumen-
tals, novelty songs, or covers of American pop hits, with production values
fairly typical of British and American popular music of the period. But
Perry’s experimental streak was already in evidence by 1967–68. For exam-
ple, he was one of the earliest producers to exploit the more creative pos-
sibilities of versioning. As early as 1967, Perry had released the song “Run
For Cover,” accompanied by a B-side instrumental version of the same
track. He would also release “Set Them Free,” an alternate spoken-word

vocal over the same rhythm track, which presents a mock court case in
which Perry as attorney defends the interests of the ghetto rude boys and
sufferers, and the black race in general.16 While backward tape manipula-
tion was a new and important element of progressive rock albums such as
the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Jimi Hendrix
Experience’s Axis: Bold as Love (both 1967), Perry used the flip side of Burt
Walters’s 1968 cover of the Drifters’ “Honey Love” to reprise the original
rhythm track, while Walters’s vocals were played in reverse; the B-side ver-
sion was accordingly titled “Evol Yenoh.” On Walters’s cover of Bob
Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Perry overdubs wind effects for the dura-
tion of the song, and on his own “People Funny Boy,” he overdubs the
sound of a baby’s crying, to reinforce lyrics depicting a “crybaby” jealous of
another’s professional success. Perry’s own “What A Botheration” vocal
features a mix that foreshadows the evolution of his production style over
the next ten years. He uses a rapid echo effect (different than that found on
his production of other vocalists) to help distinguish his own vocal/sonic
persona, and uses reverb to place the backing vocals a spooky distance be-
hind the lead. The effect is very similar to what he would achieve with
somewhat more sophisticated equipment ten years later, on his produc-
tions of artists such as the Congos.17 These recordings demonstrate that his
idiosyncratic vision of production was already in place.
African Herbsmen: Lee Perry and the Wailers

Those were dynamite sessions, man. Them deh recordings is like, speechless, timeless
music. The Wailers didn’t even want to record anywhere else than at Randy’s be-
cause it was a sound, a particular sound that we had and they had captured it.
Especially Perry had captured it and he didn’t want to work anywhere else.18
—Producer Clive Chin to the author, 2000
They was ready to play that kinky, funny idea that I had.19
—Lee Perry
While he had produced several hits since striking out on his own, Perry’s
arrival as an independent producer was undeniably his partnership with the
vocal trio of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny “Wailer” Livingstone—
collectively known as the Wailers. The partnership lasted only from 1970 to
1971, but resulted in much of the era’s most culturally conscious reggae. In-
spired by the growing presences of African and Caribbean nationalism and
the vision of Rastafari, the Perry/Wailers material is credited with pushing
the sounds and sentiments of Rastafari to the fore of Jamaican popular
music.20 Despite the individual Wailers’ subsequent international stardom,
many still consider their Perry-produced work the most powerful of their
careers as recording artists, and the last time their music was consistently
played on Jamaica’s sound systems.21 The actual composer(s) of several of
d u b / 144
these tracks has been acrimoniously disputed by Perry and the various
Wailers for years, but this likely reflects the closeness of collaboration as
much as any after-the-fact skullduggery; it seems both artists and producer
benefitted equally from the creative partnership.
Besides the combination of Perry’s production and songwriting skills
with the singing, playing, and songwriting talents of the Wailers, the part-
nership also resulted in Perry’s pairing of the Wailers with an up-and-
coming studio band created around the sibling drum & bass team of Carl-
ton “Carlie” Barrett and his brother Aston “Familyman” Barrett (the group
also included guitarists Alva Lewis and Ranford Williams, and organist
Glen Adams).22 As the second-generation Upsetters, they brought a new
edge to Perry’s productions. Carlton took the syncopation of rock steady
drumming, slowed it down to match the tempo of his brother Aston’s lum-
bering bass lines, funked it up via the influence of American R&B drum-
mers like Clyde Stubblefield and Ziggy Modeliste, and drew on Rastafarian
Nyabinghi drumming to give an African inflection. The signature sound of
Carlie Barrett’s trademark timbale roll echoing into reverberating space re-
mains a signature sound bytes of 1970s reggae.
Most of the Perry/Wailers material was recorded at Randy’s with Errol
Thompson engineering; as producer, however, Perry was central in shap-
ing the sound. The best-known material from this period includes songs
like “Duppy Conqueror,” “Small Axe,” and “Don’t Rock My Boat”—
cleanly produced, clear-sounding tracks competitive according to the com-
mercial standards of the day. But Perry pursued a less conventional sonic
vision on tracks such as “It’s Alright,” “No Water,” and Peter Tosh’s “400
Years” and “No Sympathy,” infusing the music with a mixture of ideas
drawn from soul and Rastafarian Nyabinghi drumming.
Lee “Scratch” Perry on the Mix I

Wailers: “It’s Alright,” “No Sympathy”
Bob Marley sings a lonely, nocturnal theme on “It’s Alright.” The song is
introduced by a bluesy guitar figure that settles into a midtempo,
Nyabinghi-derived groove on D7 in which the chordal instruments are
played more as percussion than anything else. The foundation of the
groove is layed down by Peter Tosh, whose status as a reggae icon has over-
shadowed his talent as one of the music’s most inventive rhythm guitarists.
Tosh beats quarter-note time on the muted, choked strings of his guitar
while Carlton Barrett doubles him with a straight four pulse on the snare.
Family Man plays an ascending R&B bass line reminiscent of James
Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” loosely doubled by the organ, while Alva Lewis’s
wah-wah lead guitar noodles throughout to provide melodic counterpoint.

Tosh takes the lead on “No Sympathy,” in which the listener is dropped
into a groove-in-progress that comes across as a slowed and typically (for
Tosh) brooding take on the rhythm pattern of Diana Ross and the
Supremes’ 1968 song “Reflections,” refracted through the syntax of Nyabin-
ghi percussion.23 Tosh’s voice hovers ominously over a barren soundscape,
shadowed by the sorrowful voices of Marley and Livingstone. His rhythm
guitar line is played through a wah-wah pedal, marking the second beat of
each measure while Marley interjects a scratching pickup phrase to each
measure on second guitar that exactly mirrors the role of the Nyabinghi re-
peater drum. Family Man’s bass throbs percussively, changing its pattern to
“walk” in double time on the bridge section in a style typical of Motown’s
James Jamerson. Departing from the typical offbeat “shuffle” pattern, the
organ stitches out a straight eighth-note march that itself sounds more de-
rived from Nyabinghi drumming than from typical reggae keyboard prac-
tice. Similarly, the drum set part is built around a two-beat pattern that rep-
licates the role of the funde, the bass drum in the Nyabinghi ensemble.
Besides the structural influence of Nyabinghi drumming, what seems
equally evident on these two tracks is the centrality of percussion sonorities
to Perry’s production aesthetic during this period. The cloudy, low end mix
emphasizes the music’s pulsating undercurrent, and Perry simultaneously
uses the mixing board to realize the latent percussive potential of instru-
ments like the electric guitar and electric organ. Thus, the scratchy rhythm
guitar became virtually indistinguishable in the mix from the strident hand
drums, the plodding bass virtually indistinguishable from the thumping
bass drum, and the ringing lead guitar virtually indistinguishable from the
metallic sounds of the cowbell and hi-hat cymbals. In effect, Perry fash-
ioned a production value that evokes some sort of electrified hand drum-
ming ensemble; in so doing, he was able to make the ensemble sound as if
it were ebbing and flowing hypnotically. He described the desired effect:
“When the people hear what I-man do to them, they hear a different beat, a
slower beat, a waxy beat, like you stepping in glue. And dem hear a differ-
ent bass, a rebel bass, coming at you like sticking a gun.”24
Upsetting Station, 1969–1973

The first dub that really exposed, is that tune what we did for Lee “Scratch” Perry
called “Clint Eastwood.” And then Duke Reid send for us when him hear that
vibes and we did one they called “Lock Jaw.” And then dub hit the road you know,
’til it get international. —Aston “Familyman” Barrett to the author, 2003
Since his days at Studio One, Perry had his finger on the public’s pulse,
versioning hot rhythm tracks for their radio and dancehall potential. When
he and the Wailers parted company in 1971 after two tempestuous years,
d u b / 146
Perry lost not only his star vocalists but his star session players as well (the
Barrett brothers left with the Wailers).25 Nonetheless, Perry continued to
work profitably with other vocalists, including Dave Barker and Junior
Byles; this period is also notable for his cutting and versioning a sizable
batch of instrumental tracks that provide important insight into his par-
ticular vision of dub music. Some of these tracks had been recorded with or
prior to the Wailers team, while later tracks were recorded with the shifting
cast of Upsetters who replaced the Barrett brothers.26 David Katz cites
1969 in particular as a year of popular organ instrumentals that spotlighted
the talents of sessions players such as Jackie Mittoo, Gladstone Anderson,
and Winston Wright.27 During the early 1970s Perry was leading the Up-
setters, alternately featuring Anderson and Wright, through sessions at
Randy’s and Dynamic, producing Jamaican takes on organ-driven soul
music of the type played by Booker T. and the MGs and the Meters. Refer-
ences to soul music abound, including riffs, licks, and songs copped from
the Meters (“Sophisticated Cissy” on “Medical Operation”), the James
Brown band (“The Popcorn”), and the Stax/Volt label (Eddie Floyd’s
“Knock on Wood”).28 Many of these tracks, such as “French Connec-
tion,” “Cold Sweat,” and “Live Injection,” were uptempo organ features
clearly aimed at the dance floor, using soul to articulate the funky side of
reggae. On Perry’s production of some of the Upsetters’ more moody,
minimalist rhythms, however, the production atmosphere is often as im-
portant as the musical structure; many of Perry’s early mixes seem as
much explorations of different sound atmospheres as they are distinct
“songs” in any traditional sense. Also notable were Perry’s crude tape
compositions like “Connection” and “Kill Them All”: irreverent, Frank
Zappa–esque collages of several different performances in which abrupt
splices violate the dance- and pop-friendly conventions of tonality,
groove, tempo, and thematic continuity.29
Another similarity with Frank Zappa is how Perry uses the studio to
insert himself as producer into the music through a variety of bizarre
skits, monologues, and song introductions. Usually, his voice reverber-
ated with silly-sinister echo suggesting he was speaking from some
strange secret cave, subterranean laboratory, or tropical treehouse.
Clearly, he was beginning to embrace the recording studio’s potential as a
creative and not merely documentary tool. Later, with the opening of his
own studio, Perry’s eccentric vision coalesced and he would begin to craft
the particular type of sound for which he would become famous; still, his
later lofty achievements as a producer and sound sculptor are rooted in
the various sonic atmopsheres he crafted around the Upsetters between
1968 and 1973.

Dub Revolution: 1972–1974
Tubby come to meet me, ’cause him was looking for adventure. . . . He was bril-
liant. I thought he was my student, maybe he thought I was his student, but it
makes no matter. I’m not jealous.30
For obvious reasons, the collaborative work of Perry and King Tubby
was a significant step in the evolution of dub music. The combination of
Perry’s fertile imagination, King Tubby’s electronics expertise, and both
men’s willingness to experiment ensured that the benefit of their collabora-
tion was mutual. The first fruits of their work, produced between 1972 and
1974, were mainly a string of B-side dub mixes recorded by Perry at Randy’s
and Dynamics, and remixed by Perry and Tubby at the latter’s recently con-
structed home studio in Waterhouse. Together, they reworked productions
by Perry’s star vocalists such as Leo Graham, Junior Byles, and others. Ac-
cording to Philip Smart, Perry was also the only producer to lay down a
rhythm track at Tubby’s studio: “One of the innovations Scratch did at
Tubbs that I don’t think anyone else did, was he actually recorded a whole
rhythm track at Tubbs. The drum set could barely fit in the voice room. You
have the drummer out in the bedroom but the musicians in the control
room and they plug in direct. The drummer only had like the kick drum,
snare, and hi-hat. I don’t know if it even came out, but I remember doing it
and plugging in the bass directly to the board and recording it that way.”31
The influence of King Tubby on Perry’s sound during this period is re-
flected in the similarity between the dub sides Tubby mixed with Perry, and
those released concurrently under Tubby’s own name, on Bunny Lee–pro-
duced LPs such as Dub From the Roots and The Roots of Dub (both 1975).
While working with Tubby, Perry’s dubs conformed to a heavy drum &
bass format typical of Tubby’s work. Notable examples would include
Tubby’s mixes of Perry productions such as Jimmy Riley’s “Woman’s
Gotta Have It” (“Woman’s Dub”) and Leo Graham’s aforementioned
“Three Blind Mice” (“Three Times Three”).32 While much of this material
was actually mixed by Tubby, it still bore the unmistakable imprint of Perry
and the Upsetters in the construction of the rhythms and the overall mood
of the music.
Lee “Scratch” Perry on the Mix II

Lee Perry: “Bucky Skank” > Upsetters: “Black Panta”
The best-known collaboration between Perry and King Tubby is the
Blackboard Jungle Dub LP (1973) which, while credited to the Upsetters,
was actually mixed by both engineers.33 The original mix, recently re-
turned to circulation after having been unavailable for years, supposedly
featured each engineer mixing on separate channels.34 One of the earliest
d u b / 148
all-dub albums to appear, Blackboard presented a selection of Perry’s most
popular rhythm tracks including those previously used for the Wailers, Jun-
ior Byles, the Gatherers, Shenley Duffus, U-Roy, and Perry himself. The
album was also significant for another reason. In a genre marked by album
compilations of B-side dub mixes, Blackboard was notable as the first self-
contained, thematically consistent dub album.
In contrast to King Tubby’s drum & bass aesthetic, Blackboard provides
a contrasting example of Perry’s additive tendency in mixing. The title
track is built from a midtempo roots riddim in A minor that sounds derived
from the Temptations’ 1972 soul hit “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” and that
had been previously used for Perry’s “Bucky Skank” vocal. The way that
Perry overhauled the basic rhythm and textures of “Bucky Skank” indicates
much about his working process and its evolution. The original rhythm
featured Perry vocalizing over a fairly austere rhythm track and, aside from
the occasional novel effect (in this case an ascending, zipper-sounding glis-
sando by the electric guitarist and an echo effect applied to Perry’s voice),
the production was fairly straightforward, with minimal sound processing.
The remix demonstrates the appropriateness of the title’s “jungle”
image. The soundspace has been significantly expanded through the appli-
cation of reverb, and the playback speed has been slowed a bit, resulting in
just enough low end distortion to give the music a greater weight without
seriously compromising pitch definition. The overall rhythmic texture has
also been thickened by feeding parts through a delay unit to achieve a sub-
tle variation of the rhythmic intensification frequent in King Tubby’s work.
The first minute is fairly free in feel, with Lloyd “Tin Leg” Adams’s dis-
torted drum fills echoing slightly out-of-time about the soundscape, an-
chored by Aston Barrett’s repeating bass line. A brooding flute and trum-
pet theme replaces the original vocal and figures prominently in the mix;
the instrumental tracks have also been overlaid with prerecorded sound ef-
fects and Perry’s eccentric vocalizing. The overall effect is one of a semielec-
tronic tropical jazz-sound collage, with the engineers complementing the
improvisation in the original performance through their own improvisa-
tion at the mixing console.
The probable derivation from “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” also implies
“Black Panta” as a notable example of the blaxploitation influence on Ja-
maican music in the 1970s. Although it was never actually featured on a film
soundtrack, “Papa” is, musically speaking, probably the paradigmatic blax-
ploitation track in terms of the way the urbanized blues impulse of James
Jamerson’s stark bass line has been given cinematic scope by the lush horn,
string, and vocal arrangements of Paul Riser and the overall production of
Norman Whitfield. In fact, the extended album version of “Papa” shares

some very interesting qualities with Jamaican music, and explains in part
why the rhythm groove might have been a natural for adaptation by Jamai-
can musicians; the episodic orchestral scoring above Jamerson’s steady bass
pattern closely mirrors the fragmented quality of dub mixes. 35 “Black
Panta” boosts the bass presence and slows it to match the tempo of Ja-
maica, while the cinematic scope is provided by the wildly atmospheric
mixing of Perry and King Tubby. In general, the nourish overtones of blax-
ploitation soundtracks and urban realist songs resonated in the tense cli-
mate of West Kingston—undoubtedly a factor in the frequent reggae adap-
tations of the rhythm patterns of soul songs such as War’s “Slippin’ Into
Darkness” and Isaac Hayes’s “Do Your Thing.”36
The Black Ark Studio

Perry completed many innovative works in conjunction with other pro-
ducers and engineers, but he would need his own workspace in order to re-
alize his creative vision fully. While he would continue to work with Tubby
and record at Randy’s over the next year and a half, Perry began building a
studio in the yard behind his home in Washington Gardens that he chris-
tened the “Black Ark.” Clive Chin recalls that an upgrading of Randy’s was
an important catalyst for Perry’s studio: “You see, Perry believe in a certain
sound, and he cyaan get away from that. But we renovated the studio in
’74, and we decided to get a new board and go 24-track. Perry thought that
wasn’t a good idea because what it meant was that we might lose the sound.
He pleaded with my father . . . and my old man told him that the board was
already bought and there was no way he was going to do any changes on it.
So, Perry just got furious and decided not to use the studio anymore.
That’s why he went and opened Black Ark.”37 Speaking with me thirty
years later, Perry still recalled the incident in fairly bitter terms, blaming the
renovation for the eventual demise of Randy’s: “Them fuck up the studio,
them change it. You have something good, and because the other man have
something bigger than you, you want to fuck up everything. Because of
that changing the board, them have to leave Jamaica, and run away to
America. [The music] was a miracle. And them want to change my miracle,
so them get fucked. It’s because them change the board.”38
According to both David Katz and Lloyd Bradley, the wiring at the
Black Ark was outlined by King Tubby, and installed by Errol Thomp-
son.39 The studio was completed in late 1973 as a four-track facility, initially
with fairly rudimentary equipment. Katz details the studio as originally
configured with “a quarter-inch four-track Teac 3340 for the recording of
new material and a quarter-inch two-track Teac on which to mix down.”
The mixing desk was “a silver Alice board, a small machine with limited
d u b / 150
capabilities.” The studio also contained “an electric piano and a cheap copy
of [an electric] clavinet, a Marantz amplifier and speaker for guitar or key-
board use and a small drum kit placed on a riser. He also had a Grantham
spring reverb and a tape-echo unit for effects.”40 Dave Hendley described
the atmosphere at the Black Ark:
Quiet. Really mellow. That studio was really built for Scratch’s personal use, so
you’ve not got people passing by to hang out if they haven’t got work there to do.
It wasn’t such a great meeting place as Tubby’s was. Tubby’s, everybody would
pass through Tubby’s at some time. Whereas Black Ark was in Scratch’s back gar-
den on Cardiff Crescent. And that was quite a posh suburb in the ’70s, like the
other side of the gully [from West Kingston]. It was another world, quite residen-
tial. It was quite a ways out of central Kingston, and quiet and more tranquil.
Whenever we went round there, Scratch was in the studio. He was always doing
something. . . . [The studio] was one of those kinds of places where you went in
there, and there was bright sunlight outside, but it was quite dark in there. You
stepped out of one world into Scratch’s world. Once you stepped in there, you had
no daylight. You had no sense geographically of where you were. And it had a kind
of heavy atmosphere.41
The Black Ark was the final piece in the puzzle that was Lee Perry’s stu-
dio genius. It allowed him a workspace tailored to his experimental whims,
and it was here he that would craft what many consider his most influential
work. Junior Murvin, Leo Graham, and Max Romeo stepped to the fore as
Perry’s main vocalists during this period, while the studio’s first commer-
cial success was Junior Byles’ “Curly Locks” (1973), which was much sim-
pler and more minimal in sound than the work he had realized earlier at
studios like Dynamics, Randy’s and Tubby’s. A defining sound element of
“Curly Locks” and other early Black Ark tracks (such as Junior Byles’s
“Long Way”) is the offbeat keyboard pattern, played on an electric instead
of an acoustic piano; the sound is consequently much dryer, and the attack
softer, than the typical acoustic piano sound.42
Perry laid the groundwork for his Black Ark dub work with a series of
atmospheric, instrumental albums during 1974 and 1975 that seem to indi-
cate that he was gaining his bearings in his new studio before venturing
back onto his sonic limb; as with “Curly Locks,” the sound is much simpler
and stripped down compared to profuse works such as Blackboard Jungle
Dub, and even compared to some of the early Upsetter LPs such as East-
wood Rides Again. For example, Cloak and Dagger (1974) offers an
album’s worth of atmospheric, instrumental jazz-reggae of a fairly tradi-
tional format. Gradually, however, Perry’s additive approach assumed the
foreground on LPs such as Kung Fu Meets the Dragon (1975), in which
rhythm tracks are reworked through the addition of electronic squeals, dis-
sonant harmonica, incidental percussion, Augustus Pablo’s melodica, and

Perry’s own vocalizing. The more comfortable Perry became in his new
studio, the more layered and eccentric his sound became. The same mixing
style, with the aforementioned clavinet added, can be heard on many of
Perry’s concurrent vocal releases such as Linval Thompson’s “Kung Fu
Man” and Junior Byles’s “Cutting Razor.”43
Lee “Scratch” Perry on the Mix III

Leo Graham: “Black Candle” > Upsetters: “Bad Lamp” > Leo
Graham: “Doctor Demand” > Upsetters: “Black Bat” > Leo
Graham: “Big Tongue Buster” > Upsetters: “Bus-a-Dub”
Perry’s mixing palette between 1970 and 1974 was particularly colorful:
typically built around the substitution and replacing of parts rather than
the soundscaping approach of King Tubby, the juxtaposition of fragments
of previous versions made much of his work in this period seem like sound
collages. A series of versions from the Public Jestering compilation demon-
strates his colorful way of elaborating his rhythm tracks.44 Known island-
wide as a talented and eccentric dancer, Perry was known for favoring syn-
copated, “bumpity” riddims, and the following succession of versions also
shows that this was accomplished not only through instrumental arrange-
ment, but just as often through post-production. On Leo Graham’s up-
tempo “Black Candle,” Perry punched the original rhythm guitar and
organ tracks out for the first two beats of each measure, punching them
back in for the second two beats; the standard, of course, was to play
through the entire measure. This created a pushing-and-pulling rhythmic
tension that is the most distinctive feature of the song. The second version,
titled “Bad Lamp,” is a dub version introduced by Perry quoting from the
Bible (Psalms 1:1), after which he assumes the role of an action painter of
sound: throwing random fragments of Graham’s original vocal, organ, and
guitar tracks upon a canvas of drum & bass. The mixing board here seemed
to become an extension of Perry’s own jittery nervous impulses, with him
cutting in and out specific instruments after allowing them to sound for a
fraction of a gesture.
Graham returns for the “Doctor Demand” vocal take, a third version to
the rhythm featuring a similar lyrical theme to “Black Candle,” with the
clavinet playing a buzzing counter–bass line to the electric bass. The har-
monic instruments have been retooled, with a wah-wah rhythm guitar re-
placing the previous guitar track. Nonpitched, feedback-type sounds whis-
tle across the soundscape at intervals, while the voice of the DJ Prince
Jazzbo surfaces each time Perry drops the rhythm out. The fourth version
is a dub version of “Doctor Demand” titled “Black Bat”: similar to the previ-
ous take but with a legato keyboard bass replacing the syncopated phrasing
d u b / 152
of the earlier keyboard part. Graham’s original “Black Candle” vocal re-
turns in fragments for “Big Tongue Buster,” the fifth version and an alter-
nate dub version of the first take, with an unidentified DJ (possibly Charlie
Ace) adding overdubbed commentary. Otherwise, it is essentially the same
as the first version. “Big Tongue Buster” is reprised for the sixth version, ti-
tled “Bus-A-Dub.” With the previous vocals of Graham and the DJ frag-
mented over a drum & bass foundation, this version is closest to the stan-
dard for dub mixes.
Into the Heart of the Ark

Although Perry had parted company with the Wailers in 1971, he contin-
ued to benefit from his earlier work with Bob Marley, who had since been
signed by Chris Blackwell’s Island Records and transformed into an inter-
national superstar.45 Around 1976, Perry himself signed a production deal
with Island for worldwide distribution of his work. Most immediately, the
new deal allowed him to upgrade his facilities. He had already replaced the
Alice console with a model made by Soundcraft,46 and this model was later
augmented by the two sound processing effects that would define his Black
Ark sound: Mutron’s Bi-Phase phase-shifting unit, and Roland’s famous
Space Echo delay unit. The New Jersey–based Musitronics company was
among the most adventurous manufacturers of mass-market sound proces-
sors during the 1970s and their Bi-Phase was the largest phase-shifting de-
vice offered at the time, surpassing smaller units by MXR (Phase 45, Phase
90, Phase 100) and Electro-Harmonix (Small Stone). The characteristic
“swirling” sound of the phase shifter is actually a filtering effect produced
by mixing a primary signal with its own delayed (out of phase) replication.
The result is that specified frequencies are cancelled at a predetermined and
cyclical rate. The largest phase shifter on the market, the Bi-Phase actually
housed two phase shifters that could be employed separately or in tandem,
and that could be triggered and adjusted by an attached foot pedal. In Jer-
emy Marre’s 1977 film Roots, Rock, Reggae, Perry is seen engineering a ses-
sion at the Black Ark, manipulating the Bi-Phase (on its Super Phasing set-
ting) as if it were a musical instrument and making the kinds of facial
grimaces typically reserved for lead guitarists.47 As with most of his equip-
ment, Perry favored the most extreme applications. The vocals on a Black
Ark remix of the Inspirations’ 1968 “Tighten Up” were routed through
such thick phase-shifting until they sounded like a chorus of strangulated
voices.48 Perry often applied this same effect to horns; on Junior
Murvin’s “Tedious,”49 Zap Pow’s “River,”50 and his own “Scratch the
Dub Organizer,”51 Perry’s phase shifter reduces their majestic brassiness
to the thin sonority of a kazoo. Perry’s application of phase-shifting to

various instruments (particularly the offbeat rhythm guitar and the hi-hat
cymbals) is the most recognizable feature of his work at the Black Ark.
The Japanese Roland Company manufactured several models of their
famous Space Echo unit, but the most popular remains the RE-201, intro-
duced in 1973, and used by Perry extensively in his studio. The Space Echo
was a particularly flexible device: it housed a tape delay and a spring reverb
in the same unit, and as such was able to provide a unique variety of com-
bined rhythmic (delay) and spatial (reverb) effects. Its affordable price
made it a frequent choice in many studios during the 1970s, and its charac-
teristic sound can be heard on numerous New Age recordings, popular re-
cordings, and science fiction soundtracks of the period. Perry relied heavily
upon the Roland unit for both reverb and delay effects, and its typically ex-
treme application in his hands can be heard on reverb-saturated mixes such
as Devon Iron’s “Vampire,”52 and Watty Burnett’s “Open the Gate.” 53
These tracks recall the spatial grandiosity of Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”
production concept, taken several steps further.54
It was the combination of these two effects that created the swirling,
aquatic sound of Perry’s classic Black Ark productions, and these upgrad-
ings inspired Perry to some of his greatest producing heights. By 1976,
Perry had “found his sound,” and his work during this period is considered
the crystallization of his studio wizardry and of his keen insight into the
international market. Mikey Dread remembered Perry in this period as a
producer who was “a genius too in a different sense because he can visualize
certain things as a man who travel over the world before most other artists.
He could tell what would be worthwhile to be released in England or in Eu-
rope more than somebody who just been in Jamaica all their life. So Scratch
have a edge above certain people because he was always traveling.”55
Between 1976 and 1979, Perry would achieve his commercial apex and
score international commercial successes with albums like Max Romeo’s
“War Inna Babylon,”56 Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves,”57 and
Susan Cadogan’s cover of Millie Jackson’s tortured 1974 soul ballad
“Hurt So Good.”58 The vocalists with whom he worked most frequently
and profitably during this period were Romeo, Murvin, and Leo Gra-
ham. Junior Byles was largely absent from the later phase of Perry’s
Black Ark work, having suffered a mental breakdown of sorts precipi-
tated by the death of Haile Selassie in 1975, and lived in intermittent se-
clusion thereafter. But Perry’s vision as a producer was so strong at this
time that he could seemingly mold any unformed talent to his formula.
Indeed, he would achieve remarkable successes—in artistic if not always
commercial terms—with vocalists rarely heard of before or since: Junior
Dread, Peter and Paul Lewis, Bunny and Ricky, Carlton Jackson, James
d u b / 154
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the others; he merely took a different approach that probably went some
way toward reconciling his creative eccentricity with commercial necessity.
Where King Tubby’s deconstructions were generally and pragmatically
confined to B-sides of singles, Perry often produced his A-side vocal cuts as
otherwordly landscapes as surreal and spaced-out as Tubby’s most uncon-
ventional dub work. It was through this method of working that he created
three of his most enduring contributions to dub music and earned him his
legendary status as a studio innovator.
Lee “Scratch” Perry on the Mix IV

The Congos: Heart of the Congos
Perry’s most widely-hailed work of dub-influenced mixing is probably the
Congos’ Heart of the Congos album (1977).63 Over the rootsy rhythms of
an all-star edition of the Upsetters, the ethereal vocals of Cedric Myton,
Roydel Johnson, and Watty Burnett fuse echoes of Rasta chants, Afro-
Protestant hymns, and 1960s soul harmonies—all given Perry’s fullest studio
treatment. The producer crafted a corrosive aesthetic here, in which songs
swirl and rustle beneath a patina of phase-shifting, white noise, and tape
hiss. The entire sound is best described as aquatic. Lead vocalist Roy
Johnson’s vocals are treated with a repeating echo as he trades call-and-
response lines with a reverberating chorus of Cedric Myton and Watty
Burnett. Heavy drum & bass patterns anchor swirling atmospheres of
phase-shifted sound punctuated by dropouts both accidental and inten-
tional. At the mixing board, Perry routes small, staccato percussion
through echo units and transforms them into stuttering, legato gestures.
Cymbal crashes resound across the soundscape, elongated by reverb into
ambient streams of metallic sound. Distorted, offbeat piano and guitar
parts are routed through echo units and transformed into scraping percus-
sion textures that arc across spectra of phase-shifted tone color. The overall
aquatic effect is heightened by an intermittent cowbell repeating with echo
and ringing like a buoy, as well as by layers of phase-shifted tape noise that
recall the sound of surf crashing against the shore. The juxtaposition of all
these layers of sound results in a strata of ambient percussion that rustles in
free-time above the soundscape.
George Faith: To Be A Lover

Because it has been out of print for many years, George Faith’s To Be A Lover
(1977) is one of the lesser-known works from this period of Perry’s oeuvre.64
Nonetheless, it is also one of Perry’s most monumental works. Composed
mainly of Faith’s covers of songs by soul singers such as Wilson Pickett,
Lee Dorsey, Tyrone Davis, William Bell, and others, these covers are given
d u b / 156
a particularly psychedelic treatment by Perry. The collection is assembled
around Faith’s 1976 hit cover of William Bell’s “I Forgot to Be Your
Lover.” Bell’s original was recorded for Stax/Volt in 1968, during the comp-
any’s “second great era” following the death of Otis Redding in 1967. The
song was a typically earthy Stax ballad, running a little over two minutes,
and in which Bell’s singing was shadowed by the gently ornamental rhythm
guitar chording of guitarist Steve Cropper.65 The body of the song is built
on a chord progression of vi–I–IV–ii; like many reggae covers from the
1970s on, however, the Faith/Perry version (retitled “To Be A Lover”) has
been harmonically flattened so that the entire tune is now comprised of just
the I and IV chords. Furthermore, the Upsetters’ studio performance of
the track remains dynamically static for the duration of the performance.
So passive is the band track, in fact, that it approximates the aesthetic of a
tape loop. What has been elaborated in the absence of the original chord se-
quence and dynamic variation in the band performance is the production.
Throughout the entire performance, Perry constantly refigures the song
surface through heavy phase shifting applied to the electric piano and
rhythm guitar. With some versions running nearly ten minutes in length,
“To Be A Lover” amounts to a study in timbral manipulation through
phase-shifting.
“To Be A Lover” may be the album’s best-known song, but not necessar-
ily its most inventive. A hybrid lyric comprising Wilson Pickett’s “In the
Midnight Hour” and Lee Dorsey’s “Ya-Ya” is given a similar treatment, as is
Tyrone Davis’s “Turn Back the Hands of Time.” Besides being adapted to
the reggae “steppers” rhythm, most of these performances also feature
slightly altered lyrics and song arrangements, possibly for copyright reasons.
The numerous and subtly interwoven layers of sound in these songs argu-
ably tie into the spiritual ethos of the times. The romantic yearning of the
originals has been transformed into something much more thematically am-
biguous through sumptuous textures and undulating song surfaces that im-
part an erotic aura to these performances, but are simultaneously deeply
psychedelic in a manner suggesting a higher devotion of some kind. At the
height of his mixing wizardry in the late 1970s, in fact, Perry’s work would
fit partially into a stream of otherworldly sounding, “country” reggae asso-
ciated with groups such as Culture, early Burning Spear, and the Wailing
Souls, who evoke such a feeling through use of open vocal harmonies, repe-
tition, and the plaintive style of singing associated with rural churches.
What Perry added was his innovative use of sound mixing to evoke the
otherworldly sensation.
Heart of the Congos and To Be A Lover are dense, surreal works in which
Perry essentially offered the world his tropical vision of psychedelia. Both

reflect the breadth of Perry’s studio vision and, even more than his other
work of the period, reflect his elevation of echo, distortion, and even tape
noise as creative musical values. In fact Perry would elaborate this type of
mixing on tracks such as Junior Murvin’s 1977 “Cross-Over,” in which he
submerges the Upsetters’ heavy roots rhythm in an ocean of pure ambient
noise while Murvin wails on top for black cultural liberation.66 The
“ocean” metaphor is actually apt; Perry later explained to me that the mix
of “Cross-Over” was meant to evoke just such an sensation: “that one
makes you go walk over the ocean, you go walk on the sea.”67
The Upsetters: Super Ape

In addition to producing dub-influenced vocal albums, Perry also recorded
a relatively straightforward dub album. The Upsetters 1976 album Super
Ape is often considered one of the defining statements of the genre, dem-
onstrating the additive approach that distinguished Perry’s mixing style
from the deconstructive, drum & bass approach taken at studios like King
Tubby’s.68 A densely layered work of mixing, Super Ape is essentially a col-
lection of thematic and programmatic dubs on which Perry generally re-
worked tracks by adding material to preexisting backing tracks. Vocals
(lead, background, and DJ) and horn lines were often added not as ele-
ments to be fragmented, but as clear and fairly linear thematic statements.
“Zion’s Blood” is a version of Devon Irons’s “When Jah Come” with added
horns. “Dub Along” is an updating of Perry’s earlier “Come Along,” in
which Perry has fleshed out the original version by adding the vocal trio
Full Experience to sing additional lyrics.69 The track hovers between a song
and a dub; the lyrics are not developed enough to constitute a “song” in the
typical sense, but neither is the production approach deconstructive in a
way that would typically justify the description “dub.” In fact it might be
argued that the retooled “Dub Along” is much neater than its earlier incar-
nation. Other songs like “Curly Dub” (no relation to Byles’s “Curly
Locks”), which offer fairly straightforward instrumental treatments of pre-
existing tracks, are subjected to the same additive approach, with the com-
bination of sound processing and additional material stretching them be-
yond their basic jazz-derived song format of theme–solos–theme. This is
not to claim that Super Ape lacks any of the essential elements of dub prac-
tice. On “Croaking Lizard” (Prince Jazzbo’s DJ version of Max Romeo’s
“Chase the Devil”) and “Black Vest” (Jazzbo’s version of Romeo’s “War
Inna Babylon”), for example, Perry fragments the lyrics in typical dub fash-
ion while using the Roland unit to reduce the remaining vocals to a stream
of unintelligible, liquified exclamation.
d u b / 158
Can the tracks on Super Ape actually be considered dubs? Or are they
more accurately described as dubbed-up instrumentals along the lines of
LPs such as Augustus Pablo’s East of the River Nile? It is interesting to note
that as much as he had focused on instrumentals during the first years of
the decade, Perry’s focus changed to cutting dub sides following his work
with King Tubby. Possibly, the realization that a new form of electronic im-
provisation could be performed on the mixing console offered, for him,
more interesting possibilities; he cut very few straight instrumentals during
the later years at Black Ark. Perry did, however, continue to credit his dub
sides to the Upsetters, seemingly implying that in his conception, the dub
form had grown directly out of the instrumental form.
The Black Ark became a center for both a particularly spiritual type of
reggae and for sound experimentation, and many musicians recall work-
ing with Perry during this period as the creative height of their careers.
Sly Dunbar recalled his Black Ark work as “one of the greatest times in
the world!”70 Mikey Dread felt that “Scratch was ingenious in that he just
do some little things in his studio and create the vibes. And in Scratch en-
vironment, herbs would be burning every day—with the people there,
and he’s doing his mixing.”71 Max Romeo called his period with Perry
“the best moments of my life” and described the producer’s approach:
“He makes sounds out of stones, he would hit two stones together. If the
stone didn’t give him the right sound he would pick up another stone
until he get the right sound. He used empty bottles with utensils for per-
cussion sounds. He was always trying to find sounds, different weird
sounds.”72 Similarly to the way he accentuated the percussive undertones
in the Wailers’ music years earlier, Perry also continued to draw on Nya-
binghi throughout his years at the Black Ark. Tracks like Perry’s own
“City Too Hot”73 and the Meditations’ “Houses of Parliament”74 feature
an order of what David Katz described as “radical Nyabinghi drummers”
who had taken up residence at the Black Ark in 1977.75 Perry would later
extend this mood to its logical conclusion in his production of Nyabinghi
drummer Ras Michael’s “Love Thy Neighbor,” in which Rasta liturgical
drumming and chanting is augmented by electric guitars and keyboards
and smeared with a thick layer of psychedelic haze.76 One of Perry’s most
fascinating projects during this period was the African Roots album, a
collaboration between him and two stranded Congolese musicians (Seke
Molenga and Kawo Kawongolo) who turned up at the Black Ark in 1977.
Together, they created a hybrid of roots reggae and Congolese pop sung
alternately in Lingala and Jamaican patwa, and given a wildly psychedelic
Perry mix.77

Anything, whether it moved or was stuck down, Scratch had written on absolutely
everything. . . . What really struck me then was the amount of time it must have
taken—like, time on your own, just writing on everything. Because some of it was
quite minute. And it wasn’t just tagging something. It was quite small and delib-
erate lettering. None of it made any sense. The only thing I’ve ever seen like it is oc-
cult sort of things. I’ve seen some similar stuff on graves in New Orleans.78
—Dave Hendley
I think highly skilled or highly talented people have some eccentric habits, ’cause he
is strange. He writes on everything. I ask him, “Why you write up the place?” He
said, “Well, if you don’t write, you wrong . . .”
—Susan Cadogan
Over the five or so years of its operation, as Perry realized some of the
most distinctive music to come out of Jamaica, the Black Ark control room
and mixing console simultaneously grew into a virtual art installation with
photos, random objects, scrawled words, and other items that served a talis-
manic function for Perry’s creative energy. He was certainly a reggae vision-
ary: while Osbourne Ruddock and others were symbolizing their authority
by proclaiming themselves “king,” “prince” and other British-derived titles
of royalty, Lee Perry was the first to rationalize his ambivalent relationship
with Western sound technology by assuming the role of the “mad” scientist
of sound. If the symbol of “science” was the Western sound technology
through which he created his art, the symbols of antiscientific madness were
inevitably drawn from stereotypes of neo-African antirationality such as the
Obeah tradition. This image of the “crazy” black sound engineer would
later be embraced by other engineers such as Scientist (Overton Brown),
Mad Professor (Neil Fraser), Peter Chemist, and others.
Of course, Perry took this type of behavior further than any of the others,
taming the technological monster through his personal brand of eccentric
mysticism and alchemy. Perry was known to run a studio microphone from
his console to a nearby palm tree, in order to record what he called the “living
African heartbeat.”79 He often “blessed” his recording equipment with mys-
tical invocations and other icons of supernatural and spiritual power such as
burning candles and incense, whose wax and dust remnants were freely al-
lowed to infest his electronic equipment. Perry was also known to blow
ganja smoke onto his tapes while recording, to clean the heads of his tape
machine with the sleeve of his T-shirt, to bury unprotected tapes in the soil
outside of his studio, and to spray them with a variety of fluids including
whiskey, blood, and urine, ostensibly to enhance their spiritual properties.80
In fact, Richard Henderson draws a direct correlation between the technical
decay of Perry’s facility and the unique sounds he was able to realize from his
studio equipment.81 In this case, Perry’s “craziness” functioned to reanimate
the symbol of sound science with black personality and black spirituality,
drawn from a diverse array of ostensibly potent organic sources.
d u b / 160
Over time, however, the “madness” became all too real, as the musical
limits that Perry was pushing at this time increasingly seemed to mirror the
boundaries of his sanity. As gloriously psychedelic as his Black Ark music
grew during the heady days of reggae-gone-international, it nosedived into
a bad trip as the decade wound down. Despite its innovative qualities, for
example, the African Roots project, with its tremulous, frenetic soundscape
and periodic “cow” sounds (later revealed to be an extremely intoxicated
Perry groaning through an aluminum tube) does seem to suggest a precar-
ious mental balance. There were several reasons for this decline. Possibly
because of Perry’s quirky experimenting, the Black Ark had never turned
out local hits at the rate of other leading studios and producers like Chan-
nel One or Bunny Lee. Perry had resolutely resisted using old Treasure Isle
or Studio One rhythms for his songs, effectively removing his music from
the sound system/dancehall mainstream. Even given the mood of the
times, it seems likely that his penchant for whimsical studio experimenta-
tion was at least partially at odds with the stylistic demands required of pop
songs in the commercial reggae marketplace. This eccentricity probably
made him more dependent on the international market and when Island
Records refused four of his productions (The Congos’ Heart of the Congos,
Perry’s own Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Cornbread, the Upsetters’ Return
of the Super Ape, and Seke Molenga and Kalo Kawongolo’s African Roots)
for reasons that remain unclear, it spelled the end of his deal with the com-
pany and the beginning of the decline of the Black Ark. The studio was ba-
sically nonfunctional after 1978, and between that year and 1983, Perry’s ca-
reer spiraled out of control under pressures of political violence, extortion
attempts, and personal turmoil. When Dave Hendley made a return visit to
the studio in 1979, he found a very different atmosphere:
The tape machine and mixing desk still worked, but the part of the studio where the
musicians played certainly didn’t look in any state to be used. He had actually dug a
hole in the ground, there was only about half a drum kit there. He was just doing all
kinds of weird stuff. Having third-person conversations with himself or people he
had made up. He had painted the whole studio—well, in fact, the whole of the
building—with loads of tiny little crosses. There wasn’t one surface that wasn’t cov-
ered in paint or magic marker. And the name Pipecock Jackson kept coming up
everywhere in different spellings. He went on about Pipecock Jackson a lot as if
Pipecock Jackson was there, and you could never work out whether Scratch was
Pipecock Jackson, or if he was some ghostly figure. Really strange behavior.82
There have been numerous accounts of these events but it seems that in
several phases, Perry destroyed the Black Ark: first, by covering every sur-
face with graffiti, and then by allowing the equipment to fall into disrepair.
The building was ultimately destroyed by a fire in 1983.83 Perry then left Ja-
maica for several points over the next several years: New York, London,

and finally settling in Zurich, Switzerland. Although he has produced inter-
esting work since then with producers within and outside of Jamaica (most
notably Coxsone Dodd, Bullwackie Barnes, Adrian Sherwood, and Mad
Professor), Perry hasn’t had the same personal space in which to pursue his
unique artistry. Without his own studio, he couldn’t experiment with any-
where near the same freedom. He has spent the last twenty years roaming
from continent to continent, reconstructing an image for himself as in-
spired madman—a walking, one-man art installation of reggae-inspired
electronica. But his work from 1967 through 1980 remains an inspiration
for musicians worldwide.
d u b / 162
chapter six
“Java” to “Africa”
%
Even had he never mixed a single dub version, Errol Thompson (1948–
2004) would hold a secure place in reggae history. As chief engineer at two
of the most important recording studios of the roots reggae era—Randy’s
and Joe Gibbs—he was responsible for committing much of the era’s most
significant music to tape. Thompson, who was praised by Bunny Lee as
“one of the best engineers in Jamaica,” was born in Kingston in 1941 and
grew up in the Harbourview section of the city. His first engineering job
was at Studio One where he worked as an apprentice alongside Sylvan
Morris, and his first formal session was a voicing session for singer Max
Romeo’s controversial slackness song “Wet Dream.” On this occasion,
Bunny Lee had rented the studio as an independent producer:
E.T. was Morris’s student at Coxsone studio. First tune that him voice, Coxsone
was voicing it and Coxsone gone a bathroom and said “E.T., voice this tune here.”
And what E.T. voice was a tune with Maxie Romeo named “Wet Dream.” That’s
the first tune E.T. voice and Coxsone want to wipe it off [because of the suggestive
lyrics] and me said “No, you must be mad—me no wipe off tune, Jack!” Me and
Coxsone was quarreling, and we had to call off the session and stop. Same “Wet
Dream” go a England and stay 26 week inna the British chart!1
Randy’s Studio 17
Thompson’s apprenticeship with Morris gave him a solid foundation in
recording, and he was known as one of Jamaica’s top engineers for live ses-
sions. After a year at Studio One, he met producer Clive Chin at Choir
School, which they both attended. Chin, who was born in 1954, is the son
of Vincent and Pat Chin, owners of Randy’s Studio 17, a recording facility
located on the Parade in downtown Kingston. With electronics installed
by Bill Garnett, Randy’s opened its doors in the spring of 1968 as a two-
track studio that was upgraded to four tracks after a couple of years, and
eventually sixteen and twenty-four tracks by the mid-1970s. The studio
“Java” to “Africa” / 163

rapidly became the most popular recording facility on the island, used by
most of the major producers until its popularity was eclipsed by Channel
One later in the decade. Chin remembers that Randy’s “was the most prom-
inent recording studio for a good number of years, right up until around
the mid-’70s. We had guys like Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Clancy Eccles, Der-
rick Harriott, Herman Chin-Loy, Sonia Pottinger. . . . I mean, we were so
highly booked that we had to go 24–7 every week. We had to push our own
productions to Sunday and give the producers and the artists time for
themselves during the week.”2 Such was the studio’s growing reputation
that according to Chin, foreign artists were block-booking the facility for
weeks at a time: “I can recall back around ’69, when [singer-songwriter]
Johnny Nash people dem came on board. That was the JAD years, when
they had just signed [Bob] Marley to a songwriting contract. Them rented
the studio for one month solid. And we had people like Hugh Masekela
coming in from New York and Billy Price, Cissy Houston, all them big
guys were coming in to record down there.”3 Chin even contends that
Marley’s early albums for Island Records would have been recorded at
Randy’s, had prior business commitments not intervened: “Bob asked me
one time at 56 Hope Road: ‘Clive, will your father lease me Randy’s for a
year to record for Island Records?’ . . . Because he say Harry J has a leak, the
studio had a leak. The only reason they use Harry J was because Harry was
indebted to Blackwell for the studio board that they bought in England.
That’s the only reason why you saw Natty Dread and Rastaman Vibration
recorded there. But deep down, me know say, Bob knew from Lee Perry
days that the only place him could ever voice his voice was at Randy’s.”4
By 1971, Clive was making his first attempts at record production: “At
that time you know I was just getting fully involved in the recording busi-
ness, I was still going school at the time, coming home from school. Kids
would go to like the football field, the cricket field, but I wasn’t too athletic.
I was more into the business aspect. . . . Errol and I was going a school call
Choir School, right down ’pon North Street on South Camp Road. Choir
School was a school designed for people to come there and sing. A lot of
good singers pass through Choir School you know—Delroy Wilson, Tony
Gregory, just to name a few. They all went to that school. That was way
back about ’67, somewhere between ’66–’67. That’s where I met Errol.”5 In
time, the friendship between Chin and Thompson grew into a professional
partnership, with Chin producing at Randy’s and Thompson working the
board as the studio’s chief engineer. As such, “Errol T.” worked with most
of the leading Jamaican artists of his time, and was instrumental in captur-
ing and crafting the sound of recorded reggae as the style developed
through a period of rapid innovation during the early 1970s.
d u b / 164
Thompson and Chin were part of the experimental vanguard out of
which dub developed. If other engineers would pave the way for dub by
omitting vocal tracks to create instrumental “rhythm versions,” Thompson
was reportedly among the first engineers to strip tracks further, to their
drum & bass foundations. In Chin’s account, “During the rock steady era,
dem used to put out vocal tunes on one side, then an instrumental ’pon the
B-side, whether it was organ or horns. In the early ’70s now, they decide
that well, we’ll give them experiment on the B-side and me and Errol was
one of the first.”6 In fact, Chin feels strongly that he and Thompson have
yet to receive proper acknowledgment for their dub innovations:
. . . when you talk about creation of dub, you talking ’bout Errol Thompson &
Clive Chin, ’cause me and Errol was one of the first . . . we throw in the rhythm
every now and then, but mainly drum & bass. So, when we did that now and put it
on the B-side of any vocal tune, people say “Ras!” You know, it new idea and every-
body jump on the bandwagon. Including other producers like Bunny Lee and Lee
Perry, Clancy and Niney, just to name a few of them. That’s why when they talk
about King Tubbys and how him create dub, I don’t agree with that. King Tubbys
modify dub, you know him work it and get it to perfection and have all them little
effects dem pon it. But King Tubbys only come into the business after we . . . I
might be wrong, but you always find a man jump up and say how him create dub,
y’know. You never find a man come out clean and ever say him hear it and he just
love it and he work on it to make it become perfect . . . 7
Far East Sound

The instrument now, everyone portraying it as nothing, but the instrument itself
is something because it’s just like a keyboard, the same scales and notes. The only
thing is that . . . it’s [a] blowing instrument. And music travel within the wind
and no one can hold it or catch it. It’s just like the breeze—can anyone catch the
breeze or touch the sun? 8
—Augustus Pablo, 1987
Much of Thompson’s early work featured his mixing of Chin’s produc-

tions. One of the most significant of these is the eponymous This Is Augus-
tus Pablo (1972), by a musician who would himself play a crucial role in the
development of dub music. Like Vivian “Yabby You” Jackson, Horace
“Augustus Pablo” Swaby was not a studio engineer, but was without doubt
one of dub music’s most important guiding spirits. Primarily a session mu-
sician, Pablo was born in Kingston in 1953, and from 1971 until his passing in
1999, he created a body of recorded work that reflected both his talents as an
instrumentalist, producer, and arranger, and the increasingly sophisticated
mixing techniques of several of Jamaica’s top engineers. As an instrumental-
ist, Pablo was primarily a multikeyboardist (a few of his recordings also fea-
ture him on keyed percussion), but is best remembered for the plaintive
sound of his melodica, the wind-blown children’s keyboard instrument he

used to craft brittle, haunting melodies against the heavy rhythms of his
Rockers International band. His minor-key “Far Eastern” sound was in-
spired by the African- and Asian-themed instrumentals recorded by Don
Drummond, Dizzy Moore, Jackie Mittoo, and Tommy McCook for Stu-
dio One and Treasure Isle in the 1960s.9 Composed to evoke the locales of
the Old Testament as well as the cultures stretching eastward from West Af-
rica through East Africa and on to islands of the Indonesian archipelago,
Pablo essentially created a devotional genre of reggae exotica that reflected
the political and spiritual dimensions of his Rastafarian faith.
If anyone’s rhythms seemed tailor-made for dub treatments, it would be
Pablo’s, whose rhythms were often played at slow-to-medium tempo fea-
turing active and inventive bass lines and thickly textured Nyabinghi hand
drumming. His use of unusual chord progressions such as moving
between a I minor chord and a ™VII minor provided a suitably mysterious
harmonic setting for his Afro-orientalist sound paintings.
In addition to producing his own material, Pablo worked with virtually
all of the major Jamaican producers over the course of his career, as well as
most of the engineers associated with dub music. In fact, his most enduring
work was created in collaboration with Lee Perry (various songs from
Perry’s Black Ark period such as “Vibrate On”), Sylvan Morris (East of the
River Nile), and King Tubby (King Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown).
Pablo’s recorded legacy is particularly intertwined with King Tubby, thanks
to the engineer’s popular mixing board treatments of his work. But the re-
cording that initially brought him to public attention was the 1971 instru-
mental “Java,” produced by Clive Chin and engineered by Thompson at
Randy’s. Chin fondly remembers the track as “the most creative rhythm
that I ever really produce.”10 Pablo and Clive Chin had known each other
from their school years at Kingston College: “Pablo, you know him went to
the same school with I—King’s College. Him was a school mate of mine.
You see the thing about musicians at the early stage, they all try to get in-
volved in the music business. Some of dem hang around a studio, just wait-
ing for the opportunity to be put on a recording. And Pablo was just one a
dem guys where just love the music, you know? Him find music more grati-
fying than staying in school so him come around the studio and hang
around. But I knew him from school, I didn’t know him from the studio.”11
Pablo’s early work with Thompson and Chin offers an opportunity to
examine how dub sprang from the intersection of two impulses: the instru-
mental reggae song, and the post-performance remix. This Is is an album of
instrumentals built around “Java.” In this early stage of reggae, grooves
were constructed as highly syncopated, tightly interlocking rhythms, and
much of the rhythmic dynamism was generated by the musicians simply
d u b / 166
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Attempting to convince the engineer of his talent on the mixing board, the
aspirant quickly demonstrates his ineptitude: punching in bass when asked
for drums, guitar when asked for bass, and so forth. The masterly engineer
then steps in to correct the situation, drawing all the tracks out except from
drums and gradually building the structure back, one instrument at a time.
In its use of multitracking to blend music and dialogue, “Extra-Ordinary
Dub” is fundamentally a document of musician friends having fun with the
toys of the studio. But the inclusion of Thompson’s voice also reflects the
rising professional status of the recording engineer, and the fact that the en-
gineer in Jamaica was becoming publicly recognized as an important part
of the creative process.
The “Ordinary Man” series culminates in Thompson’s own “Extraordi-
nary Version,”16 which is among the most distinctive of the early dub
mixes, and often cited by Clive Chin as a high point of his work with
Thompson. Thompson’s approach to the remix was somewhat similar to
Lee Perry’s work on recordings such as Blackboard Jungle Dub in the sense
that where the engineers at King Tubby’s studio generated effects organi-
cally by applying sound processing to the recorded tracks, Thompson
tended to use these tracks as a “canvas” upon which to overdub extraneous
sound effects such as car horns, sirens, animal sounds, and even flushing
toilets. On “Extraordinary Version,” he takes a clear step from the original
recording, expanding the soundscape by applying a cavernous reverb to the
drum set, slowing the tape speed incrementally (resulting in a lowering of
the key from G minor to F minor, a slowing of the tempo from quarter
note = 70 bpm to quarter note = 64 bpm, and a more thickly textured gui-
tar/bass unison line). On top of this, he superimposes a recording of voices
played in reverse and at various speeds, interspersing their groans and
squeals with various automotive sounds. This additive approach was a core
element of Thompson’s dub mixing style, and “Extraordinary Version” is a
testament to the spirit of experimentation that he and Clive Chin contrib-
uted to reggae. Chin cited the track while summing up his work with
Thompson in an interview with Brian Lindt:
Errol and myself, as two youths putting our heads together and coming up with a
song like “Extraordinary Version . . .” When we finished it we looked at each other
and smiled and said to each other “Could it have happened ten years ago? No, prob-
ably not. But, could it have happened twenty years in the future? Probably yes,
could have—but with microphone [sic] chips and computerization.” It’s like we
were ahead of our time . . .
We had a young and energetic frame of mind during the early ’70s, and we would
experiment for hours in the studio. You must remember that we were not paying
for studio time; we were experimenting for production for the label Randy’s Im-
pact, which is my family. So we had unlimited studio time. . . . The more original
d u b / 168
we could be, the more fun it would be for us. That was the whole thing about doing
music in the ’70s: to be creative, to come up with fresh ideas that Studio One didn’t
have, Duke Reid, Derrick Harriott, or even Lee Perry for that matter.17
The Mighty Two

Around 1975, Thompson left Randy’s to work with producer Joe Gibbs.
Gibbs, who was born Joel Gibson in Montego Bay in 1945, had learned
electronics through an American correspondence course and eventually
worked as a technician on an islandwide electrical currency conversion
project. He opened an electronics shop in Kingston in the late 1960s, and
gradually ventured into music production.18 In 1968, Gibbs opened a two-
track studio on Burns Avenue in the Duhaney Park section of Kingston,
the electronics having been installed by Bill Garnett.19 Gibbs initially engi-
neered the sessions at this studio himself until Thompson began assisting
him while moonlighting from Randy’s. Bunny Lee remembered this as a
transitional period for Gibbs: “Joe Gibbs is an engineer too you know,
when him just start. But basically, him is a businessman and him have to be
out doing business. So E.T. do the work.”20 In fact, Thompson had been
dividing his time between Gibbs and Randy’s for some time, as Bunny Lee
recalls: “Errol used to leave Randy’s at night time and go a Joe Gibbs, take
the tune and mix them. All them Nicky Thomas tune like “Love of the
Common People” and “Have A Little Faith” that go in the British chart,
they were made down at that studio at Duhaney Park.”21
Gibbs was not a musician but, as was typical for Jamaican producers of
the period, dub and instrumental sides from Gibbs’s studio were credited
to “Joe Gibbs and the Professionals.” Drummer Sly Dunbar was a member
of this unit, and remembers that Gibbs’s operation was fairly haphazard
during this early period: “I remember we used to go by Duhaney Park, to
Joe Gibbs first studio, and we’d go there from ten o’clock to do session, and
Joe Gibbs wouldn’t turn up for the session. We’d be from ten to four
o’clock, no money! Those sessions, we didn’t work so we didn’t get payed,
[He’d] buy you food and bus fare, you’d catch a bus and come back
[home]. . . . On and on like that sometimes two times in a week, three times
a week. When he moved to Retirement Crescent now, it run much more
organized.”22
Eventually, Thompson joined Gibbs as full-time engineer once the latter
opened a new sixteen-track studio on Retirement Crescent in 1975. To-
gether, the two formed the “Mighty Two” production team. Clive Chin re-
members Thompson’s departure as a turning point for Randy’s: “Errol left
at a crucial time because the studio was at its peak. So it was really a big

blow for us when we lost Errol. I felt I lost a brother when he left.”23
Thompson was replaced at Randy’s by George Philpott, Pat Kelly, and Karl
Pitterson, in turn. Pitterson stayed for a year and a half before moving on
to work at Dynamics and later Island Records. He was at Randy’s long
enough to mix portions of the Randy’s Dub collection with Chin, who re-
membered: “We mix some at different times, they weren’t all mix one time.
But it was over a period of that time that Karl was with us that those were
done. You know, about four or five different set of musicians plays on it—
Skin, Flesh and Bones, Wailers, Soul Syndicate, Now Generation.”24
Errol T. on the Mix II

Clive “Lizard” Hunt: “Fight I Down” > Mighty Two: “Earthquake”
As noted by Lloyd Bradley, one major advantage Gibbs had over his com-
petitors such as Bunny Lee was his own studio. Instead of having to rent
time at other studios and keep an eye on the clock, time could now be more
productively spent on experimentation and finding a signature sound.25
The studio’s sixteen-channel Sound Technique console had been purchased
from Dynamics when the latter upgraded,26 and it was on this board that
Errol Thompson produced his best-known dub work.
Clive Hunt’s “Fight I Down” was transformed by Thompson into “Earth-
quake,”27 remixed as a “quartet” performance of drums, bass, the gentle
finger-picking of guitarist Bingy Bunny Lamont, and an oscillating, gurgling
low-register sound from an unidentified source. In traditional terms,
Lamont’s guitar line provides the main melodic material of the piece (the
guitarist outlines the I and IV chords in the main section of the piece, while a
six-measure bridge section follows the sequence iii–I–IV–I–V–IV). The os-
cillating sound, however—most likely produced by a synthesizer or sound ef-
fects record—figures prominently in the mix. This low-register sound is
nearly unpitched, but hovers around scale degrees ™7, 7, and I. Its oscillating
sound intermittently alternates with what seems to be a high-pitched, rever-
berating test-tone frequency vaguely centered around scale degree ™7. Be-
cause a seven-second sliver of singing is all that remains of the prior vocal ver-
sion, it is in fact these three elements that constitute the melodic material of
the piece. What is significant here is that Thompson’s approach opened a
space in which ambiguously pitched sounds generated from nontraditional
(that is, electronic) sources could influence the construction of melody as Ja-
maican music was created through increasingly electronic means.
African Dub
Mixes such as “Earthquake” were in fact Thompson’s conceptual mid-
point; on his well-known series of African Dub albums he was given free
d u b / 170
rein by Gibbs to indulge his knack for sound collage. Having studied under
Sylvan Morris, Thompson built his dub mixes around hard and very
cleanly recorded rhythm section tracks, employing what many Jamaicans
considered to be the most innovative drum & bass team of the day. The Af-
rican Dub series relies heavily on sound effects over a foundation of up-
dated Studio One and Treasure Isle riddims provided by Sly Dunbar, Rob-
bie Shakespeare, and the rest of Gibbs’s house band, The Professionals. On
these recordings, Thompson didn’t work inside the sound so much as
around it. Like the earlier “Extraordinary Version,” his later work would
find him using drum & bass tracks as a sonic canvas for his arsenal of sound
effects. Clive Chin remembered: “This man had such a concept of sound
effects—clock alarms, car horns, sirens . . . sometimes E.T. would even take
the mike into the toilet and have me stand there while the music is playing,
and when he give me the signal, I just flush it on cue—not too early, not too
late, but right on the beat. I mean the man was very exact about how and
where he wanted it on the record.28
Errol T. on the Mix III

The Mighty Two: “Chapter Three,” “Dub Three”
“That one deh a killer!” announces a voice at the beginning of the third vol-
ume in the African Dub series, initiating fifteen seconds of sonic mayhem
unleashed by Thompson, who prefaces “Chapter Three” with a chaotic
maelstrom of overdubbed earthquake and thunder sounds underpinned by
Sly Dunbar’s pulsing four-to-the-floor “steppers” rhythm. A reverberating
tom-tom roll (similar in effect to what Lee Perry was crafting around
Mikey Richards’s drumming at the Black Ark studio) commences Sly and
Robbie’s recut of Augustus Pablo’s famous “Cassava Piece” (that is, “King
Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown”) rhythm, stripped down to a drum &
bass arrangement, with a driving eighth-note tambourine added for extra
propulsion. If there was an original vocal track, it has been completely
omitted here, and the harmony almost entirely omitted save for a few pas-
sages of guitar chopped into percussive stutters via a delay unit. On top of
this prerecorded material, Thompson dubs various sound effects: jack-in-
the-box noises, chiming doorbells, and the sound of jets taking off. Vol-
ume 3 closes with “Dub Three” built from the old Studio One “Rockfort
Rock” rhythm. After an intro in which the drums and bass are routed
through a delay unit to thunderous effect, Thompson halts the tape
abruptly and rewinds it back to the top (reproducing an effect frequently
used by sound system selectors), allowing a bit of space for the overdubbed
sound of a doorbell to chime dissonantly against the D minor rhythm pat-
tern. During his days at Randy’s, Thompson had applied reverb to Carlton

Barrett’s bass drum on tracks like Augustus Pablo’s “Pablo in Dub” in such
a way that the bass drum effectively orchestrated the atmospheric elements
of the mix, with Barrett’s low-register syncopation creating a series of at-
mospheric disturbances that set Pablo’s melodica in stark relief.29 On “Dub
Three,” he pursues a similar strategy with more advanced technology, ap-
plying so much reverb to the snare drum that its rhythmic impulses rend
the soundscape with each of Sly’s syncopations. Thompson further desta-
bilizes the rhythm by adding echo effects, dropout, and various sound ef-
fects as a preface to horn solos by trombonist Vin Gordon and tenor saxo-
phonist Tommy McCook.
As Barrow and Dalton note, some listeners criticized Thompson’s pen-
chant for overdubbed sound effects in his dub music as a vulgarization of
the form (compared to, say, the subtleties of King Tubby’s approach).30
But what might be dismissed by some as a gimmick-laden approach to re-
mixing is very successful on its own terms here, thanks in part to the power
of Sly and Robbie’s rhythm section performance, a tough dancehall groove
that acts as a cohering agent for what is essentially a sound collage. The
combined power of Thompson’s mixing with Sly and Robbie’s “militant”
riddims ensured exciting results, and Thompson’s work with Gibbs
reached a wider audience than his previous efforts.31 As such, the African
Dub series (especially volume 3) is often cited as a high point of the genre.
In tandem with the advent of digital sampling equipment a decade later,
Thomspon’s work ultimately laid an important foundation for the collagist
approach of digital ragga music in which the overdubbing of sound effects
on percussion-dominated rhythm tracks would, like Thompson’s dub
work, de-center harmonic practice through the use of polytonality, disso-
nance, and “pure” noise.
d u b / 172
Fig. 1. Clement
“Coxsone” Dodd at
Studio One, late 1970s
Photo by Peter Simon
Fig 2. Dynamic studio exterior, 2000 Photo by the author

Fig. 3. Sylvan Morris at Dynamic studio,
2000 Photo by the author
Fig. 4. Harry J. studio exterior Photo by the author

Fig. 5. King Tubby’s studio exterior, 2000 Photo by the author
This image has been redacted from the digital edition.

Please refer to the print edition to see the image.
Fig. 6. Scientist, Prince Jammy, and King Tubby, 1980

Photo courtesy of Ken “Fatman” Gordon
Fig. 7. Scientist, early 1980s Photo by Peter Simon
Fig. 8. Philip Smart, 2003 Photo by the author

Fig. 9. Bunny Lee in front of his
home in Duhaney Park, 2002
Photo by the author
Fig. 10. Channel One studio exterior Photo by the author

Fig. 11. Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare outside of Channel One studio

Fig. 12. Lee Perry at the board of the Black Ark, 1976 Photo courtesy of urbanimage.tv/Adrian Boot
Fig. 13. The Black Ark studio from the outside, 1976 Photo courtesy of urbanimage.tv/Adrian Boot

Fig. 14. The Black Ark control room Photo courtesy of urbanimage.tv/Adrian Boot
Fig. 15. Clive Chin and Errol Thompson
at Randy’s, early 1970s
Photo courtesy of Clive Chin
This image has been redacted

from the digital edition.
Please refer to the print edition

to see the image.
Fig. 16. Augustus Pablo

Fig. 17. Errol Thompson on the board at Joe Gibbs’s studio, early 1980s
Fig. 18. King Jammy (left) and a friend, 2002 Photo by the author
Fig. 19. King Tubby at the board of his new studio, late 1980s Photo courtesy of Bunny Lee
Fig. 20. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell

Photo by the author
Fig. 21. Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser Photo courtesy of Neil Fraser
Fig. 22. Mad Professor’s Ariwa studio, London Photo by the author
Fig. 23. Adrian Sherwood, 2002 Photo by the author
Fig. 24. Dennis Bovell

chapter seven
“City Too Hot”

The End of the Roots Era and the Significance of
Dub to the Digital Era of Jamaican Music1
In the beginning, they didn’t mess with musicians. We could be standing

up outside the studio on the street and you see some man running down
the road with rifles and him don’t trouble you. We would walk out of the
area to get the bus to go home sometimes, and they won’t trouble you.
Them know say all you deal with is music, you just going to the studio.
But I came up here [to the United States] and went to school in ’75, and
went back down and worked for Tubbs in ’76. And it just looked differ-
ent—everything looked like it get wickeder, it looked just evil. Homes
burnt down everywhere, and you don’t want to be outside. . . . I decided
I’d have to leave again. —Philip Smart
Speaking about snow. The kids and the children who love that part of the
world so much, that is to say the igloo, is a part of the heavens, is higher
than the earth. The part of the mountain that is higher than the earth is
closer to heaven. So I am seeing how people act on that part of heaven
that they are blessed with. ’Cause the way people act in Jamaica is not
my style of life anymore. Me no want my brain to be pulled down into
something too heavy and hot, because then my brain cannot fly. Me like
to see children slide on ice. Me love to see the vision of the ice. Me love to
see the ice making art on the mountain. Me don’t see that in Jamaica.
Me see guns. Me take some torturing, but from the torturing me get an
education to make a positive choice ’pon a negative ice.
—Lee Perry on his life as an expatriate Jamaican in Switzerland2
Bob Marley died in May 1981, having lived his final years in intermittent
exile following an attempt on his life in 1976. With Marley’s passing, reg-
gae lost its most powerful global spokesman. Foreign recording compa-
nies gradually abandoned their support for other Jamaican artists who
had ridden to international recognition on the path opened by Marley,
“City Too Hot” / 185

and the conduits for international capital began slowly drying up for all
but the best-known reggae artists. This sudden shift in the priorities of
the music industry remains a sore point for many roots reggae artists
today, as typified by the comments of Mikey Dread: “The way the media
portray reggae is like, it’s Bob Marley and after Bob Marley there’s no more
reggae. Which is to me just like propaganda to keep the music back. Be-
cause with the death of Elvis Presley, I didn’t see rock & roll dying. You
know, they didn’t say ‘He’s the king of rock & roll and the king is dead so
the whole culture is dead. . . . ’ Bob was the major man who break it inter-
nationally and break down all the barriers, but they want to stop it now for
us to go through. We could get it but they don’t want us in there!”3
As discussed in chapter 1, roots reggae was intimately tied to a moment of
cultural nationalism in which Jamaicans of African heritage excavated the bit-
ter past of slavery and colonization and rehabilitated it into a newfound pride
in African cultural roots, a moment defined politically by Michael Manley’s
two-term experiment in democratic socialism. But despite Manley’s efforts
during his two terms in office, it was clear that hostile winds of change were
in the air by 1980. Manley had antagonized the country’s upper class (many
of whom fled to Miami), and defied the United States by forging a close
friendship with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and lending support to budding socialist
regimes elsewhere in the world (such as Angola). Meanwhile, the Jamaican
economy had continued to dovetail throughout the 1970s, owing largely to
fluctuations in world oil prices as well as fluctuating demand for bauxite, the
country’s most profitable export.4
In the months leading to the 1980 elections, the stage was set for another
late–cold war intervention by the United States that, while not so direct as
roughly concurrent operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador, had similarly
destructive consequences for Jamaica. The elections that year—pitting
Manley against his longtime rival Edward Seaga of the Jamaican Labour
Party—were the most violent in the nation’s history, with between eight
hundred and one thousand people dying in Kingston as a result of cam-
paign violence. Manley was routed out of office by Seaga and a resurgent
JLP, who quickly signed on to the American agenda with the Reagan
administration’s Caribbean Basin Initiative. On the ground in Kingston,
Seaga’s ghetto gunmen ruthlessly subdued their People’s National Party–
affiliated rivals with American-made arms purchased with profits from the
drug trade. To this day, the country has never fully recovered from the level
of violence that was unleashed.5
As mentioned in the introduction, the international popularity of reg-
gae and its Rasta component had worked together in such a way that ganja
would rival reggae and bauxite as one of Jamaica’s most profitable exports,
d u b / 186
but the drastic political and economic changes in the 1980s created an even
more destructive context for the country’s role in the global drug trade.
Part of Seaga’s favor with the American government resulted from his ef-
forts at eradicating ganja production and exportation; ironically, however,
the situation became much more deadly when local gunmen began traffick-
ing in cocaine shipped from South America. The days of ganja suddenly
seemed placid compared to the nightmare that cocaine unleashed on the is-
land in this perversely ironic take on the concept of “crop substitution.”
Fueled by cocaine highs and the harsh reality of their ultimate disposability
at the hands of their political patrons, the gangs bought their economic in-
dependence through cocaine trafficking and founded a culture of ruthless
violence that detached itself from political ideals and became all-
consuming.6 The music scene could not help being affected by these
changes, and a number of musicians left the island to pursue their careers in
less turbulent surroundings.
At the same time, it seemed that the cultural influence of Rastafari,
which had been so integral to the power of roots reggae, had run its
course. While it was true that the fusion of the rude boy and the Rasta at
the dawn of reggae was a potent fusion of two outsider impulses, the
close relationship between the religion-ideology of Rastafari and the mu-
sical genre of roots reggae had to some degree been artificially fueled by
the music’s huge international popularity, the subsequent euphoria, and
the corresponding influx of foreign capital. In his most insightful essay
on the cultural background of the transition from reggae to the digitally
produced music that became known as “ragga,” Louis Chude-Sokei ob-
served that as Kingston became mired in the politically sponsored ghetto
warfare that locals dubbed “tribal war,” the vision of Rastafari, centered
around an African cultural referent almost extraterrestrial in its distance
from local realities, was unable to provide resistance against what he
called the “Reagan-Seaga-Thatcher triumvirate.”7 In an era of strong-
armed American neocolonialism, protracted drug skirmishes, and harsh
measures instituted by the International Monetary Fund, Jamaica’s
ghetto ideology collapsed from a pan-Africanist universalism to a reso-
lutely local orientation.
As it had done in the early 1960s, Jamaica began once again to turn
musically inward. Part of this retreat was a reaction against the interna-
tionalization of Jamaican music that had gradually occurred during the
1970s, and stylistic terms that seemed increasingly dictated by foreign
markets.8 What had been known as “reggae” foundered on for a few
years in the early 1980s in what is usually referred to as “early dancehall,”
associated with such producers as Linval Thompson, Jah “Nkrumah”

Thomas and Junjo Lawes, and session bands such as Roots Radics and
Soul Syndicate. But a decisive moment came in 1985 when King Tubby’s
former assistant engineer Prince (now King) Jammy discovered that he
could use the pre-programmed patterns of a cheap Casio keyboard as rid-
dims for songs. Wayne Smith’s Jammy-produced “Under Me Sleng
Teng” and the scores of versions that followed it ushered in the era of
digital “ragga.” 9 Inevitably (as in other parts of the world), digital stu-
dios were found to be more cost-effective than their analog counterparts,
and the “Sleng Teng” craze helped put a decisive end to the era of roots
reggae.10 With Jammy and other producers shelving the accumulated re-
mainder of their “human” riddims (as they were now called), they also
ended the dominance of the performing and recording bands of the
1970s, the analog studio system in which these bands had thrived, and the
era in which Jamaica’s popular music had been strongly rooted in its jazz,
wind-band and related traditions.11 Most of Kingston’s live studios were
closed within months, and the newly crowned Jammy and his assistants
Wycliffe Johnson and Cleveland Browne (known as Steely and Clevie),
Squingine “Squingy” Francis and Bobby “Digital” Dixon would go on to
lay the foundations for the digital age of Jamaican popular music.12
Philip Smart considered this a natural progression of the music: “Every-
body had their era of leading. Studio One had their era, Treasure Isle had
their era, then Tubby’s, then you have Joe Gibbs and Channel One, and
then Jammys came with the computer sound. That changed the whole
business.”13
Concurrently with the decline of roots reggae, the early 1980s were also
the last years of dub as a contemporary musical movement in Jamaica. By
the early 1980s, Lee Perry had already destroyed the Black Ark and moved
gradually into exile. King Tubby’s studio continued as a center for dub
during this time (mainly through the work of Scientist), while other engi-
neers such as Phantom (Noel Gray) and Peego handled the ongoing du-
ties of day-to-day mixing after the music went digital.14 Tubby himself,
however, had grown less interested in mixing, preferring to concentrate
on building a new 24-track studio in the backyard of his house on Dro-
milly Avenue. He had substantial success in 1985 with Anthony Red Rose’s
“Tempo,” an early piece of digital ragga with a moody, eccentric mix that
gave at least a preliminary indication of what digital dub might have
sounded like in Jamaica had Tubby lived to develop it.15 But Tubby was
murdered early one morning in February 1989 outside of his home in Du-
haney Park, in an apparent robbery attempt.16 Scientist is one of several
people with whom I spoke who remain unconvinced that Tubby’s still-
unsolved killing was a mere robbery gone bad: “Jamaica is a place where
d u b / 188
anybody who tries to rise and help Jamaicans do something positive, is
killed by the gunmen. That was no robbery. Tubby’s studio—there wasn’t
gonna be anything else like it in Jamaica. People were afraid. It would have
put a lot of other studios out of business.”17 With Lee Perry abroad, Joe
Gibbs’s studio closed, and King Jammy trailblazing a new era of digital
music, King Tubby’s murder represented the symbolic end to the era of
roots dub music.
The long-term significance of dub on Jamaican music, however, can-
not be adequately explained in terms of mere market popularity, a finite
commercial moment, or the dominance of any particular individual.
While it is true that dub music achieved a certain market presence for a
time in the 1970s, most album-length recordings of dub were pressed in
very limited quantities. By its very nature and setting, it was a creation of
producers and engineers, with its primary market being sound system op-
erators and reggae record collectors, as opposed to the general public,
among whom it was a highly specialized taste. In Adrian Sherwood’s
view, “[Dub] wasn’t that popular in Jamaica. It was a sound system thing.
It was immensely popular with the sound system people—‘version upon
version,’ with a live DJ chatting over it. That’s how it was used in Ja-
maica.”18 Sound system operator Bobby Vicious concurs: “Even the av-
erage reggae lover, they can’t listen to more than three or four dub mixes
in a row. They need the words. You see, that’s how you test a true dub
lover.”19
Many of Jamaica’s musicians (including its jazz musicians), however,
acknowledge dub as an important phase of the music—somewhat ironic,
given the complicated authorship issues that arose as a result of version-
ing, as well as the distance that dub moved the music away from tradi-
tional conceptions of instrumentalism. For example, a 2004 CD of jazz
instrumentals by guitarist Ernest Ranglin and pianist Monty Alexander
contains several canonical songs or riddims of the roots era strongly asso-
ciated with dub, including Burning Spear’s “Marcus Garvey,” the
Congos’ “Fisherman,” Augustus Pablo’s “East of the River Nile,” and the
generic “Stalag 17” riddim, which has provided the foundation for un-
countable versions over the years.20 Such developments attest to the fact
that to measure dub in terms of the criteria of market “popularity”misses
the point. It is more appropriate to speak of dub as a body of production
techniques that, like any innovation, is gradually subsumed into the com-
mon practice of a given tradition. This is in fact the case with dub music,
which is rarely produced in Jamaica today as it was in the 1970s, but the
primary innovations of which can be considered core elements of Jamai-
can music in the digital age.

Digital Jamaica: The Birth of Ragga
Every time the outside world catches up with [Jamaican music],
the beat changes again.21—Prince Buster, 2000
You don’t really forget the things you used to do or finish away with it, but the time
changes so you have to go with the time if you want to eat food from it. If you want
to earn a living from the music, you have to do whatever is going on today.22
—King Jammy to David Katz, 2005
Ragga music reflected the era of its birthing, a music of gritty survival
often dominated by what Chude-Sokei called the “noirish street-level intri-
cacies” of sexual dominance, gunplay, and gangsterism. 23 Of course, it is
important to realize that such themes had always been a part of Jamaican
pop, every since the downtown “rude boy” culture of Kingston helped give
birth to ska shortly after independence. Roots reggae itself was always con-
sidered a ghetto music inside of Jamaica, and might still be narrowly re-
garded as such if Bob Marley’s global success hadn’t earned reggae, Rasta-
farians, and Jamaica so much cultural cache. During the harsh political days
of the late 1970s, for example, dub music bolstered depictions of the harsh
realities of the later Manley years as much as it did the utopian narratives of
Rastafari; the “noirish” aspects of which Chude-Sokei speaks had been pre-
figured by studio engineers’ sound paintings of urban strife, peppering their
mixes with the sound of screeching tires, police sirens, or machine-gun fire.
This same practice can even be traced back to the ska era, on tracks such as
the Skatalites’ 1966 “Ringo Rides,” which is itself graced with the sound of
intermittent gunfire.24 The “rude-bwoi” life of Kingston had always been a
core element of Jamaican popular music, and when the Afrocentric narra-
tives of Rastafari peeled away under the weight of the new realities of the
1980s, the underlying rude boy component simply moved to the fore.
Because of the dramatic and fairly sudden shift with which roots reggae
was supplanted by digitally produced music and the way this so closely par-
alleled sociopolitical changes in Jamaica during the 1980s, many listeners
and musicians consider roots reggae and the digitally produced music that
came to be variously known as ragga or dancehall music to represent two
diametrically opposed musical movements. To an extent, ongoing debates
on this topic have tended to focus on the issue of either methods of musical
production (live bands versus digital production) or the ideology of the
musicians in question (the embrace of Rastafari and Manley-era demo-
cratic socialism versus the political conservatism of the Seaga era). The
music itself is then heard not only in terms of craft and aesthetics, but also
as reflective of a broader social/cultural/philosophical outlook. Following
are the varying opinions of several Jamaican musicians I spoke with about
these issues during the course of my research:
d u b / 190
What has Jamaica given to the world? Good music and good melodies. But some
people, anytime whey someone a go do a good thing, [other people] will try and
tear it down. What these youth doing today is a pure madness. A youth cyaan just
grab a mic and jump ’pon the stage and call themselves making music. Them speak
so fast, most times the audience don’t even understand. Where is the message there?
(Ras Tito, an assistant of roots reggae pioneer Burning Spear, 2000)
I will stress on one thing: live instruments are the greatest thing and computer can’t
stop that sound. Because the computer music is lifeless but with instruments, every
song sound a bit different. Instruments makes a moody type of music. It can play
with your mood whereas computer is something that really have no mood with it.
But instruments are something that make you move and shake . . . and it’s getting
back because people realize how good it was. . . . It says “life” and it will always live
on. (Producer Winston Riley, who ironically produced one of the canonical early
ragga tracks, Tenor Saw’s “Ring the Alarm,” 2000)
Well, it’s not the same as before but I wouldn’t criticize the dancehall people, be-
cause in the rhythm and the production and things, they still have their own genius
going on there. (Expatriate Jamaican sound system operator Bobby Vicious, 2000)
Most of the pickney [younger listeners] nowadays them digital anyway, so we have
fe just work with it. Give the older folks whey dem want and give the younger folks
whey dem want. You have fe balance it. You cyaan forget the little pickney dem you
know? ’Cause when the older people buy [older] records the little pickney dem
want a copy! (Seminal roots reggae bassist Robbie Shakespeare, 2002)
Digital is the future y’know. And a lot of people have to get with it. What I find a
problem is not because of digital, but the music. Because you have drum machines
and you have MIDI, you find that almost anybody can set up a studio inside of a
basement. Even if they are only halfway musical, they will be able to come up with
something with some kind of a beat because they have computers that can do all
these things for you. (Overton “Scientist” Brown, 2001)
While these musicians’ comments all acknowledge a perceived divide

between the music of the roots and digital eras, most of them also reflect
varying degrees of pragmatism and accommodation, at least now that
twenty years have passed since the digital shift. In this sense, they are par-
tially at odds with the dominant narrative of post-1980s Jamaican music
held by many non-Jamaicans, which maintains that the international explo-
sion of roots reggae associated with musicians like Bob Marley remains the
golden age of Jamaican music, and that the subsequent changes in the
music constitute a tragic decline. As the musicians’ comments imply, the re-
ality is actually more complex and fluid.
Of course, the most enduring musical genres must necessarily be consid-
ered organic expressions of a culture in a given period. With digital Jamai-
can music entering its third decade of innovation, with the verbal virtuosity
of DJs now firmly established, and as Jamaican music enters a new period
of global influence, it would be grossly unrealistic to dismiss the music of
the digital era as a mere aberration or passing fad. On the other hand, the

continued heavy reliance by younger musicians on even the most rudimen-
tary rhythm patterns of the 1960s and 1970s seems a cause for concern. On
one hand, it suggests the loss of a body of skills that in turn reflects the so-
cial and political destabilization Jamaica was subjected to in the 1980s.25 In
terms of skills and infrastructure, it can take a society decades to recover
from such traumatic episodes. On the other hand, it directly reflects the
legacy of dub music, in which reconfiguration has become a more central
compositional ideal than the creation of “original” music. But if we ulti-
mately accept it as axiomatic that the only constant in life is change itself,
then we must acknowledge (1) the many possible modes of transformation
(not all linear), and (2) the brilliant way in which musicians and producers
have innovated a new form of Jamaican music from the ashes of the 1970s.
In fact, the digitalization of popular music production in Jamaica was no
different than anywhere else in the world; what made it seem so dramati-
cally different was the extremely rapid pace of the transformation. But the
island’s economy would suggest that producers (being businesspeople
above all else) would tend to be less bound by ideas of stylistic purity, and
would rush to embrace any technology that minimized overhead expenses
and maximized profits.
The decline of roots reggae obviously held relevance for dub music, which
encapsulated the studio production values of the roots era. In this section,
I shall compare the continuities and discontinuities of current Jamaican ap-
proaches to popular music production with those of the 1970s. Chude-
Sokei captured up the ethos of post–1984/85 Jamaican music perfectly
when he described it as a music of “raw, materialistic presence.”26 The sty-
listic markers of “otherworldliness” (that is, the Africa-centered narratives
of Rastafari and diasporic exile) that were typified by roots-era lyrics and
complemented by the reverberating aesthetic of dub were largely jettisoned
(although they have made somewhat of a comeback in recent years). In
fact, while the “dub” designation is still occasionally used for B-side ver-
sions, it is interesting to note that when the lyrical focus of Jamaican music
shifted away from Africa-centered narratives in the 1980s, the reliance on
echo and reverb seemed to decline concurrently. In the hands of Jamaica’s
prominent digital producers, reverb and echo have been typically used in a
much more traditional manner: to achieve the desired separation of parts
and occasionally, to “spice” what has become a very “dry” mixing style.
Along with the differences in lyrical content discussed earlier in this chap-
ter, contemporary Jamaican music strikes one as unmistakably of the here
and now, as opposed to evoking the there and then.
d u b / 192
The music also tends to be much faster in tempo and more aggressive in
tone than its ganja-laced forebear. Some cynical observers have attributed
this intensity to various sociopathologies including sociopolitical change
in post-Manley Jamaica and the cocaine epidemic. The truth is that, de-
spite its pathologies, the music is fundamentally more exuberant in spirit.
Although the Rasta influence has been gradually reasserted over the last
decade or so, the weighty, “voice crying in the wilderness” paradigm and
the apocalyptic and patriarchal themes of the roots era seem de-
emphasized overall in favor of a youthful celebration of the carnal, sen-
sual, and irreverent. Not since the 1960s has the music spawned so many
notorious dancers and dance crazes, or dynamic female performers. And
despite the de-emphasis on Africa as a lyrical trope (although this also
began to reverse in the early 1990s), the emphasis on dance music has al-
lowed ragga to become arguably more polyrhythmic than the one drop or-
ientation of roots reggae, drawing simultaneously on Jamaica’s neo-
African drumming traditions and the accumulative logics of digital
sampling as influenced by hip-hop. In fact, the interaction between Jamai-
can music and hip-hop since the 1980s has been as dynamic as its earlier
interactions with jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, and funk.
Despite the obvious shifts, however, there are also strong continuities
between the roots and digital eras. In terms of Jamaican music in general,
the most obvious continuity is the continued reliance on old Studio One,
Treasure Isle, and other vintage riddims that provide the foundation for
hundreds of songs each year. Versioning is still a central practice of Jamai-
can pop, with “all on the same riddim” compilations appearing today as
they have since the 1970s. As in hip-hop, digital sampling of older music
plays an important role in Jamaican music, with the canonized musical ges-
tures of the 1960s and 1970s (horn riffs, the trademark drum rolls of roots-
era drummers, or the exclamations of particular DJs) reappearing to pro-
vide formal punctutation, timbral variation, and de facto historical
grounding.
In terms of dub music in particular, the strongest continuities can be
found in the sphere of ragga music, as this is essentially the contemporary
DJ style that can be considered the direct descendant of the dub and DJ
music of the 1970s. Like dub, ragga is primarily focused on the sound
system, where it most frequently features recording DJs like Beenie Man,
Buju Banton, and Capleton. Like the early critical dismissals of rap music
in the United States, many Jamaicans in the 1970s assumed DJ music was
a mere fad that would fade in a few short years. In fact, the opposite is the
case; the art of deejaying is not only alive, but has dominated the music in
a way that (in production terms) arguably defines the cutting edge of

contemporary Jamaican music. It is also the case that the strong emphasis
on deejaying, dominated as it is by Jamaican patwa, has been crucial in re-
orienting Jamaican music to local preferences since the mid-1980s.
The clearest connection between ragga and dub can be found in the
production of the rhythm tracks. One important aspect of this connec-
tion is the continuing deconstruction of harmony. For example, although
the bass motion of ragga tunes sometimes suggests the standardized
chord progressions of older, generic riddims, the digital “de-tuning” of
bass patterns (now created digitally instead of with electric bass) allows
bass lines to be manipulated until they sound more like tuned electronic
drums; in essence, texture and distortion are often emphasized over pre-
cise pitch definition. This tendency has roots in the drum & bass ap-
proach of the roots period—especially as experienced in the sound
system, where distortion due to extreme volume often obscured the pre-
cise identity of pitches and made the electric bass lines sound (in Max
Romeo’s description) like “African drums.” It was only a short step for
producers to further decenter the pitch component of bass lines in the
1980s and afterward, taking advantage of the expanded range and sound
design capability of digital keyboards.
This de facto decentering of tonality has allowed the music to grow in-
creasingly polytonal, a digital hyperextension of the collage-like construc-
tions achieved by the early versioning practices of the 1970s (in this sense,
the harmonic practices of the music parallel developments in American
hip-hop, which itself took a radically polytonal turn in the late 1980s with
the advent of digital sampling as well as Public Enemy and their “Bomb
Squad” production team).27 Similarly to the DJ music of the roots period,
we often find multiple (singing, shouting, rapping) voices in ragga organ-
ized around completely unrelated tonal centers. As in the case of bass
lines, this multiplicity seems to represent a standardization of the stylistic
anomalies of the 1970s; what used to seem like an inability or unwilling-
ness to conform to chord changes has now asserted itself as a willfully ag-
gressive disregard of common practice harmony. As discussed in chapter
2, it was dub’s fragmentation of the song surface that opened up the har-
monic landscape for the DJs by freeing them from the constraints of func-
tional harmony, using chords instead as bits of incidental coloration. And
it was this “sound collage” approach that was eventually extended through
the overdubbing of extraneous sound material and variously keyed sam-
ples onto previously recorded rhythm tracks. The overdubbing of “pure”
sound effects had been used selectively by several of the engineers dis-
cussed in the previous chapter, but was most strongly associated with
Errol Thompson, particularly on his African Dub series with Joe Gibbs in
d u b / 194
which he essentially challenged the dominance of common practice har-
mony through the use of pure sound elements. Thompson passed away
unexpectedly in 2004; to my knowledge, he had never gone on record re-
garding his influence on the production of ragga, but he deserves special
acknowledgment for providing an important foundation for contempo-
rary Jamaican music.
Fig. 25

chapter eight
Starship Africa
The Acoustics of Diaspora and of
the Postcolony1
Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of

vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off
from the original continent. . . . That is the basis of the Antillean experi-
ence, this shipwreck of fragments, these echoes, these shards of a huge tri-
bal vocabulary.—Derek Walcott, 1992
First, let us imagine a time capsule loaded with various planetary music of
the twentieth century, including a sample of roots reggae music of the
1970s compiled by a Jamaican producer such as Bunny Lee or Augustus
Pablo. Then, let us suppose that the producer, in error, submitted King
Tubby’s dub remixes instead of the vocal versions that would, at the re-
quest of the project’s organizers, have ostensibly addressed some represen-
tative social/cultural/political theme of the period. How might these frag-
mentary texts be interpreted by unknown historians at some distant future
location in space and time? Might these versions ultimately offer as vivid
portrayals of their culture as would the original songs with complete lyrics?
Luke Erlich (paraphrasing Lee Perry) has aptly described the dub version
as a type of “x-ray” music that provides glimpses at a song’s inner musical
workings (emphasis mine),2 but what deeper resonances be gleaned from
these skeletal remains of gutted pop songs with their reverberating musical
language of fragmentation and erasure?3
For the most part, dub mixes are remixes of pieces that originally con-
tained lyrics. In an important sense, then, the remix decisions of engineers
when remixing a song into a dub version are (as discussed in chapter 2)
often shaped by the original song text; consequently, the dub mix may be at
d u b / 196
least partially understood as extending the concerns of the song lyrics into
(relatively) instrumental or “pure sound” territory. In this penultimate chap-
ter, I shall draw out some of the more subtle resonances within this pure
sound territory, tracing dub’s reverberations by “versioning” it through the
variously imagined pasts and futures animating the African diaspora (in
general) and (more specifically) those animating postcolonial Jamaica.
The extensive use of reverberation/delay devices and the fragmentation
of the song surface are probably the two most immediately recognizable
stylistic features of dub music. As such, the idea of “echo” figures centrally
in the first section of this chapter, in which I treat dub’s heavy use of reverb
as a sonic metaphor for the condition of diaspora. This section also ex-
plores the themes of retained Africanist aesthetics in dub, and concludes
with a comparison between dub and the genre of magical realism—which I
believe parallels, in literature and film, the Surrealist aspects of dub, and
which I ultimately assert as an aesthetic particularly reflective of the cul-
tural experience of (African) diaspora. The second section of the chapter
builds upon ideas of musical structure introduced in chapter 2, using the
formal logics of the (sound) collage to ponder a relationship between rup-
tures in historical narrative (the trans-Atlantic slave trade) and ruptures in
musical narrative (song form). The third section of the chapter uses the
trait of spatiality in the music to ponder diasporic and Afro-inflected ima-
ginings of outer space, science fiction, and the future. In the fourth and
final section of the chapter, I tie these themes together by theorizing a par-
ticular significance for dub music within the class dynamics of Jamaican so-
ciety, in conjunction with the rise of the sound system DJ as a significant
cultural force. Ultimately, I believe that, understood in the appropriate his-
torical context, this strange and seemingly inscrutable music played an im-
portant role in the ongoing evolution of Jamaica’s postcolonial culture.
In the opening chapter of his 1995 book African Rhythm, Kofi Agawu
offers a richly descriptive narration of the daily soundscape in Ghana’s
northern Eweland.4 In my reading, one of Agawu’s goals here is to move
the study of traditional African music beyond its stereotyped conceptual
boundaries by demonstrating that a culture’s conception of “rhythm” is
not only narrowly present in their music making, but a profoundly experi-
ential component of their total way of life. Ethnomusicologists have long
spoken of the need to understand the phenomenon of music as something
socially constituted; in this chapter I shall similarly discuss the characteris-
tic treatment of song form in Jamaican dub music, not as empirical musi-
cal fact, but as something equally constituted by social and historical
forces. In this light, the various stylistic processes I have referred to
throughout this book are treated not merely as aspects of music, but as
Starship Africa / 197

profoundly structural embodiments of Jamaican history and culture. And,
as the final section makes clear, the musical developments also helped
transform the same culture.
Reverb, Remembrance, and Reverie
The reliance on reverberation and delay devices is certainly one of the

most pronounced stylistic traits of dub music, and the sensations simulated
by reverb and digital delay devices—either cavernous spaces or repeated
sounds, respectively—can be subsumed under the commonly used term
echo.5 In the sonic culture of humans, the sensation of echo is closely asso-
ciated with the cognitive function of memory and the evocation of the
chronological past; at the same time, it can also evoke the vastness of outer
space and hence (by association), the chronological future. Most obviously,
dub is about memory in the immediate sense that it is a remix, a refash-
ioned version of an already familiar pop song; as such, it derives much of
its musical and commercial power from its manipulation of the listener’s
prior experience of a song. In a more abstract sense, however, I am specu-
lating that, suffusing their music with the sensation of echo during a period
when the symbol of Africa was being consciously revitalized in diasporic
consciousness, the creators of dub managed to evoke a cultural memory of
ancestral African roots through heavy use of the reverb and echo effects
and various musical strategies of African origin.
Such a “historicizing of the echo,” which has also been addressed by
Louis Chude-Sokei in a seminal 1997 essay, implicates dub in the diasporic
tropes of exile and nostalgia shared to varying degrees by people of African
descent in the New World.6 In this interpretation, the otherworldly strain
in dub music partially evokes an idealized, precolonial African utopia. It
was during Michael Manley’s attempt at democratic socialism in Jamaica of
the 1970s, that a mood of cultural nationalism was energized by Castro’s
Cuba, the African American civil rights struggle, African nationalism, and
the religious vision of Rastafari. All of these stimulated, in varying ways, a
reevaluation of African cultural roots. Most literally, Africa was deemed by
Rastas to be the site of inevitable repatriation for a people in exile—and
considering the economic hardship, strife, and violence that accompanied
Jamaica’s attempts at social change, it was not surprising that even at the
height of cultural pride, many still wished for another place to call home.
In “Reflections on Exile” (1990), Edward Said characterized exile as the
“unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between
the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.”7
d u b / 198
James Clifford, on the other hand, has observed that “diasporism” tends to
oscillate in accordance with the relationship a given [sub]culture maintains
with its surrounding society, with periods of antagonism tending to inspire
more intense feelings of longing for an ancestral homeland.8 Clifford also
notes that the narratives of diaspora are binary in composition, drawing
upon idealized images of a past in the construction of a cultural “safe
space” in a hostile present.9 Such sentiments are echoed in the words of Ja-
maican poet Kwame Dawes, who surmised that in Jamaica, “the Africa that
is constructed is mythic and defined in terms of the current space of
exile.”10 I cite these comments in order to evoke the ethos of diaspora as ex-
perienced by those of African descent during the early independence years
of the 1960s and 1970s, when the idea of Africa was being revitalized
throughout the African diaspora. The condition of simultaneously yearn-
ing for and being alienated from a cultural homeland that can never be fully
experienced as home, and also from the very history of connection to that
homeland, allows us to interpret dub as a cultural sound painting of a type,
vividly dramatizing the experience of diasporic exile.
At what point does culture in diaspora become normalized, ceasing to
be measured in relation to some originary homeland? It may seem contra-
dictory that I discuss diaspora and exile in terms of the use of reverberation
as a stylistic trait of Jamaican music, while in chapter 7 I spoke of a music
(ragga) coming out of the same diasporic context that almost completely
abandoned this stylistic trait. After all, isn’t digital Jamaica still part of the
African diaspora? And doesn’t Africa remain an important reference point
in contemporary Jamaican music? The obvious answer to both of these
questions is yes. My point, however, is that the music of the roots era rep-
resented the end of more than four centuries in which the cultures of ances-
tral Africa remained largely a mystery to their descendants throughout the
African diaspora. This situation is quite different today, at the turn of a new
millennium. While repatriation might remain a quite remote possibility for
the vast majority of Jamaicans, there is a Rastafarian settlement in Ethiopia
and substantial expatriate Jamaican populations in other parts of Africa (es-
pecially Ghana). Reverberation, then, only acquires this particular signifi-
cance during the historical moment concerned with exploring the ancestral
past. By the mid-1980s, this moment had largely passed.
If reggae in the 1970s was in many ways a musical attempt to invoke “Af-
rica” as a newly imagined safe space in the Caribbean present, reverberation
provided the cohering agent for dub’s interplay of presence/absence and of
completeness/incompleteness, evoking the intertwined experiences of exile
and nostalgia, and reflecting Said’s characterization of exile as “fundamentally
a discontinuous state of being.”11 These fragments may also be interpreted as

fragments of an African cultural memory under reconstruction, the building
blocks being fragments of the post–World War II popular song form and
fragmentary memories of Africa. The music’s elasticity of form provided the
perfect crucible for an elastic reimagining of history, a meditation crucial to
the cultural consciousness of the new nation. As I shall mention later in this
chapter, the invention of synthetic reverb had (via its capability for spatial
simulation) granted new social classes of classical music listeners virtual access
to the elite concert hall at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, it
also granted those in the African diaspora virtual access to a new vision of the
African past at the end of the same century.12
This kind of singing, coupled with the hard reggae chop of rhythm guitar, was
nothing less than a setup for secular Jamaican spirit possession, trance music of
the highest order.—Stephen Davis13
“Africa” can also arguably be felt in much of what makes this music
unique, and its effect on listeners. In his 1985 study of the relationship
between music and states of altered consciousness, Gilbert Rouget distin-
guished between two states and their respective musical catalysts: those in-
ducing states of ecstatic contemplation and those inducing states of posses-
sion.14 I believe that the dub mix can, in certain respects, be seen as a
catalyst for both states. By traditional definitions, reggae—notwithstand-
ing how often and passionately it voiced Rastafarian themes—should not
actually be considered a liturgical or devotional music; Rastafarians had
their own Nyabinghi ceremonial music (which itself was rooted in a variety
of neo-African liturgical musics such as burru). But, infused with the reli-
gious passion of Rastafari-influenced reggae, overtones of Euro-American
psychedelia, and the political passion of the Manley years, dub nevertheless
functioned in the sound system to induce states of pseudopossession and/
or contemplative ecstasy in conformity with procedures ultimately rooted
in traditional African music.
Possession, marked by a violent or convulsive entry to a trance state,
may be the most immediately relevant interpretation.15 Long before the
advent of recording technology, the technique of disruption was fre-
quently used in West African and diasporic traditional musics to create a
sense of momentary disorientation and heightened excitement. Rouget
surveys several instances in which the sudden disruption of an insistent, re-
peating rhythm—through its disorienting effect on the listener’s nervous
system—functions to induce trance or possession.16 This retained African
strategy for creating and manipulating dynamic tension acquires new di-
mensions in the extreme volumes of the Jamaican sound system. Having
been stoked for hours with an unending stream of bass-heavy rhythms,
d u b / 200
frenzied shouts pierce the air as the sound system peaks, rhythm parts re-
verberate violently in and out of the mix, and the deejay’s voice exclaims
above it all. As Robbie Shakespeare remembers, such intensity often re-
sulted in extreme audience responses, such as the infamous “lickshot”
(firearms fired at the ceiling or into the air in response to particularly dra-
matic passages of music):
When you go a dance, and you hear sound system them a play, [they have] no ef-
fects, the amplifier have just volume, bass, treble. And them used to turn off the
bass, so you just get the sound through the horns; the top end a cut through, and
when them put in the bass—vroom! People rave for that! Especially when the dub
wicked, them used to go mad, man. That was one reason why a man start firing
guns inna dancehall, because of dub. Ever since from way back rock steady days,
when the dub part come in and them turn off the bass and then turn it back in—it
sounds so evilous it make you fire a gun shot man! Shot used to fire in the dancehall
from ever since then.17
With the aforementioned “inhabitability” of the dub mix in mind, the

violent spatial manipulations might also be heard as functioning to liberate
the body and mind from the physical rhythms of oppression by providing a
convulsive glimpse of abandon; that is, “resisting the dominant disciplines
of bodily reform,” although not necessarily through the fits of spiritual
possession that Andrew Apter suggests in his discussion of slave religion.18
Despite the frenzied shouts that can inevitably be heard at the peak of a
sound system session, the manner in which people actually dance to roots
reggae is more accurately described as cool, calm, graceful, and under-
stated. The convulsive ecstasy of possession is as often sublimated in dub
into the sonic sensations of exploding and convulsing space, with its inti-
mate psychological associations of physical movement and constraint.19 As
Lee Perry explained to Kevin Martin in 1995: “When you hear dub you fly
on the music. You put your heart, your body and your spirit into the music,
you gonna fly. Because if it wasn’t for the music, oppression and taxes
would kill you. They send taxes and oppression to hold you, a government
to tell you what to do and use you like a robot. So they will torment you to
death. So when you hear dub you hide from the fuckers there.”20
That dub mixes could be described as having a “mystical” or “mysterious”

feel, had as much to do with the application of reverb as it did with the
Rasta-derived lyrical content. The evolution of reverberation and echo as
aesthetic devices in popular music dates to the 1950s, and is largely credited
to independent blues, rhythm and blues and country music recording la-
bels such as Chess in Chicago and Sun Records in Memphis.21 But reverb
and echo had been used earlier in the recording of Western classical music,

to simulate the acoustic environments of traditional performance settings
such as churches and cathedrals.22 The inevitable sonic associations that
this carried—of timelessness and meditation—were equally suggested by
dub mixes saturated with reverb. It was this quality that inspired Neil
“Mad Professor” Fraser to launch his career as a “second wave” studio engi-
neer creating dub music in England: “I just found that it was a music that
makes you wonder and it really provides the vehicle for songs and for med-
itation . . . it didn’t have lyrics, so there was space for incidental thought.”23
Similarly, producer Clive Chin felt that “dub music is just purely medita-
tion,”24 while Winston Riley considered dub “a very soothing and a relax-
ing music. And a meditative music too.”25 This frequent emphasis on dub
as a music of meditation is significant. Rasta-influenced song texts aside for
the moment, some of the more dramatic dub mixes might be considered
on purely sonic terms as pseudoliturgical music of a type, invested with
strong religious, magical, and psychological power deriving from the inter-
twined spiritual, political, and cultural tropes dominating Jamaican music
during the 1970s.
When engineers slowed the tempos of their dub remixes, they eased their
listeners into a sonic space conducive to more intimate and erotically charged
dancing, intensified by the teasing incompleteness of the fragmented song
surface and the engineer’s sensuous ride across the spectrum of timbres and
textures. The music became eroticized, experienced as a succession of mutat-
ing, evolving, and undulating textural/spatial sensations. But when Sasha
Frere-Ellis referred to Lee Perry’s Black Ark music as the “Aurora borealis of
reggae,”26 he was strongly evoking the sonic subtleties and sublimities of the
mix and its contemplative effect upon the listener. Such manipulations func-
tion as a sonic catalyst for a state of what Rouget terms ecstatic contempla-
tion, empowering the listener through rhythm while drawing them into con-
templative states through increasingly subtle manipulations of spatial and
textural elements. In this way, the engineer opens a space for the remix as a
mode of experiencing more subtle and/or sublime sensations within the
songscape. The psychedelic strain of Euro-American pop, the Christian em-
phasis on otherworldly salvation, and the Rasta emphasis on Africa fused to
convey a timeless, African-inflected sense of both otherness and otherworldli-
ness. Will Montgomery, discussing the music of Lee Perry’s Black Ark era,
describes how “cut after cut, stretches of otherworldly matter frame despair-
ing social commentary . . . the intensity of the urge to transform the here-
and-now in the studio adds a potent and wistful militancy to these songs.”27
The “otherworldy matter” of which he speaks is sound matter, dramatizing
the Afro-Caribbean-Protestant-Rastafarian longing for political liberation–
recast no longer as Christian heaven, but as African Zion.
d u b / 202
. . .
Such artistically driven transformations of reality invite comparison with a
parallel regional tradition in another artistic medium. The literary genre of
magical realism emerged during the 1960s and 1970s as a transnational phe-
nomenon, but remains largely associated with the work of Latin America
and Caribbean authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier,
Jorge Luis Borges and others. Magical realist works characteristically rely on
abrupt switches in tense and narrative mode juxtaposing realistic passages
with passages of fantastic, magical, or supernatural narrative. In the words
of David Mikics, these works “violat[e] the world of everyday appearances
by the rich and strange world of dreams.”28 Magical realist texts have been
subjected to various interpretations that tend to coalesce around two related
themes. The first draws on the idea of the Caribbean as the planetary site of
mixing and cultural hybridity par excellence;29 in this interpretation, magi-
cal realism’s liminal literary space between fantasy and reality functions to
reconcile the diverse cultural currents flowing into the Caribbean. The rec-
onciliation of diverse cultural histories and belief systems implies a destruc-
tion of the old in the fusion of the new; the hybrid nature of the Caribbean
(especially in the context of the continued domination of Old World politi-
cal, economic, and cultural structures), implies an embrace of fragmenta-
tion and juxtaposition as necessary adaptive strategies.30
A second interpretation of magical realism carries more political impli-
cations. Some theorists have asserted the genre as a postcolonial art form
furnishing “ontological resistance” to structures of thought (including ar-
tistic forms) implicated in the colonial project. Lois Zamora and Wendy
Faris have claimed that magical realism, in its subversion of colonially de-
rived literary conventions, implicitly resists “monologic” cultural struc-
tures; as such, it is particularly useful to (and reflective of) postcolonial cul-
tures.31 Steven Slemon also finds magical realism “most visibly operative in
cultures situated at the margins of mainstream literary traditions”32 and
considers the genre to “[have] echoes in those forms of postcolonial
thought which seek to recuperate the lost voices and discarded fragments
that imperialist cognitive structures push to the margins of critical con-
sciousness. . . . [These artworks] share an interest in thematically decenter-
ing images of fixity while at the same time foregrounding the gaps and ab-
sences those fixed and monumental structures produce.”33 It was based on
this particular interplay of factors that St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott could
claim magical realism as “the authoritative aesthetic response to the Carib-
bean cultural context.”34
What does dub share with magical realism? Its decentering of textual
and musical syntax, its surreal treatment of song form, and its fragmented

and/or stacked narrative voices can be thought of as a musical corollary of
what Theo D’Haen describes, in magical realist literature, as the “utopian,
if evanescent, promise of transfigured perception, the hypnotic reviewing
of everyday existence.”35 Its reliance on practices rooted in the oral tradi-
tion—blended with the newly available technology of an emergent record-
ing industry—strongly echoes Frederic Jameson’s interpretation of magi-
cal realism (in film) as dependent on a fusion of precapitalist with nascent
capitalist (especially technological) elements.36 And, as I shall discuss to-
ward the end of this chapter, the “gaps and absences” that populate the dub
mix ultimately had a similarly political utility in Jamaica.
The Politics and Poetics of Erasure: Historical Trauma and

the Jamaican Sound Collage
What better medium than collage to express the accumulation of memories? And
isn’t collage the emblematic medium of the century? Collagists . . . take bits of
chaos to . . . investigate, organize and present evidence of the activity of a culture.
—Carrie Rickey37
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than the love
which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the
pieces is the sealing of its original shape. It is such a love that reassembles our Afri-
can and Asiatic fragments. . . . This gathering of broken pieces is the care and
pain of the Antilles.—Derek Walcott
One of the historical events that continues to reverberate in cultural

forms throughout the African diaspora is the transatlantic slave trade, a his-
torical trauma characterized by forced erasures of cultural memory, and
disruptions in linear conceptions of history and human progress. Much of
the literature on trauma has addressed various forms of individual suffering
(generally addressed through the lens of psychoanalytic theory), as well as
large-scale collective traumas such as the mass tragedies suffered in the Hol-
ocaust, the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or other recent hor-
rors (generally addressed through the lens of medical anthropology). As
Sandra Bloom (1998) has discussed, the effects of trauma seem relatively
consistent between the individual and collective spheres,38 and integral to
the trauma literature is the concept of testimony—the various ways in
which individuals or groups recount traumatic experiences that have re-
mained suppressed.39 There have been a number of studies tracing a con-
nection between trauma and the formal characteristics of such narrative
“testimony,” including those found in artistic production. In terms of his-
torical experience, James Clifford feels that “experiences of unsettlement,
loss, and recurring terror produce discrepant temporalities—broken histo-
ries that trouble the linear, progressivist narratives.”40 Clifford is speaking
d u b / 204
in abstract terms, in relation to the construction of broadly shared histori-
cal narratives, but Shoshana Felman, in her study of the poetry of Holo-
caust survivors, concretizes this idea in terms of form and individual artis-
tic creation, referring to “an [historical] accident which is materially
embodied in an accidenting of the verse.”41 Might the experience of histor-
ical trauma have echoes in dub’s shattering of narrative continuity?
In general, the literature on trauma has avoided the African diaspora,
and the narratives produced within the cultural aftermath of the slave
trade. One exception is Paul Gilroy’s “Living Memory and the Slave Sub-
lime,” which directly engages the issue of historical trauma as it concerns
people of African descent.42 Another is the work of visual artist Arthur
Jafa, who has sought to understand the structural and aesthetic implica-
tions of historical trauma on African American art making. Both Gilroy
and Jafa perceive the legacy of the slavery experience as structurally coded
within the expressive forms of the African diaspora. Gilroy finds such his-
torical experience reflected within what he terms “radically unfinished” ex-
pressive forms that are “mark[ed] indelibly as the products of slavery.”43 In
his interpretation, a legacy of unresolved psychic terror gives coded voice
to the “unspeakable terrors” of black history via the narrative ruptures
found in a variety of diasporic expressive forms.44 Jafa has referenced dub
music more directly in his idea of “primal sites”:
those group experiences that reconfigure who we [African Americans] are as a com-
munity. One of the critical primal sites would be the Middle Passage. If you under-
stand the level of horror directed towards a group of people, then you start getting
some sense of the magnitude, impact, and level of trauma that that had on the Afri-
can American community, and how it was particularly one of the earliest group ex-
periences that reshaped an “African psyche” into the beginning of an African
American psyche. . . . Now, for example, you look at Black music and see certain
structural things that really are about reclaiming this whole sense of absence, loss,
not knowing. One of the things I’m thinking about is dub music . . . it ends up
really speaking about common experiences because the structure of the music is
about things dropping out and coming back in, really reclaiming this whole sense of
loss, rupture, and repair that is very common across the experience of black people
in the diaspora.45
In this reading, an art form such as dub comes to represent a form of the
“testimony” discussed by trauma theorists such as Felman. Its decon-
structed song forms recalls Gilroy’s “unfinished forms,” while its reduction
of textual meaning to nonsensical phonemes articulates his idea of “un-
speakable (historical) terrors.” In this line of reasoning, the privileging of
rupture in dub music comes to symbolize the disruptions in cultural mem-
ory and the historical shattering of existential peace, encoded into the cul-
tural nervous system and sublimated into musical sound.

Placed in the context of Kingston in the 1970s, these observations also
come to symbolize the shattering of the contemporary peace, enabling an
interpretation of dub as a language of musical “shock,” bound closely with
aesthetic values of dissonance, destruction, and decay.46 After all, violence
and (later) the overt symbols of warfare were crucial to the highly competi-
tive sound system dances from its earliest days, and this dissonance was
eventually sublimated into the very structure of the dub music created for
the sound systems.47 The overdubbed sounds of screeching tires, machine-
gun fire, and police sirens in some of King Tubby’s dub mixes, the rough
clientele that reportedly patronized his sound system,48 and the ultimate
destruction of his system itself at the hands of Kingston police—all attest
to these musicians’ movement within a vortex of social “counterforces” re-
flecting political and cultural warfare. And this warfare was both outward
(against agents of foreign neocolonialism and local class domination) and
inward (in the politically driven “tribal” warfare of Kingston’s ghettos). It
was this last dynamic that ultimately detached itself from political ideals
and became self-sustaining, a type of random violence born of social frus-
tration that eventually claimed the life of King Tubby (and many others)
and drove Lee Perry, Scientist, and Philip Smart into exile. In this interpre-
tation, dub is the sound of a society tearing itself apart at the seams, an ef-
fect given broader context by erasures, tears, and disruptions in the seam of
history itself.
In light of dub music’s fragmented song structures, the tortured for-
mal fragmentation of the sound system “macroset,” the violently martial
ethos of the sound clash, and even the violence sometimes inherent in the
music’s procedures of realization, the preceding ideas provide insight
into what might have caused Jamaica to evolve a style unique in the con-
stellation of world popular musics for such an interruptive manipulation
of musical pleasure. It can be argued that in most Western musical forms,
pleasure is generally constructed through a dynamic of tension and re-
lease within the system of functional harmony. Dub partially subverts
this dynamic, reducing harmonic activity to an episodic coloration in
which moments of harmony and melody are contrasted with segments of
stark low-register relief (drum & bass). On the other hand, aesthetic
pleasure in African-derived systems is often constructed around repeti-
tion of interlocking rhythmic patterns. Dub partially subverts this also,
with its periodic disruption of rhythmic patterns. As such, the music es-
sentially subverts the pleasure principles of two musical systems: aes-
thetic pleasure here is fundamentally predicated upon the fragmented
narratives of the sound collage, which in this case seems to conform to the
emotional pendulum of post-traumatic experience that allows pleasure to
d u b / 206
be experienced only fleetingly as it swings between sensations of har-
monic fullness and starkness, and between sensations of rhythmic conti-
nuity and disruption.49
As a form predicated upon the de- and reconstruction of aesthetic log-
ics, collage has often been called a quintessential form of the turbulent
twentieth century, a form inviting potentially endless possibilities of inven-
tion and interpretation.50 Cubists found in its flattening of pictorial per-
spective a means of portraying the simultaneity of time and space. Italian
Futurists used its mechanically produced print and photographic source
materials to proclaim their ideals of a machine age. Russian Constructivists
used its fragmented syntax as a way to portray the class struggles of their
society. Dadaists and Surrealists built collage through a variety of chance
procedures and asserted the form as simultaneously the most organically
poetic and potentially revolutionary.51 But several understandings of col-
lage seem particularly relevant in the context of the danced (and sound-
engineered) cultural shifts and social turbulence of Jamaica’s roots era. The
Dada/Surrealist artist Jean Arp used collage to evoke processes of decay in
both nature and art, while historians have also read in his collages “an at-
tempt to express in new formats regenerative powers.” A similar interpreta-
tion was offered by art historian Katherine Hoffman, who saw in collage “a
sense of the possibility of connectedness but at the same time . . . a sense of
alienation of individuals afloat in a world turned upside down.”52 A third
interpretation can be found in the writing of jazz historian Krin Gabbard
who has speculated (in relation to the deconstructive aspects of modern
jazz vis-à-vis the American pop song tradition) that the aestheticization of
error and chance in some forms of black music arguably “shows contempt
for Western art music with its smooth, “organic” surfaces, its technical pre-
cision, and its highly-stylized set of emotional codes.”53
In his 1996 essay “The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination,” ethnomu-
sicologist Veit Erlmann speculated that the juxtaposition of radically dis-
similar or decontextualized genres in certain forms of world popular music
may reflect the violent historical encounter between industrial capitalist
and preindustrial societies (note how closely this echoes Jameson’s afore-
mentioned observation concerning magical realism).54 Jamaica has been a
part of the global economic order at least since the period of European col-
onization, but Erlmann’s words are nevertheless relevant to the turbulent
late–cold war dynamics of the Manley-Seaga years. Like Gilroy’s “unfin-
ished forms,” dub may be one of a number of diasporic musics on which a
traumatic history and turbulent present has left its structural imprint, “con-
verting the outrage of the years into a music”55 through an aesthetic of
broken, discontinuous pleasures that may represent a synaptic adaptation

to long-term historical trauma,56 but that also fit into a broader global pat-
tern in which collage forms join the search for new realities to define the
twentieth century.
Science and Space: Dub and Afro-futurism

We need images of tomorrow and our people need them more than most. . . .
The historical reason we’ve been so impoverished in terms of future images is
because until fairly recently, as a people we’ve been systematically forbidden
any images of our past.57—Samuel Delany to Mark Dery
The machines gleam magnificently. Their newness and sophistication seems to

balance the space on the edge of the sonic future. Is this a mirror image of Apollo
and Sputnik with their cramped and awesome technical interiors? 58
—Louise Meintjes
To the extent that Jamaican engineers relied upon the most modern
sound technology to craft sonic evocations of archaic Africana, dub music
has become an important musical reference point in the thematic trope
often referred to as “Afro-futurism.”59 The Afro-futurist theme runs
through black music, film, literature, and visual arts, often using the im-
agery of space travel and other advanced technology to recast the turbulent
black past in terms of a liberated, technological utopia.60 Afro-futurist
ideas can be traced throughout the twentieth century, but arguably consol-
idated during the 1960s, when the new reality of outer space travel and the
related proliferation of science fiction imagery in mass culture—in combi-
nation with the politically and culturally motivated embrace of African cul-
ture throughout the African diaspora—suggested a liberatory cultural po-
tential for technology.
From the 1960s to the present, these ideas have seemed particularly evi-
dent in selected works by African American jazz and popular artists, the
more prominent of whom would include Herbie Hancock, Jimi Hendrix,
Earth Wind, and Fire, Parliament, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Jeff Mills, and
Derrick May. In the work of Hancock’s electro-acoustic Mwandishi band
(1969–73), for example, futuristic-sounding electronic synthesizers are used
to replicate African percussion patterns, which in turn are used as the basis
for jazz improvisation.61 On Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, a variety of ar-
chaic, rural blues forms are electrically revamped, graced with otherworldy
lyrical themes, and subjected to extensive sound processing and studio ma-
nipulation.62 Earth, Wind and Fire fuse imagery drawn from archaic black
cultural sources (Egyptian pyramids, African mysticism) with the icon-
ography of outer space travel, while using the percussive sound of 1970s
funk as a medium for the rearticulation of traditional African musical val-
ues.63 A similar fusion is strongly evident in selected works of Sun Ra such
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as Space Is the Place, Astro-Black, and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, in
which juxtaposed themes of ancient Egypt, archaic Africana, exile, and
interstellar travel are dramatized through Sun Ra’s fusion of free jazz, im-
provised electronic textures, and African-inspired drumming.64 Parlia-
ment’s theme-driven albums such as Mothership Connection and Clones of
Dr. Funkenstein, laid the foundation for their concert “funk operas,” based
around tropes of interstellar travel and genetic manipulation, transgressively
recast through the ethos of the postindustrial urban ghetto.65 Trumpeter
Miles Davis traversed similar conceptual territory in the mid-1970s on jazz-
fusion works such as Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agharta, and Pangaea,
which fused post-Coltrane free and modal jazz improvisation, abstracted
rhythm and blues, psychedelic rock, African-derived percussion, pure elec-
tronic music, and extensive post-performance studio manipulation.66 More
recently, Detroit-based techno musicians such as Derrick May and Jeff
Mills, working within one of the planet’s most notorious postindustrial set-
tings (and one dominated by the symbol of transport vehicles), would find
resonance in the metaphor of space vessels and outer space travel on record-
ings such as May’s Innovator, or Mills’s Waveform Transmissions.67
Besides being a fad derived from the technological advances of the
times, these images may have proliferated because they offered a novel in-
flection to traditional forms of African-derived mysticism, naturalism, and
magic, while inspiring a rearticulation of the historical experiences of col-
onization, slavery, immigration, frontier, and exile. In light of the artists
listed above, however, we might ask whether Afro-futurism is fundamen-
tally an African American trope, reflecting a particular proximity to the
apparatus of the cold war. Much of the emphasis on technology seems a
likely reflection of the space race as a component of the arms race between
two cold war superpowers; it is clear that many of the sonic developments
during the 1960s and 1970s were by-products of military technology.68
But to what extent is the Afro-futurist trope, or something similar to it,
evident in other regions of the black world? And what is its relevance to
Jamaican dub music?
It is undeniable that the sci-fi undertones of dub have garnered the
music a substantial audience outside of Jamaica, among listeners from the
experimental and electronic strains of Western popular music. This ac-
counts, for example, for the cover art that was used to sell the music outside
of Jamaica—a decision largely made by the English recording companies
independently of the Jamaican artists.69 Overall, however, the placement of
dub within the canon of both Afro-futurist and sci-fi–influenced music has
been fairly slow. Philip Hayward, for example, devotes an entire chapter to
the sonic influence of science fiction on popular and experimental musics

that mentions all of the above-cited examples, but fails to mention dub.70
The likely explanation for omissions of this sort is that while the full-length
album is considered the quintessential medium for post-1960s rock, dub
mixes exist mainly on B-sides of singles. Dub albums tend to be mere com-
pilations of these mixes that lack the clear thematic continuity that listeners
expect of album-length works (exceptions might be thematic dub LPs such
as Lee Perry’s Super Ape and Blackboard Jungle Dub).
More significant, however, is the observation that in Jamaican dub, the
sci-fi component has typically been more implicit than explicit. The music
tends to be less concerned with images of flying saucers and interplanetary
travel, and is more reflective of prominently interwoven dichotomies of
nature/technology and past/future. Fundamental here is the idea of King-
ston as an electronically wired urban concrete jungle set within a tropical
Caribbean island. Because of an economy in which recorded music has tra-
ditionally proved more viable than performing ensembles, Jamaica has
been a site of particularly interesting adaptations of successive forms of
sound reproduction technology. The country’s recording engineers and
sound system operators have consistently pushed the envelope of what is
expected of sound technology in terms of both aesthetics and performance
capability, and some of their most imaginative ideas are said to have prefig-
ured later developments in sound technology. Scientist, for example,
claims: “It’s been documented that me and King Tubby’s joked about those
things for years before they were made. . . . Even moving faders that you
see come out with [the] Neve [console], it’s been documented way before
where me and King Tubby’s been sitting around talking, joking about
moving faders . . . we were talking about 64 track and all these new devices
that were not invented at that time.”71 The engineer went on to claim that
the manufacturers of this equipment “were listening to reggae and the
problems we were finding, they run into the same problems too. . . . When
you design [sound equipment] on the bench, everything work normal, you
get the perfect readout you’re trying to get. But when you get into the real
world, that same amplifier becomes a piece of crap, especially when you
playing reggae through it. So if it wasn’t for reggae, they couldn’t fine tune
a lot of those audio equipment.”72
So during the same period that Rasta-influenced reggae musicians were
placing such emphasis on tropes of nature and the African past, foreign
manufacturers of sound technology were using Jamaican music to test the
durability and capabilities of their equipment, and to set a course for the
future. Such dichotomies reflect a characteristic juxtaposition of “roots”
and technology that has provided Jamaican popular music with its particu-
lar dynamism since the late 1960s. While conducting research on Jamaica’s
d u b / 210
language and culture in 2001, Hannah Appel witnessed this juxtaposition
at a party on the rural outskirts of Kingston: “I found myself at a country
birthday party. We’re talking country; no running water, as many goats and
chickens at the party as people—and a man in charge of more computer
equipment than I could ever hope to understand. The sound system was
not a set of speakers and turntables, but two new PC computers complete
with CD drives and digital amplification and sound modification equip-
ment. And all this up in middle of the Blue Mountains!”73
These dichotomies also raise the issue of how cultures on the margins of
the world’s technological centers relate to technology as it “trickles down”
to their regions, especially given the complicity of technology with West-
ern racial/cultural/technological domination.74 In the music culture of Ja-
maica it seems that technology was embraced along with its militarist bag-
gage—hence the technomartial ethos of the sound clash.75 Yet Jamaicans
recognized its destructive and pollutive potentials: this is when it clashed
against the affirming ideologies of “roots,” black pride, and/or national
pride, and demanded grounding via local cultural symbols and practices.
Within Jamaica, this ongoing tension has shaped the local adaptation of
sound technology.
In light of these juxtapositions at the heart of the music, it is not surpris-
ing that the Jamaican recording studio has often been conceptualized by its
pioneers as some bizarre hybrid of laboratory, spaceship, temple, jungle, or
shaman’s hut. Lee Perry described his Black Ark studio to David Toop as
“like a space craft. You could hear space in the tracks. Something there was
like a holy vibration and a godly sensation. . . . I was getting help from
God, through space, through the sky, through the firmament, through the
earth, through the wind, through the fire. I got support through the
weather to make space music.”76 Perry’s technological ruminations were
always grounded in his experience of nature; on another occasion he
claimed dub was “the sound of the rain, the wind, and the water—that’s the
way it’s mixed, that’s what’s in the dub. ’Cause it come from rain, thunder
and lightning, breeze, and all the invisible forces.”77 Meanwhile, Scientist
observed: “A lot of people don’t know this, but there’s a connection
between music and what goes on out there in the solar system and all the
universe. There is that deep, unexplained mystery that music have on the
world . . . to be honest, sometime when you in the studio and you doing
those mixes there, you actually feel like you’re communicating with some-
thing else out there, you don’t know how to explain it.”78
Louise Meintjes has waxed insightfully about this sensation to which
Scientist refers, asserting that “through the art of illusion and the capacity
of the imagination, [the recording studio] seems to house a natural force

that when tapped produces compelling art. . . . It is from here that music-
maker’s poetics travel through conversation to God, to the moon, to
Mars, and back into their sound. And it is from this tape reel that the lives
of music makers might spin off into new places.”79 The peculiar manner
in which sound technology was adapted in Jamaica should not, at last, be
surprising; as James Lastra has demonstrated, the evolution of technology
has been driven as much by public and private imagination as it has by
technological necessity.80 And it is this act of public imagination that al-
lows us to understand even the most far-flung visions in terms of postco-
lonial culture, predicated as it is on an intensive interrogation of future
cultural possibilities.81
Some call it science

Some call it necromancy
Some call it plain obeah . . .
—Prince Buster, from “Science,”1972
The science fiction metaphor also has relevance in the irreverent way Ja-
maican recording engineers utilized their sound equipment (as discussed in
chapter 2), which at the very least seemed to problematize the issue of
Western technoscience and its network of cultural associations. The genre
of dub music is populated with the trope of the “crazy” sound mixer, as
well as the theme of science interwoven with madness. Lee Perry is the
best-known example of this tendency, but it is also reflected in the work
and imagery of engineers such as Scientist and Mad Professor.82 Of course,
it must be mentioned that the term science has a double resonance in Ja-
maica, often used colloquially to refer to the island’s tradition of neo-
African black magic, Obeah.83 Derived from the Akan term obia (ghost),
the symbol of Obeah has sometimes provided a symbolic medium for the
local grounding of global sound technology. Kevin Martin has even ob-
served that the terms dub (noun) and dubby (adjective) resonate etymolog-
ically with “duppy,” the Jamaican patwa term for ghosts or malevolent spir-
its.84 The diasporic project of reclaiming an African heritage was
necessarily marked by an ethos of mystery that by turns reflected the explo-
ration of a heretofore unknowable past, and an engagement with the Afri-
can “other” that had historically functioned as the shadow symbol to West-
ern modernity.85 In the words of literary scholar Nana Wilson-Tagoe,“the
[African] experience itself ha[d] been shrouded in obscurity and was the
source of embarrassment and shame in a society whose unifying factor
throughout its beginnings as a plantation society was the consensual accep-
tance of African inferiority.”86 Stated differently, dub reinserted the mys-
tery and spookiness into reggae.
d u b / 212
In traditional musical terms, this sense of mystery was often evoked
through the use of minor keys, slow tempi, African percussion, and
bottom-heavy rhythm arrangements—all key elements of 1970s roots reg-
gae that were intensified by the sound processing of the dub mix. So it fol-
lows that when producer Coxsone Dodd remixed saxophonist Karl Bryan’s
minor-key “Money Generator” instrumental into a dub version, he slowed
the tape speed, applied the sound processors, and retitled it “Musical Sci-
ence,” a moody version dominated by neo-African Nyabinghi hand drum-
ming and a hazy, atmospheric mix.87 Clearly, the doubly resonant image of
the Jamaican engineer as a “scientist” was necessary in adapting sound tech-
nology to local priorities: it was precisely the idiosyncratic use of that tech-
nology that helped rupture stylistic norms and project diasporic Africans
across space and time in order to reclaim and reinhabit a cultural heritage
lost during centuries of slavery and colonization.
As such, the music actually implies several re-visionings of the concept
of space. Dub’s sonic effects, somewhat similar to what could be heard con-
temporaneously in the soundtracks of science fiction films, evoke the dark
expanse of outer space. The oft-mentioned meditative quality of the music,
on the other hand, resonates with a listener’s internal space. The Africa-
inspired rhythm structures evoke a mood of historical space, providing a
soundtrack for a time when an African god-king was believed to be incar-
nate on Earth and the music had a ethos of grandeur that was conducive to
the expansive and idealistic thinking of the era. Even the physical concept of
space is relevant here: dub’s spatialized songscapes, heard at the extreme
volumes of the Jamaican sound system, simulated an actual physical space
within which the “roots” African past and the utopian sci-fi future could be
fleetingly experienced as one. Thus, it is not surprising that both the crea-
tors of dub music and their audiences frequently speak of the music in
terms of “dimensions” and “other dimensions.”
As a genre, science fiction is often considered the futurist imaginings of
the technological centers of modern, industrialized nations, rather than the
nostalgic, Africa-centered imaginings of a small, technologically marginal
Caribbean island culture.88 This irony in itself mirrors a broader
technological-cultural-racial stereotype in which, as Alondra Nelson notes,
“blackness” is typically positioned in opposition to narratives of “technol-
ogy” and “progress.”89 Positioned culturally, historically, and geographically
between Africa and America, Jamaican studio engineers utilized the avail-
able technology to imply a potent form of sonic Afro-futurism. And while
the Africa-centered narratives of Rastafari, detached from the popular song
mediums, fantasize of an uncomplicated return to ancient culture,90 dub
demonstrates that Jamaican attitudes toward technology actually contradict

these oppositional distinctions between a past understood as nature-based,
primitive, and stereotypically African, and a future understood as techno-
logical and stereotypically de-Africanized.
Dave Marsh characterized reggae of the 1970s as reflecting “the poten-
tial of human lives in a way peculiar to Jamaicans, living in a trap between
the squalid beauties of a pre-industrial culture and the disintegrating splen-
dors of an imperial one.”91 Dub as reggae’s visionary impulse straddled a
similar position between preindustrial, industrial, and information age aes-
thetics, reflected in the use of “roots” rhetoric in the abuse/deconstruction
of the modernist/analog machine, as a precursor to a digital pop aesthetic.
As a body of black science fiction gradually consolidates itself throughout
the African diaspora among the poles of archaic Africana, contemporary
culture, and futuristic technoimagery, the ruminative soundscapes of dub
will likely continue to provide a soundtrack to the Afro-inflected transmu-
tation of technology at the turn of the twenty-first century.92
Conclusion
John Cage’s idea of creating a purely “ambient” music by allowing envi-
ronmental sounds their rightful place within the listener’s aestheticized at-
tention was partially predicated on Eastern-influenced ideas of individual
contemplation. The idea finds its Afro-inflected parallel in communally
driven musics of African descent, where the formal structure of music is
often partially predicated on the sounds of the surrounding society and its
processes of communal composition. Dub in this sense is not so different
from the mutable and modular song forms that accompany oral arts
throughout West Africa, for example. This is one reason why the recorded
pop song has assumed a uniquely ephemeral form in Jamaica: its structure
fundamentally reflects a deep fusion of Jamaica’s African-derived oral heri-
tage (a communal process of composition) with the latent potentials of
new technologies, in the context of a very raw form of profit-driven com-
petition in the local music industry. In popular music, this ephemerality
was apparent at least since the days of the early sound systems, when selec-
tors scratched the titles off imported records to avoid detection by the spies
of competing sound systems. Songs were essentially separated from their
song title signifiers, leading to a multiplicity of titles for the same material,
and ultimately feeding directly into (and off) the Jamaican masses’ reliance
on oral as opposed to written dissemination of information.
As such, the social element holds particular significance in this Afrocen-
tric definition of the “ambient.” In Jamaica, concepts such as “the individual
composer” and the “integrity of the work” do not prevail to the extent that
d u b / 214
they do within American and Western European notions of authorship. As
we have seen, a “song” in Jamaica must sometimes be understood as a com-
posite of its multiple versions. One important motivation for breaking
songs apart into dub mixes was to adapt them to what was essentially a com-
munal mode of composition, with clear African roots, in which different
members of the community have a voice. Many different musicians get a
chance over the latest rhythm tracks; in Jamaica, as this book has chroni-
cled, this process grew to include recording engineers. In Scientist’s words,
“Reggae’s a very unique music on the planet. It has all these different ele-
ments where everybody gets a chance to be in the spotlight. People even give
the engineer a chance to be in the spotlight.”93
We can expand the scope of this “spotlight” to encompass another class
of musicians. Caribbean literary theorist Theo D’Haen once referred to
language as a dominant issue in the history of colonization,94 because of
the direct relationship between the historical destruction of African culture
and the forced acceptance of the colonizer’s language. Simon Gikandi
claims that (postcolonial) Caribbean literature as a whole is marked by the
enterprise of deconstructing the colonizer’s language.95 Thus, language be-
comes a primary battleground during a postcolonial moment in which the
formerly colonized revitalize the historical imagination while asserting an
emergent national culture. In this light, another significant class of musi-
cians to share the “spotlight” Scientist speaks of were the sound system
deejays of the 1970s. The literary readings offered earlier become concrete
when we consider that the musical language of dub developed side by side
with the emergent virtuosity of the sound system deejays; in fact, the pri-
mary use of dub mixes was as a background for deejaying. Thus, dub’s frac-
turing of song form did not only lead to a music that emphasized sound-
scape, groove, and texture. It also fractured narrative conventions in a way
that broke open the logic of the colonial language, enabling the DJs to
gradually move Jamaican patwa to the forefront of the country’s popular
music and culture. In the end, ironically, it was technological developments
imported from the Euro-American context that enabled the prominence of
what Kamau Brathwaite might term Jamaica’s “nation language”—a local-
ized creole tongue emerging on the deconstruction of the colonial tongue.
Ultimately this allowed the Jamaican subaltern to “speak.”96
This “speaking” was crucial in the rise of postcolonial Jamaican con-
sciousness, and the process shares much with what Roger Fowler calls
“anti-languages,” described as “the special argot of subcultures which exist
in an antagonistic relationship with the norm society.” J. Martin Yinger
describes the anti-language as an “effort to create a counter-reality, freed
from the inevitable entanglement of the dominant reality—within which

[certain groups] suffer—with dominant language usages.”97 Considering
the cultural battle that had to be fought within Jamaica to propel roots
reggae to the forefront of the country’s cultural revolution, such observa-
tions are relevant internally, to Jamaica’s complexion-coded class struggle,
and externally, in the entire nation’s relationship to its history of coloniza-
tion. This idea of “anti-language” can also be applied to the very structural
syntax of dub music itself: the cultural battle was not only waged on the
field of language, but was also waged structurally, within the formal lan-
guage of the post–World War II popular song as inherited from European
and, ironically (African) American sources.
My main point here, however, is that if the sonic space opened by the dub
mix liberated the musicality of “nonmusicians” such as recording engineers,
it also liberated the officially marginalized, class-based social and political dis-
course offered by the sound system DJs. As David Katz characterizes the
sound system as the “ghetto’s newspaper,”98 so does Bobby Vicious opine:
those flip sides or dubs turned out to be a platform for people who weren’t singers,
to voice social issues in the dancehall or on their local sound systems. Many times it
was a young U-Brown talking on the sound system, it was a young Big Youth, a
young Dillinger, a young Brigadier Jerry, a young Charlie Chaplin, a young Josey
Wales. I’m sure Tubby’s didn’t intend it to be a backdrop for deejays. Because at the
time there weren’t a lot of deejays. But that’s what it evolved to be—dub music
blended itself into the culture of Jamaica. Because there was a lot that needed to be
said. It brought to the forefront the issues that were happening that people
wouldn’t address. And if you go through the history of the music you’ll find that
every issue that the politicians, or the social environment at the time, would fail to
address, you could pick up a record and you could hear in detail what it was all
about. So all the social issues were addressed in the dancehall, thanks to the fact that
there was a platform created by Tubbys, or Joe Gibbs, or Studio One—dub
music—that allowed that type of thing to happen.99
Herein lies the link between style and context, and an indication of the
broader implications of dub’s disruptive strategies. For the most part, the
sonic fragments one hears floating throughout a dub mix are not samples
drawn form external sources, but fragments of a preexisting song with
which the Jamaican listening public was already familiar. The original dub
engineers had to literally “break” songs apart in order to achieve their frag-
mentary musical language and it was this act of musical “violence,” with all
of its political and cultural overtones, that revolutionized Jamaican culture
by creating a space for the deejays. In terms of its place within Jamaican cul-
ture, this is where dub acquires its deepest political significance.
From the global perspective (as we shall see in the coda), Jamaica’s em-
phasis on versioning facilitated the transformation of formerly fixed pop
d u b / 216
songs into the more fluid, remix-based conceptions of composing typi-
fied by today’s digital technology. This peculiarly Jamaican take on sound
technology also had profound local implications, in terms of the nation’s
relationship to its own history. Michael Chanan takes the position that
during the course of the twentieth century, sound media gradually re-
placed writing as the premier historical storage technology.100 This shift
had particularly profound implications for a (largely) African-derived Ja-
maican culture in which, for several reasons, aurality (and orality) had
historically taken precedence over written forms.101 The technology al-
lowed the simultaneous consolidation and expression of an alternative Ja-
maican cultural history that had heretofore existed beyond the margins of
official histories. Eventually, as these song histories became influential in
both the local and global spheres, they forced a renegotiation of the
nation’s conception of itself, its history, and its relationship to the rest of
the world.
Yet even this radically revised history became mere source material for
the endlessly mutating remix. Like some aspects of free jazz in America,
dub is a style that, by virtue of its historical moment, reified but also simul-
taneously subverted “blackness” as a stable signifier of cultural identity.
While vocalists of the 1970s such as Bob Marley, Johnny Clarke, and Yabby
U composed passionate political and religious songs rooted in their Rasta-
farian faith and a linear, eschatological conception of black history, the
work of recording engineers such as King Tubby and Lee Perry (despite
their own intentions) often disfigured these concepts into distorted catch-
phrases alternately rendered profoundly evocative and/or absurdly mean-
ingless.These dub mixes at least partially foreshadow a sense of “post”:
“postsong,” “postblackness,” and especially, “posthistory.” Even in Ethi-
opia, where Haile Selassie is remembered as a despot, it is possible to find
Ethiopians who have become adherents of Rastafari at the same time that
they despise the historical Selassie. As the artist Fikre Gebreyesus put it:
“Their [Jamaican Rastafarians’] Selassie is not the same Selassie that we ex-
perienced. But the two can co-exist.”102 It is doubtful whether this type of
historical anomaly would have occurred within such a brief historical win-
dow, without the powerful medium of Jamaican reggae music. Jamaica,
then, has not only been a crucial source of unique sound concepts; it has
implicitly provided in its music a template for cultural reconfiguration.
With the global spread of both reggae and Rastafari, it has also offered the
world one of the most potent reinterpretations of Africa, one that has in
turn influenced cultural trends in Africa itself.103 In the view of Guyanese
poet David Dabydeen, such a tendency toward the cultural “remix” is cen-
tral to the Caribbean cultural experience:

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Lee Perry, the difficulty these visionary musicians experienced in the turbu-
lence of Jamaica had a flip side. By fashioning (like Perry) idiosyncratic
spaces within which they could exist as freely creative beings, they ex-
panded the parameters of imagination within reggae music; in so doing,
they provided a new cultural template as well as a fertile space for Jamaica’s
interaction with the wider world.107 The terms of this interaction, which is
the subject of the coda, sometimes reflected the issues raised in this chapter.
Equally often, however (and in tandem with the multilayered and indeter-
minate nature of the music), dub fused unpredictably with other popular
music traditions and their own various extramusical resonances. It was in
this way that the style was gradually reimagined as both a potent musical
influence and as a sonic metaphor for transatlantic culture at the end of the
twentieth century.

Coda
Electronica, Remix Culture, and Jamaica as a
Source of Transformative Strategies in Global
Popular Music
We used to do a lot of experimentin’ . . . when we were doing these things

it was just a one-in-the-world thing. Everybody used to say our music is
“unfinished.” In America they used to say that, years ago. . . . And now
them comin’ and mixing the music just like how [Jamaicans] used to
mix: heavy, the whole echo thing and drop-out. . . . Even the idea of
rappin’ and deejaying—look how long Jamaica people been deejaying!1
—Augustus Pablo
“At six o’clock one night last month, in a midtown Manhattan recording
studio that adjoins a seedy topless club, Frankie Knuckles erased every-
thing except the vocals and string section from ‘Build,’ a ballad by the
British pop group Innocence. Peter Schwartz, a keyboardist, booted up a
network of synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers, all linked to an Atari
laptop computer, and, guided by a ‘shopping list’ from Mr. Knuckles,
began to reconstruct the song. He progressed from a persistent kick drum
and staccato bass line to cymbal crescendos, cathedral-like chimes and a
profusion of lush percussion. By midnight he had orchestrated ‘Build’ into
a fireworks show, with new colors and small explosions every few sec-
onds. . . . Although he hadn’t touched an instrument, [Knuckles] may
have transformed coal into a diamond. For someone who neither plays
nor sings, he has an unusual position in the business. . . .” For just a few
thousand dollars, these audio auteurs refashion records to match chang-
ing styles. Success has made the practice rampant; one executive estimates
that half the singles on the Top 100 chart are remixed.2
—Rob Tannenbaum, 1992
Directly and indirectly, the comments that open this chapter highlight sev-
eral of the conceptual cornerstones of Jamaican music in the roots era, as
d u b / 220
well as their influence on the creation of popular music in the digital age.
The stylistic traits of contemporary dance music cannot be solely attributed
to dub, but the fact that many American and European remixes are now la-
beled on recordings as “dub” mixes attests that many of dub’s concepts lay
at the heart of what is variously referred to today as “electronic dance
music,” “electronica,” “DJ culture,” and/or “remix culture.”
Louis Chude-Sokei’s 1994 “Postnationalist Geographies” does an excel-
lent job of sketching out the transnational network through which much
Jamaican music has come to be produced in the digital age. He narrates a
de-territorialized process of creation that benefits from the ease of circulat-
ing digital sound files, and that is situated between Kingston and the non-
Jamaican cities with the largest Jamaican populations: New York City and
London. While this process did intensify exponentially with the advent of
digital technology, its roots have been in place for decades. In this final
chapter, I shall briefly discuss some examples of the stylistic “spillages” that
took place in these various locations, as Jamaican dub music interacted, in
its day, with various local popular musics. I shall thus highlight the broader
theme of Jamaica as the source of several transformative strategies in post–
World War II popular music composition.
Dub in the English Context

If dub as a discrete genre faded away from the cutting edge of Jamai-
can popular music after the mid-1980s, its influence outside of Jamaica
was just beginning. In England, Jamaican popular music in general had
already enjoyed various phases of popularity, its geographic spread a con-
sequence of the musical travel accompanying thousands of Caribbean
workers who replenished England’s labor force following World War II.3
The music grew steadily as a presence in England from the early 1960s
when the first Kingston-styled sound systems began to sprout up in Lon-
don areas with sizable Jamaican populations, such as Brixton and
Shepherd’s Bush. The then-popular ska and rock steady styles gradually
attracted the interest of working-class English youths (particularly skin-
heads) living adjacent to black areas. The success of infectious dance
songs such as Jimmy Cliff ’s “Wonderful World” and Millicent Small’s
“My Boy Lollipop” (both 1964), and Desmond Dekker’s “007” (1967)
proved that Jamaican music could exist as a viable and potentially profit-
able genre in England.
By the time of the rise of roots reggae in the 1970s, the popularity of Ja-
maican music had receded a bit in the United Kingdom: the sound, ethos,
and lyrical content of the music had become something quite different
Coda / 221
from that of the previous decade. Steve Barrow remembered, “The Rasta
phenomenon had spread to the Jamaican communities in the UK amongst
the youth. So you had a lot of guys dreading in the UK. And this really al-
ienated the previous audience of skinheads who liked the more jump up
type of reggae.”4 Dave Hendley elaborated: “Everyone in England knew
what reggae was because it was so big in the skinhead era. The reggae of the
late sixties had more in common with black American music, had a more
poppy feel. It was accessible. We had reggae chart hits here. But by the early
seventies, it kind of retreated in on itself. There wasn’t much interest by
white people or mainstream media. It became a really underground, almost
impenetrable scene. It was the property of West Indian immigrants and
their kids, a rallying thing for black youth. You’ve got the influence of more
cultural lyrics and the whole kind of black awareness. It got more like a
protest music. It didn’t really appeal to anyone else. The general public just
thought of it as a weird kind of music that existed underground.”5
It was in conjunction with the experiences of these Caribbean immi-
grants in England, however, that this decidedly subcultural music gradually
reemerged as a potent cultural symbol and factored into the consolidation
of a distinct pan-Anglophone Caribbean identity in England. In fact, sev-
eral incidents of racially charged conflict (including the notorious Notting
Hill Carnival incident of 1976) served as catalysts for Jamaican reggae to
serve as a politically charged space of cultural difference—leading in turn to
an increase in song themes addressing themes of racism and police brutal-
ity, and reggae’s eventual consolidation (along with punk rock) as one of
England’s dominant outsider musics of the 1970s.6
Despite reggae’s marginality, then, its social urgency and stylistic inno-
vation gradually repositioned it as a musical and social force in England. It
was in conjunction with these developments that Jamaican reggae ac-
quired a new level of cultural cachet and entered a new period of critical
and popular acclaim in England, powered by the dramatic ascension of
Bob Marley (as well as other artists such as Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh),
upon whose shoulders an entire international reggae industry (largely
based in England) gradually coalesced. London became the epicenter of a
growing European interest in Jamaican music, and by the mid-1970s, the
music was entering its first phase of broad international popularity.7 Many
seminal recordings were made in England at this time (including several
live albums attesting to the importance of the British reggae audience),
and recording and/or distribution arrangements were made with major
British and American recording companies including Island, Virgin, EMI,
and others.8
d u b / 222
The Sound System in England
The spread of reggae in the United Kingdom was not limited to record-
ings and high-profile concert performances, however. The sound system
phenomenon also became a presence in most cities with sizable Jamaican
populations: Nottingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham, Lon-
don, Doncaster, Manchester, and others. Like the popularity of reggae in
general, the sound system boom of the 1970s was tied to the experiences of
immigrant Caribbean populations. As Dave Hendley remembered: “In the
seventies, there was a lot more racism in this country. Allegiance to your
sound system gave you a kind of community. It was yours, a bit of your
own culture. If you wanted to smoke ganja in there, you could smoke
ganja. There was freedom in there, not living in the English system. I think
that it was particularly important for that first generation of kids that was
born and brought up in England. It gave them a sense of identity.”9 And
British sound system pioneer Jah Shaka voiced similar sentiments about the
cultural priorities of the British sound systems and the role of dub music:
The sound [system] came out of the struggle in the ’70s which black people were
going through in this country—we got together and decided that the sound should
play a main part in black people’s rights & we would work hard at it & promote
some better mental purpose within the black race. I used to get a few [dub record-
ings] from Jamaica, and what we couldn’t get we made ourselves. We had a lot of
musicians creating stuff for us. . . . The spiritual concept was people remembering
their past—this kept coming into the music—as people remembered their history it
was repeated on record to make the rest of the nation aware what had happened.10
The history of which Jah Shaka speaks is in fact a dual history: an Afro-
Caribbean history and a history of the Jamaican experience in England. In
his historical survey of reggae music, Lloyd Bradley noted the “siege men-
tality” of immigrant Caribbeans in England and their consequent receptiv-
ity to Rastafarian-derived notions of displacement. This mentality resulted
in a cultural ethos of “double exile” (or, to use Jonathan Boyarin’s term, re-
diasporization), reflecting the experience of an African diasporic popula-
tion transplanted as an Anglo-Caribbean ethnic minority within the heart
of the former colonial center.11
The British sound system eventually solidified into a viable institution
and systems proliferated during the 1970s. In London alone, some of the
prominent sounds of the time included those founded by Ken “Fatman”
Gordon, Count Shelley, Jah Shaka, Sir Jessus, and two sound systems
named in honor of Clement Dodd and Duke Reid, respectively: Lloyd
Coxsone and UK Duke Reid. It was in the sound systems that dub
thrived: as in Jamaica, it was typically used as a background for deejaying.
Coda / 223
Eventually, because of the proximity of working-class communities of
different ethnic origins, the music began to attract listeners from beyond
local Jamaican communities. In Jamaica, as discussed earlier, definitions
of the word “dub” were varied and occasionally contradictory. The
style’s current well-defined status is owed partly to its reception in En-
gland, where fairly discrete genre status was bestowed upon it by English
pop music listeners and journalists whose ears had been (pre)conditioned
by the sounds of psychedelic music of the 1960s and 1970s. Adrian Sher-
wood, who went on to become one of the major figures in England’s neo-
dub scene, speculated that among this particular audience, the popularity
of dub “came down to people smoking spliffs in their houses. The UK
found dub a market amongst students—a largely white crowd, but also
amongst black kids. They’d sit in their houses and play dub music and it
became very understandable why. We all loved taking acid and smoking
weed and it was quite logical for us to do that. It’s very trippy music.”12
Dave Hendley experienced the music as “very uplifting and actually pretty
deep. Serious music, but you could also dance to it.” He went to explain:
Something about the music really appealed to me. I think because, it was a strange
music. It just sounded so radically different—I know from my point of view, when
I first heard stuff like Tubby’s mixes, they just sounded like no other music that I’d
ever come across. It was pretty radical electronic music, that whole concept of
breaking down a rhythm track and then building something totally different. It
might be a completely upbeat tune, but by the time they’ve stripped it down and en-
gineered it, it kind of becomes a little more threatening. . . . And it was really exotic.
Even the names of people like Big Youth, U-Roy—mad names! For me, as a white
kid from North London, it was totally different culture.
A few Jamaican producers, while welcoming the popularity of dub in

the United Kingdom, voiced reservations about the way the fragmented
lyrics allowed listeners to de-emphasize the spiritual and political messages
in the songs. For example, London-based Jamaican producer Roy Cousins
has released a series of well-regarded dub albums on his Tamoki Wambesi
label, but nevertheless voiced a bit of ambivalence about the music’s popu-
larity outside of Jamaica: “I felt that people like[d] dub in England and on
the Continent because they didn’t understand what the singers were sing-
ing about. . . . If they listen to the dub and instrumental side they can ap-
preciate it without understanding it.”13 Cousins’s observations contain
truth; nonetheless, the sonic innovations of dub (including its fragmented
song lyrics) ultimately proved as influential in the global sphere as the more
explicitly message-oriented stance of roots reggae songs.
d u b / 224
Outside of specifically Anglo-Caribbean contexts like the sound systems,
the more general influence of dub music in England owes much to the
(often collaborative) work of immigrant Caribbean musicians with indige-
nous English musicians, producers, and engineers inspired by the develop-
ments in Kingston. The process was aided by the intermittent presence of
various Jamaican musicians and producers in England, especially during
the late 1970s and early 1980s. For example, Bunny Lee and King Jammy
made regular trips to London to make record deals and purchase electronic
equipment. Horace Andy, Prince Far-I, Keith Hudson, and Roots Radics
drummer Lincoln “Style” Scott also spent increasing professional time in
England from the 1980s. But there were two presences that arguably con-
tributed most dramatically to the growth of dub in England. One was Lee
Perry, who was intermittently based in London for several years following
his exodus from Jamaica and who factored into the neo-dub movement
through his collaborative work with the Clash, Mad Professor, and Adrian
Sherwood. A similarly influential Jamaican artist in this process was the vo-
calist/radio deejay Mikey Dread, who also collaborated with the Clash.
Such collaborations with high-profile rock musicians made dub more ac-
cessible to audiences who would not typically attend reggae concerts or pa-
tronize sound systems.
The Dub–Punk Connection

The fact that the Clash are mentioned in both of the above scenarios dem-
onstrates the attraction of British punk musicians to reggae in general and
dub in particular. Although punk music was historically rooted in the work
of American rock groups of the late 1960s and 1970s (such as the Velvet
Underground, New York Dolls, Patti Smith, and others), it was undeni-
ably invested with a particular style and social stance in England during the
late 1970s. In the years when punk rock was considered the cutting edge of
English popular music, punk and reggae musicians were engaged in a mu-
sical and social dialogue. The Jamaican Rastaman represented an exotic and
increasingly fashionable symbol of dissent, and punks responded equally to
reggae’s articulation of social marginality. Phil Johnson notes that by the
late 1970s, punk musicians “had begun to cross the genre frontiers and seek
out examples of ‘otherness’ to match their own mighty sense of aliena-
tion.”14 Sonically, it was the rough-hewn quality of dub that held an attrac-
tion for punk enthusiasts, who shunned the smoother black American
rhythm and blues and soul styles that were popular in England at the time.
As Hendley observes: “Reggae and dub were the only black musics that
white kids who liked punk stuff would accept. They wouldn’t accept Curtis
Mayfield & the Impressions. They wouldn’t understand. Because reggae
Coda / 225
sounds quite edgy and the whole structure of it is quite different from, say,
an Impressions record, which is very considered and beautifully sung. They
wouldn’t be able to see through the gloss of it to see how deep it was. If
they knew anything about it, they wouldn’t be listening to Bob Marley if it
hadn’t been for Curtis Mayfield. But that’s typical of punk rock.”15
Several people mentioned filmmaker/club DJ Don Letts and radio disc
jockey David Rodigan as key facilitators of the reggae/punk cross-influence.
Steve Barrow recalled: “[Dub] was played by people like Don Letts in the
punk clubs at that time. Letts was the first guy to do that. David Rodigan also
got a reggae show on Radio London that time that was listened to by all
kinds of people. He had a thing in it called ‘Excursion on the Version.’ And
he played various cuts of a riddim and had all these little jingles going and all
of that. A bit like Mikey Dread‘s style. It was very good. It was a big thing on
Saturday night. People would listen to it before they went out, or when they
came in, depending.”16 Clive Austen remembered Letts as “basically a film-
maker at the time that the Sex Pistols were around, but he used to play at the
Roxy and a lot of Jamaican dub places with Lee Perry and various other peo-
ple. So there was a connection with the underground punk scene and dub.”17
Selected examples of this musical dialogue would include the projects
cited above, such as the Clash’s 1977 song “Complete Control,” produced
by Lee Perry. Interestingly, in terms of style and production, this uptempo
song shares almost nothing with any of Perry’s Jamaican creations; rather,
it sounds like a typical punk/new wave song of the period. The Clash subse-
quently covered Junior Murvin’s Perry–produced “Police & Thieves” in a
manner that blended reggae and punk styles more obviously; the group
later collaborated with Jamaican DJ/producer Mikey “Dread” Campbell,
who contributed a dub-influenced production style (as well as some deejay-
ing) to portions of their 1981 LP Sandinista. The post-punk group A. R.
Kane’s music was an influential mixture of punk-derived guitar textures
with an ambient dub influence.18 A similar case is ex–Sex Pistols vocalist
Johnny (Rotten) Lydon and his group Public Image, Ltd., who carved out
a bleak, alien soundscape by blending dub’s stark spaciness with punk-
derived dissonance and minimalism on their influential 1981 recording Sec-
ond Edition (a key element here was the thick-fingered dub-meets-punk ap-
proach of bassist Jah Wobble).19 Lydon, in fact, is considered another
important contributor to the reggae/punk dialogue. As Adrian Sherwood
recalled, “a lot of people really looked up to him at that time. John really
knew his reggae, he loved his reggae. I can tell you that John Lydon really
helped the progress of roots and culture in Britain at that time. It was
around that time . . . that he went on the radio and played Dr. Alimantado’s
‘Born For A Purpose.’ Alimantado was immediately shot to cult status as a
d u b / 226
result!”20 Lydon was by no means a centrist figure but he was quite influen-
tial, and it was through such conduits that the influence of reggae and dub
became gradually audible in more commercial forms of popular music. In
the 1980s, chart hits by artists such as Musical Youth, Eddy Grant, and
Third World reflected the growing influence of reggae upon the popular
music mainstream. This influence could also be felt in France, in the 1980s
collaborations between Sly & Robbie and pop icon Serge Gainsbourg.
Whether in the mainstream or experimental arenas of pop music, the mini-
malist nature of dub made it an ideal stylistic template for the mixing and
matching of various genres. Its heavy textures complemented punk’s stark
aesthetic of alienation. Its foregrounded electronics and reconsidered
human-machine relationship was compatible with the musical and philo-
sophical questions being explored by early “Industrial” groups such as Cab-
aret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, who blended the stark textures of
punk with electronic elements to reflect that industry, commerce, and
mechanization had become prime determinants of human culture. As I
shall discuss below, dub’s blended dance-oriented and atmospheric empha-
ses would later resonate quite strongly with composers of electronic dance
music. Looking back to the 1970s and 1980s, Mark Stewart of the “trip-
hop” group Massive Attack summed up this stylistic cross-fertilization
when he recalled, “Buying a Prince Jammy or a Scientist dub thing was as
important as buying Patti Smith or Television.”21 Robert DelNaja of the
same group claimed that in England of the 1970s, “Dub was really the savi-
our of it all, because it brought all the different things together.”22 The
seeming formlessness of dub enabled it to subvert normative notions of
song composition, narrative logic, authorship, genre exclusivity, and per-
formance context, while providing a medium for new fusions.
Neo-Dub in England and Europe

As much as England constituted a lucrative export market for Jamaican
recordings, an indigenous tradition of dub music began to take root, shep-
herded by a younger generation of musicians, producers, and engineers
who lionized (and eventually collaborated with) Jamaican legends like
Perry and King Tubby. The best known of these musicians would include
Adrian Sherwood, Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser, Dennis “Blackbeard” Bo-
vell, the sound system operator Jah Shaka, and Alpha and Omega (Chris-
tine Woodbridge and John Sprosen). The work they created was inspired
by Jamaican innovations, and in many cases stretched these ideas into new
areas of experimentation.23 In the following section, I shall focus on the
first three of these artists, who have been the genre’s best-known practi-
tioners over the past twenty-five years.
Coda / 227
Adrian Sherwood
Adrian Sherwood is among the most prominent creators of neo-dub
music. Sherwood was born in London in 1958 and developed an early passion
for reggae.24 He was involved in England’s Jamaican music industry by
his late teens, working with the Pama and Trojan labels. By age twenty,
Sherwood (along with various associates) had founded his own Carib
Gems and Hit Run labels, which licensed various Jamaican productions
for release in England, including important early music by Black Uhuru
and Prince Far-I. In 1980, he founded his own On-U Sound organiza-
tion that was used as an umbrella outfit for a sound system as well as his
various musical productions in the sphere of neo-dub and beyond. A
self-described “mixologist” (as mixing engineer, he is credited as the
fourth member of the “industrial funk” group Tackhead), Sherwood
tours regularly, presenting concerts and club sets of “live” dub mixing.
He draws directly upon the innovations of Jamaican recording engineers
and freely admits that the mixing console is his main “instrument.” The
core of his Jamaica-inspired work has been built around collaborative as-
sociations with musicians such as Lee Perry (with whom he produced
the albums Time Boom X De Devil Dead [1987] and From The Secret La-
boratory [1990]) and vocalist Bim Sherman, DJ Prince Far-I (who fea-
tured on a substantial amount of Sherwood’s early work until his death
in 1983), saxophonist “Deadly” Headley Bennett, and former Roots Ra-
dics drummer Lincoln “Style” Scott. He has also been central in intro-
ducing the techniques of dub into England’s popular music mainstream,
through his remixing work for popular groups such as the Cure, Living
Colour, Depeche Mode, Simply Red, Cabaret Voltaire, and others. Sher-
wood recounted his early sources of inspiration: “lots of versions and DJ
things, but the first identifiable albums were The Grassroots of Dub, pro-
duced by Winston Edwards, and also King Tubbys Surrounded by the
Dreads at the National Arena—Winston Edwards again. I think King
Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown was the first proper album. Then
there’s also Ital Dub by Augustus Pablo. Those were the ones we were
listening to in heavy rotation.”25
Sherwood tends to refer to his own dub-inspired music as “designer
dub,” which he defines as “music designed as a work of dub from the be-
ginning. Which is not how it originally started. It started off as a version.
What we basically started doing was making riddims and then somewhere
after, adding different coloring and samples and things like that. It was a
whole different way of working [than in Jamaica].”26 What is unique about
Sherwood’s approach is the fusion of these dub-derived techniques with
the raw aesthetics of punk (which Sherwood refers to as “the noise factor”)
d u b / 228
and elements drawn from various American dance musics (especially hip-
hop). The result is a body of work characterized by genre-bending and
sonic chance-taking that informs all of Sherwood’s On-U Sound produc-
tions of artists such as Little Axe, Creation Rebel, New Age Steppers, Afri-
can Head Charge, Creation Steppers, Dub Syndicate, and others.
Good introductions to Sherwood’s reggae-inspired work would in-
clude the three-disc various artists compilation On-U Sound Box and the
two-volume Historic Moments set by Creation Rebel. Both contain a topically
and sonically inventive assortment of vocal, DJ, instrumental, and dub music
in which Sherwood moves Jamaican styles beyond their established borders.
Also notable are Sherwood’s two collaborations with Lee Perry (From The Se-
cret Laboratory and Time Boom X De Devil Dead), which fuse the thematic
approach of Perry’s late Black Ark solo albums (such as Roast Fish, Collie
Weed and Cornbread, and The Return of Pipecock Jackson) with updated Ja-
maican rhythms and Sherwood’s eclectic approach to production.27
Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser

Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser has been one of the major figures in neo-
dub. Fraser described dub as “a freedom music, you know. It’s a vehicle for
you to ride on. At the end of the day, it invokes that feeling of freedom and
creativity.”28 A native of Guyana, Fraser was born in the mid-1950s, and de-
veloped a passion for reggae music through regional radio broadcasts in the
late 1960s that included Jamaican music programming. As he explained to
David Katz, “you would hear Dennis Alcapone and Lizzy, a lot of Bunny
Lee productions and Studio One, so I used to tune in every Saturday
night.”29 Fraser was given his long-standing nickname during his school
years in Guyana, thanks to an early aptitude for electronics. As he explained
to Grant Smithies:
I got the “Mad Professor” name in school because I loved to experiment with wires.
Instead of playing football and cricket like a normal kid, I would be messin’ around
with wires. When I was small, back in Guyana, the most technical thing in our
house was a radio. I wanted to know where the man’s voice was coming from so I
opened up the back and saw all the valve lights flickering, and that started a whole
curiosity about the transmission of radio frequencies. I ended up building my first
radio when I was about ten years old. No books, no nothing. I just built a radio. . . .
I just messed around with different diodes and transistors and picked up signals.
And from then on I was hooked, from then on I was “Mad Professor.”30
At the age of thirteen, Fraser moved with his family to England; like many
of the engineers discussed in this book, he worked a variety of electronics
jobs in his youth and young adulthood. Eventually he combined this fasci-
nation with electronics with his passion for music, and he found in Jamai-
can dub the perfect medium to pursue both interests:
Coda / 229
I was first an electronics technician. I built my first radio when I was ten and I built
all kind of devices, and then in my teens I built a mixing desk . . . it was just resistors
and capacitors that I use to make it work, and then I then have some artists around
to come and play around with and next thing I knew, I started a studio. . . . I was lis-
tening to East of the River Nile, African Dub Chapter Three, various Tubby’s things
. . . and Prince Buster, The Message Dubwise. That’s the first dub album I ever
bought, and I couldn’t believe it. I never heard nothing like that before. It’s a really
haunting album. I still think it’s one of the best. That one inspired me to do dub.31
Issued with virtually no recording information on the cover, Prince

Buster’s The Message Dubwise remains an LP of uncertain provenance. But
its structure of flute soloists against a stark drum & bass background on
several tracks creates a moody sensibility that has echoed throughout
Fraser’s dub work. By 1979, he had founded his own Ariwa label, studio,
and sound system (the name is an adaptation of ariwo, the Yoruba lan-
guage term for noise), which eventually grew from Fraser’s self-built 4-
track recorder to become Britain’s largest black-owned studio complex,
with 16-, 24-, and 48-track capability. Since that time, he has built a signa-
ture sound around a stable of Ariwa artists, including the vocalists Kofi,
Pato Banton, Nolan Irie, Macka B, Rupununi Safari, and many others. He
has also collaborated with several important Jamaican and non-Jamaican
reggae artists, including Horace Andy, Johnny Clarke, U-Roy, Michael
Prophet, Yabby U, Earl 16, and Jah Shaka.
Fraser’s central role in the spread of dub music is evident on several
fronts. The best-known dub recordings released under his own name are
the multivolume series Dub Me Crazy (which commenced in the early
1980s) and Black Liberation Dub (which commenced in the mid-1990s).
The titles of the various volumes, which blend symbols drawn from African
liberation movements, mysticism, antinuclear movements, and other
sources, reflect his dual commitment to dub’s legacy of sonic innovation as
well as reggae’s broader commitment to social, political, and mystical top-
ics. Of this, he remarked, “It’s just me. I’m a political maniac. I think that
people need to be reminded of certain politics. Hence I made that connec-
tion. When I make the music, I make it with that in mind.”32
Stylistically, Fraser’s work borrows from several Jamaican sources in-
cluding Perry, Tubby, and Augustus Pablo. Overall, he favors a very clean
soundscape with sound effects sometimes overdubbed in the manner of
Errol Thompson. The Dub Me Crazy series mainly featured tracks re-
corded by live musicians, while the later Black Liberation Dub series fea-
tures a blend of live and digital backing.
In recent years, Fraser has also been Lee Perry’s most consistent post–
Black Ark collaborator, producing a string of vocal and dub albums (such as
Mystic Warrior [1990] and Black Ark Experryments [1995]), which feature
d u b / 230
Perry’s free-associative “word salad” vocalizing over modernized reggae
beats. For several years beginning in the mid-1990s, the two toured inter-
nationally, giving concerts featuring Perry’s spontaneous vocalizing, the
playing of the Robotiks band (or prerecorded music), and Fraser’s live dub
mixing. Fraser also tours regularly on his own, giving performances of live
dub (usually accompanied by a vocalist or two) across Europe, America,
and Asia.
Since the 1980s, Fraser has been in demand as a remix engineer, moving
dub’s innovations closer to the pop music mainstream through his work with
artists such as the Orb, the Ruts, UB40, Jamiroquai, the Beastie Boys, and
Massive Attack. His remix of Massive Attack’s 1994 Protection album (titled
No Protection and released the same year), in fact, is often cited as a seminal
moment in the development of what became known as trip-hop (more below).
Dennis Bovell
Dennis “Blackbeard” Bovell (not to be confused with Tappa Zukie’s
brother Dennis “Blackbeard” Sinclair) is another seminal figure in Britain’s
dub scene. Bovell was born in Barbados in 1953, and moved to London
with his family in 1965.33 In 1970, he formed the reggae band Matumbi
who became prominent backing Jamaican artists such as I-Roy, Errol
Dunkley, and Johnny Clarke on their London visits. By the late 1970s Bo-
vell was in demand as an engineer and remix artist, working with a wide
array of English and foreign artists. He solidified his international reputa-
tion as bassist, arranger, and engineer for the Dub Band, essentially a tour-
ing and recording unit for the dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. The pairing
of Johnson and Bovell begat one of the great creative partnerships in the
history of reggae. As Bovell recalled to Norman Darwen:
this reporter came to interview us for the BBC World Service, and it was Linton.
He said, “well, I write poetry.” I said, “I know” because I had seen his books . . . he
came to me and said “I want to make an album this weekend”—and we did. We
went into the studio and by the end of the weekend we’d finished Dread Beat &
Blood, and from there on we’ve been working together every since.”34
This collaboration yielded several canonical British reggae albums released

under Johnson’s name including Forces of Victory (Island, 1979), Bass Cul-
ture (Island, 1980), Tings and Times (LKJ, 1991), and two Bovell-mixed
volumes of LKJ in Dub (Mango, 1980s). In addition to the LKJ dub proj-
ects, Bovell also engineered a series of excellent dub albums in the late
1970s. His work evolved in the face of the dual challenges of establishing
the credibility of British reggae on one hand, and adapting British studios
to reggae recording practices, on the other:
Coda / 231
they were saying that reggae couldn’t be made properly in London, and I’m going
“Bollocks! [Jamaicans] ain’t got any better tape recorders than us—it’s in the play-
ing. . . .” Of course, there’s a special way to do the engineering, with the heavy bass.
I’d been fortunate enough to go to a school in South London, in Wandsworth,
called Spencer Park where we built a recording studio at school and we were learn-
ing how to use this equipment—so that when we went into studios I wouldn’t put
up with the engineer going “Oh, you can’t touch that man, you can’t go over that
red.” I’d go “Well, I want it all in the red so put it there, will you?” [We] started
finding frequencies that were what we wanted to hear.35
This issue of “finding the proper frequencies” is particularly resonant in

the case of Bovell’s work: his work with Matumbi and others artists estab-
lished him as a central architect of the “Lover’s Rock” genre of romanti-
cally themed reggae songs. The sound of Bovell’s work suggests that there
is a direct link between his lover’s rock productions and his early dub work,
the latter of which is best represented on collections such as Dub Confer-
ence (1978), I-Wah Dub (1980), and the retrospective 2003 compilation
Decibel. Bovell explained to Jeb Loy Nichols that lover’s rock arose “as an
answer to all that hardcore man chanting business. You know, knives and
guns and things. DJs shouting about this and that. I wanted to do a more
ballad kind of thing. Pure soulful. Like Curtis Mayfield or William Bell.
When I used to play in the sound systems I used to have a big following of
women so I knew what they wanted.”36 Is there a “soulful” way of mixing?
Part of the warm, sensual sound of Bovell’s dub mixes on Dub Conference
likely reflects that he is a bassist and as such can be expected to pay particu-
larly close attention to the music’s low end and the rhythm section in gen-
eral. Many of his bass lines are subtly sound-processed (evidently with
phase shifting or envelope filtering) and are doubled in octave unison by
guitar, providing subtle nuances and resonances that can only be produced
by low-register string instruments. But this warmth also reflects that many
of Bovell’s dub mixes were versioned from songs that were romantically
themed in their vocal incarnations, with the musical backing having been
crafted accordingly. The result is a warm, subtly aquatic dub sound (similar
in some ways to both Lee Perry’s Black Ark sound and King Tubby’s fil-
tered frequency sweeps, but much more restrained) that is quite unlike the
urban, edgy sound of most British reggae.
It would seem to follow that the sound Bovell crafted for Linton Kwesi
Johnson’s productions would be drastically different, reflecting the often
grimly realist tone of Johnson’s poetry. The truth is, however, despite the
graphic depictions in Johnson’s lyrics (“Five Nights of Bleeding,” “Song of
Blood,” “Sonny’s Lettah, “Di Great Insoreckshun”), one of the music’s prime
attractions was the tone of his voice, the seeming matter-of-factness of which
is belied by a melodious tone and cadence. In this context Bovell’s mixes,
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blending deep bass, warm electric organ and bubbling hand drums, worked
as a perfect counterpoint to the cadences of Johnson’s patwa recitations.
Electronic Dance Music

Having opened a space for sonic experimentation and (in some cases) so-
ciopolitical critique in popular music, the genres of punk, experimental rock,
and dub can be considered important precursors in the rise of electronic
dance music (often referred to as “electronica”), which evolved concur-
rently with the proliferation of digital sound technology from the late
1980s. The term electronica itself dates to the early 1990s and is generally
considered to refer to several genres: ambient, house, techno, jungle/drum
& bass, and trip-hop and any of innumerable subgenres. And while some
performers in these genres utilize various types of mixed instrumentation,
what ultimately unites them is their creation of music through digital
means, their performance contexts of dance clubs and/or raves, and several
broad stylistic similarities. As the digital technology upon which the elec-
tronica phenomenon is based has increased the ease with which all sorts of
sound information can be manipulated, so has the creative sphere of elec-
tronica as a phenomenon been the catalyst for the consolidation of many of
the creative currents in popular, improvised, and experimental music that
have evolved since World War II.37
The influence and legacy of dub music is strongly audible in these digi-
tally produced genres; in some the influence is fairly explicit, while in oth-
ers it is more conceptual and implicit. It can be generalized, however, that
in terms of musical composition, all of these aforementioned genres of
electronica emphasize rhythmic complexity, fragmented lyrical and/or me-
lodic statements, and atmospheric soundscaping. As such, all can be said to
reflect the influence of dub techniques, to varying extents.
Jungle/Drum & Bass and Trip-Hop

The two electronica genres that most audibly reflect the influence of dub
are jungle/drum & bass, and trip-hop. Both illustrate the way that the parallel
impulses of dub (drum & bass mixing and atmospheric soundscaping) and
hip-hop (excerpted breakbeats and stacked samples) merged in the 1980s and
1990s to help transform the grammar of global popular dance music. Jungle
(or drum & bass, as it is also known) developed in England around 1990 as a
hybrid of Jamaican dub reggae and DJ music, and English techno music.
The style’s practitioners are too numerous to list, but its best-known expo-
nents have included musicians such as Goldie, LTJ Bukem, Roni Size, Pho-
tek, 4Hero, and A Guy Called Gerald.38 The interchangeable genre names
Coda / 233
“jungle” and “drum & bass” are clearly rooted in the recent history of Ja-
maican music. The word “jungle” has its origins in Kingston sound systems,
particularly the Jones Town area, which is commonly known as “Jungle” (or
locally, “Dungle”). “Drum & bass,” on the other hand, is obviously a bor-
rowing from the parlance of roots reggae. These factors, plus the fact that
jungle (especially in its early years) was/is often accompanied by Jamaican-
styled DJ toasting, clearly demonstrates its partial but substantial roots in the
music of Britain’s immigrant Jamaican community.
Though there are several subgenres, all are structured upon three funda-
mental elements. First, a half-time (usually atonal) bass line that can be
heard as adapted from the electric bass lines of roots reggae (but typically
much lower in register to due the expanded range of digital keyboards).
Second, stacked, double-time digital percussion (usually snare drum) pat-
terns adapted partially from drastically accelerated hip-hop breakbeats, par-
tially from the rapid tempos of techno and trance music, and partially from
the double-time percussion passages that Jamaican engineers like King
Tubby achieved through the use of digital delay units to intensify percus-
sion tracks. Third, the soundscaping of the first two elements with passages
of swirling, atmospheric harmonies usually produced by synthesizers,
pitched in minor tonalities and treated with heavy reverberation. A good
example of this fusion that refers directly back to Jamaica is Intelligent
Jungalist’s “Barehedd One,” a 1995 jungle track built from a sample of the
Techniques All-Stars canonical “Stalag 17” riddim.39 As with Jamaican dub,
the foreground of jungle tracks is typically dominated by a combination of
deejaying and/or fragmented vocal texts.
Similar to the role that drummers such as Carlton Barrett and Sly Dunbar
played in roots reggae, the aura of jungle rests in its foregrounding of (digital)
drumming as a central structural and symbolic component: jungle pioneer A
Guy Called Gerald (Gerald Simpson), whose influential 1995 album is titled
Black Secret Technology, relies on the metaphor of the African talking drum to
describe the drum-heavy sound he crafts for his music, as well as the imagistic
blend of roots and technoscience.40 Others artists such as Photek and L. T. J.
Bukem would interpret this trait in more futurist or Afro-futurist terms in
works such as “Rings Around Saturn” and “Earth.” Writer Simon Reynolds
described jungle’s frantic, techno-derived drum patterns as “the metabolic
pulse of a body reprogrammed and rewired to cope with an era of unimagin-
ably intense information overload.”41 While the hyperkinetic, techno-derived
traits of the genre certainly depart from dub’s Caribbean langor, its juxtaposi-
tion of atmospheric soundscaping, fragmentary vocal excerpts, and ponder-
ous bass lines is directly traceable to Jamaica. This dual legacy inspired Re-
ynolds ultimately to describe jungle as a “postmodern dub on steroids.”42
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Trip-hop, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach. The genre
can be described as a slower and dub-influenced reworking of African
American hip-hop, aptly described by writer Phil Johnson as “dubbed-up
hip-hop derived music . . . beats whose customary urgency is deconstructed
into dreamy, erotic soundscapes.”43 The style is most strongly associated
with a cluster of recording labels including Ninja Tune, Shadow, and
MoWax, and is produced as both an instrumental and vocal music. As
Simon Reynolds notes, differences in cultural and aesthetic sensibilities have
meant that appropriations of hip-hop music in England have frequently
been divested of the rapping component, which in instrumental trip-hop is
often replaced by soundscape manipulations derived from dub. Trip-hop
beats typically clock in at a tempo of quarter note = 60, generally too slow
for couple dancing in a conventional sense, but ideally suited to the more in-
dividual, internally focused free-form dancing associated with electronica
(and, historically, certain forms of psychedelic music). In its vocal variant,
trip-hop is often associated with a cadre of musicians that developed out of
Bristol’s 1980s sound system scene, such as Portishead, Tricky, and Massive
Attack (whose membership sometimes includes Jamaican reggae singer
Horace Andy, himself an important figure in the development of dub
owing to his work with producers like Bunny Lee and Neil “Mad Professor”
Fraser).44 The music produced by these groups, tends to be emotionally
dark, moody, expansive, and spacious enough for the fragmented texts of
dub to be reconciled with more accessible approaches to vocal phrasing.45
Conceptually, both jungle and trip-hop work according to the combined
logics of hip-hop and dub. In both genres, breakbeats (accelerated in jun-
gle and decelerated in trip-hop) anchor scratched and/or sampled melodic
material (including voices) that is usually fragmented and sound-processed
in dublike fashion. Harmonically, the music is typically built around
smooth jazz chord progressions that are elaborated with the more abstract
and collage-driven polytonality of hip-hop.
The German Context

England is among the most active arenas for neo-dub music, but it is by
no means the only one. In Germany, the Jamaican influence has grown not
so much through patterns of immigration, but through the currents of
electronica and the investigations into its historical roots that began during
the 1990s. The result is several unique streams of neo-dub that have
emerged since the late 1990s, and that resuscitate dub within currents of
contemporary electronica. What is interesting, as Jacob Haagsman ex-
plained, is that in Germany, this resuscitation took place in a way that “con-
nect[ed] the stern electronic German heritage of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Coda / 235
and Kraftwerk . . . with the loose Caribbean culture that produced dub.”46
This connection can be heard in the work of dozens of artists, but is most
pronounced in the work produced by the duo of Mark Ernestus and Mo-
ritz von Oswald(known by their recording name Rhythm and Sound) and
of Stefan Betke (known by his recording name, Pole).
It is important to mention a particular tendency in recent European
electronica as important background (to Pole and Rhythm and Sound in
particular): the genre of so-called minimal techno, an aesthetic most likely
rooted in earlier eras of experimental minimalism and given a uniquely
contemporary slant through the more recent influence of hip-hop’s use of
scratched vinyl records as source material for digital samples. These so-
called clicks & cuts artists have taken the anomalies of the analog-to-digital
transfer process—the skips, hisses, scratches, and other glitches that have
been typically sanitized by producers and engineers in the name of digital
precision and fidelity—and refashioned them into new gestural and textu-
ral vocabularies.47 In this sense they reproduce the strategies of Jamaican
engineers, who themselves innovated a stylistic vocabulary partially formed
from sonic anomalies and mishaps of the recording studio. What German
artists such as Pole and Rhythm & Sound have done is taken this language
of “clicks & cuts,” and spatialized it via the soundscape techniques of dub.
This combined influence of hip-hop and dub allow the German take on
neo-dub to be heard in two fairly contrasting ways. Essentially it conforms
to the Jamaican drum & bass aesthetic, filtered through the language of
electronic minimalism. It can be heard as stark and cold because of its min-
imalist aesthetic, or incredibly lush and detailed, if the listener focuses on
these artists’ subtle manipulations of the atmopsheric elements. Ultimately,
this music has provided a medium through which Germany’s post–World
War II heritage of electronic and experimental music could be rearticulated
in a populist form.
Pole (Stefan Betke)

Working under the professional name Pole, Stefan Betke (b. Germany,
1967) is known for highly textured soundscapes that draw directly on the
language of Jamaican dub while rearticulating this influence on the terms
of the minimalist and conceptual tendencies of German electronic and ex-
perimental music. In this sense his work overlaps conceptually with dance
music but with a more austere sensibility that seems to derive from earlier
generations of electronic music practice as well as Betke’s own oblique re-
lationship to the club context. For example, when I met him in London in
2002, it was following his set that was played not at a dance club, but
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rather at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Nevertheless, he cited
his primary influences as “King Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, definitely. Wayne
Jarrett and Horace Andy were also really important for me. There’s one
[CD] out with Jarrett called Bubble Up, and the other, I think is Dance
Hall Style. Those were really influential for me.”48
These influences have been transmuted in Betke’s work in a very particu-
lar way, given that his music also contains a strong conceptual streak reflect-
ing his experimental interests. Simon Reynolds referred to Betke as “a vir-
tuoso of monochromatic concentration”;49 visually, Betke’s CD releases
are only distinguishable from each other on the basis of the flat, color field
cover art of each CD; this minimalism parallels Betke’s musical approach,
in which each disc is similarly devoted to a specific conceptual parameter.
As he explained, what might be thought of as the conceptual implications
of versioning inspired him to approach his own creative process in this
modular manner:
When you talk about minimalism, you ask “How can I reduce a track to the main
function and keep it running for 8 minutes without it getting boring at all?” It’s
possible to be so open-minded that you don’t have to redefine [the music] every
time, but bring it into a new context every time. The concept of making different
work out of exactly the same tune. Like, you have a good tune in reggae music and
lots of singers are singing over it with different lyrics, or the same lyrics with differ-
ent music underneath. It’s the same idea, transformed into different surroundings,
functions, and contexts in the end, which helps it spread the word. That is some-
thing that European artists maybe learned out of Jamaican music.
I work in a very conceptual way, where everything is fulfilled in concept art. So that
is why I had the blue, red, and yellow covers. It was a very strict development. Ger-
mans are really well known for analytic, intellectual ways of thinking about art. So
my music tends to be very distanced, for some reason, without becoming German
music, per se. That’s what I like.
Rhythm & Sound (Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus)

Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus have been seminal participants
in Germany’s electronica scene for years, involved with both the reissue of
vintage dub music as well as the creation of new dub-influenced electro-
nica. Since 1996, they have been releasing a type of techno–house music
(using the moniker Maurizio) strongly influenced by both dub and the
otherwordly quality of Detroit techno.50 Through their Basic Channel
label, they have also been responsible for the reissues of the work of Lloyd
“Bullwackies” Barnes. Both of these priorities have found their fullest ex-
pression in their Rhythm & Sound project in which the drum & bass tem-
plate of dub functions as a medium through which the various stylistic vo-
cabularies of electronica may be rearticulated.
Coda / 237
Emotionally the Rhythm and Sound aesthetic is, like Pole’s work, quite
stark but its languid rhythms and detailed soundscaping remain fundamen-
tally true to the mood and sound system function of dub. In rhythmic
terms, Ernestus and von Oswald have found inventive ways to fuse the pat-
terns of roots reggae with those of midtempo house and techno. For exam-
ple, some of their compositions adapt the reggae rhythm “steppers,” with
its pulsing four-beats-to-the-measure bass drum, to the similar bass drum
format at the root of house and techno music. In other compositions, they
have adapted half-time bass drum of the “one drop” rhythm to the subtly
mixed common-time bass drum of house and techno. With these minimal
patterns as a basis, von Oswald and Ernestus can devote the foreground to
the types of dub-derived atmospheric qualities they have pioneered. All of
this results, as Haagsman describes it, in an aesthetic of “Jamaican halluci-
nations in stripped-down slow motion.”51
In some ways, Rhythm and Sound extend the conceptual elements that
were implicit in versioning as it was practiced in Jamaica, but that were of
necessity balanced by elements suited to the dancehall context. Their basic
stylistic template was put into place with an eponymous and largely instru-
mental CD released in 2000; unlike many minimal techno artists, how-
ever, they went on to fully involve vocalists into the creative process. By
2003, they had released a stunning series of rhythms featuring various vo-
calists from the Caribbean such as Jamaicans Cornell Campbell and Hor-
ace Andy (and other vocalists associated with “Bullwackies” Barnes), as
well as vocalists from other parts of the Caribbean such as Paul St. Hilare
(a.k.a. Tikiman), Walda Gabriel, Jah Walton, Ras Perez, Koki, and Ras
Donovan. These vocalists sing over Ernestus and von Oswald’s character-
istic mixes, augmented by a version album released separately in classic Ja-
maican fashion.
The preceding examples make it clear that dub has been central to the
soundscape of electronica, leading Steve Barrow to use the metaphor of
the dub as a “virus,” seen to “infect” other popular styles and facilitate their
mutation into a multiplicity of new, studio-based soundscape genres.52 A
good general introduction to the dub influence on these musical genres is
the two-volume compilation Macro Dub Infection, the title of which plays
on Barrow’s “virus” characterization.53 Released in 1995 and 1996, respec-
tively, the compilations survey dub’s influence on genres as diverse as neo-
dub, drum & bass, house, ambient, electronic world music, and various en-
sembles of traditional instrumentalists altered through post-performance
sound processing. Like dub and hip-hop, the genres of electronica, taken
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collectively, can be simultaneously considered a musical subculture with
their own audience(s), as well as the sonic “research and development” wing
of popular music production, where production strategies are developed
that ultimately influence production trends in the pop music mainstream.
The Postcolonial Versioned as Postimperial

The developing genres of electronica, rich with the potential of new and
rapidly multiplying forms of sound technology, contained important socio-
political resonance in Europe of the early 1990s. Jacob Haagsman has noted
that in Germany, for example, the experimental and as yet nonstandardized
genres of electronica were embraced for their liberatory social implications in
the optimistic but ambiguous social climate of a reunited Germany.54 Recent
works such as those by Paul Gilroy and Ian Baucom suggest that a similar as-
sertion can be made for the social resonance of styles such as jungle and trip-
hop in the context of a “post-imperial” Britain alternately resisting and em-
bracing a new national identity that alternately deconstructs and reinforces
deeply held notions of race, class, and culture.55 These electronic genres draw
on Jamaican dub to varying extents; they were also nurtured in a multiethnic
crucible and as such transcend (or expand) specifically black concerns. The
house-techno-dub and hip-hop–dub fusions at the root of jungle and trip-
hop, for example, reflect broader class strategies within English society, and
the same can be said for more recent genre mutations such as dubstep and
grime. In this sense, dub’s more paranoid moods born of the violent King-
ston climate have been recast in urban England as the hybrid electronic music
of an embattled pan-ethnic working-class/cosmopolitan youth subculture re-
flecting the broader concerns cited above as well as what Simon Reynolds de-
scribed as “late capitalist economic instability, institutionalized racism, and in-
creased surveillance and harassment of youth by the police.”56 All resolves
into what he termed the music’s “bunker” imagery of alienation, surveillance,
and paranoia, conveyed in song titles such as Photek’s “Hidden Camera” as
well as in the profusion of dialogue excerpted from radio and walkie-talkie
transmissions, television crime show dialogue, and 1970s blaxploitation cin-
ema.57 Jungle composer Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) summed up the so-
cial and creative milieu in 1996 with a comment that could have easily been
voiced in Kingston of the 1970s: “It’s quite an aggressive, dark, and moody
music, mainly because England is a fucked-up place at the moment. Every-
thing has gone wrong; the government has fallen apart. . . . No one has any
trust in the state. Their policy is to keep you scared so you stay down. That at-
titude breeds fear. England is a compressed country and there is loads of
anger. A lot of the [jungle] coming out now is all about that.”58
Coda / 239
Dub in the American Context
Neo-Dub in the United States
This section has mainly been concerned with developments in England
and Europe; although I shall discuss the influence of dub techniques on Af-
rican American dance music later, I briefly detour to the American context
to conclude this section on neo-dub music. As noted earlier, the success of
musicians such as Bob Marley provided an indirect current for the influ-
ence of dub in America. The influence is most apparent in the work of ex-
patriate Jamaican and American musicians such as Lloyd “Bullwackies”
Barnes, Bill Laswell, Crooklyn Dub Consortium, and others. In this sec-
tion, I shall focus on Barnes and Laswell because they represent, in a way,
two contrasting tendencies of dub in the United States.
Lloyd “Bullwackies” Barnes

Lloyd “Bullwackies” Barnes (b. Jamaica, 1944) is seminal in the growth
of dub outside of Jamaica, in a manner firmly rooted in the Jamaican expe-
rience. Prior to a recent reissue campaign by the Berlin-based Basic Chan-
nel label, however, his substantial body of work remained fairly obscure,
even within Jamaica. During his youth in Jamaica, Barnes had worked in
Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle studio as a backing vocalist; he recorded sporadi-
cally for Prince Buster before relocating to New York in the early 1970s.
Throughout the mid-1970s, he operated an eponymous sound system
based in the Bronx (that was unfortunately plagued by the Kingston politi-
cal rivalries that had been transplanted to New York). The dances pro-
moted by Wackie’s were the site of frequent outbreaks by political violence
between rival Jamaican Labour Party and People’s National Party support-
ers, and Barnes was eventually forced to disband his sound system.
It was during this same period that Barnes began releasing his own roots
reggae and dancehall productions on a variety of New York–based labels,
featuring the combined talents of local reggae musicians, expatriate Jamai-
can session players, and well-known Jamaican vocalists passing through the
New York area. But although Barnes built up a sizable catalog, his work
was generally pressed in very limited quantities, typically around a thou-
sand copies per release.
The bulk of Barnes’s work was created during the late 1970s and early
1980s in the Bronx at the epicenter of developing hip-hop. What is re-
markable in this context is how faithful it remains to its Jamaican roots in
the dynamic musical setting of New York, where a variety of powerful
local influences might have influenced a change in his sound. Well into the
mid-1980s, after Jamaican music had undergone its digital shift, Barnes
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was still stubbornly producing dubby, Rasta-influenced roots reggae at his
studio. Nevertheless, the New York setting did exert a subtle influence, and
the balancing act that this implied is one factor that makes Barnes music
seem, in retrospect, so unique a commentary on roots reggae. The funda-
mental equation in his work is one in which classic Studio One and Treas-
ure Isle riddims are subjected to dub interpretations inspired primarily by
Lee Perry’s Black Ark phase, and secondarily by King Tubby. Barnes ex-
plained to Jeff Chang, “I want to be roots like Downbeat, sweet like Treas-
ure Isle, and mystic like Upsetter.”59 The Perry influence is clear in the
thick aquatic textures of the mix (as with Perry, the phase shifting effect is
used prominently) while the Tubby influence is clear in Barnes’s overall
commitment to dub as a distinct form. Working with engineers Douglas
Levy and Junior Delahaye, the Wackies’ outfit released several dub albums
during the 1980s (Jamaica Super Dub Session, Tribesman Assault, Creation
Dub and the multivolume African Roots), while most of his single releases
were backed by dub mixes or mixed dubwise from the start.
On seminal recordings of artists such as Horace Andy, Wayne Jarrett,
the Love Joys, the Meditations and others, the crew at Wackie’s was able to
capture the essence of Jamaican roots while giving the music a tight sound
that was subtly reflective of its urban setting.
Bill Laswell
Bassist, producer, conceptualist, and record label founder/owner Bill
Laswell represents the hybrid approach to dub. Born in 1950, Laswell has
been active on the experimental fringes of various American genres since
the late 1970s. His major commercial breakthrough came in 1983 when he
produced keyboardist Herbie Hancock’s electro-jazz-funk hit “Rockit,”
and he has occasionally worked with other mainstream popular artists such
as Mick Jagger, Whitney Houston, and Sting. For the most part, however,
his reputation has been built at the experimental intersection of jazz, funk,
electronic, and a variety of world musics. It is unsurprising that Laswell
would find inspiration in dub at this particular intersection, which reso-
nates with many of the conceptual concerns explored in these various gen-
res (and the minimalist aesthetic of which also provides a template upon
which they can be recombined). Many of Laswell’s recordings also reflect a
mystical streak inspired by the extramusical applications of various non-
Western musical traditions (for example, Moroccan Gnawa music, Indian
classical music, African and Afro-Caribbean possession traditions) in which
music is used for liturgical, trance, possession, or curative purposes. Rasta-
derived titles such as “Ethiopia” and “Shashimani” [sic] reflect how dub,
with its own partial roots in the mystical aspects of Rastafari, has factored
Coda / 241
into Laswell’s embrace of exotic musics and provided a suitably mystical
aura to his studio experiments.
Laswell’s contributions to dub are varied. He has produced his own dub-
influenced recordings (released mainly on his Subharmonic label), applying
the strategies of dub to the collaborative work of musicians from a wide
array of genres. As a remix engineer for hire, he has remixed two volumes of
canonical dub recordings from the hallowed reggae vaults of England’s
Trojan Records and done important remix work for artists of the stature
of jazz icon Miles Davis & Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
Many, however, would consider Laswell’s most significant contribution to
dub to be his collection of “ambient dub” remixes of several Island-era
Bob Marley and the Wailers tracks on the 1997 Dreams of Freedom compi-
lation.60 This release was quite significant in the reggae world; although,
as discussed earlier, there had been selected dub mixes made of Marley’s
work during his lifetime (most mixed by Errol Brown or Karl Pitterson),
there had never been an album-length release featuring dub versions of
Marley’s work.
Laswell’s Marley project was met with mixed responses. He subtitled the
project “ambient translations” and stated that his goal was to make the re-
cordings sound “as if someone had dreamed them.”61 The problem, in
some listeners’ hearing, was that Laswell’s ambient emphasis de-emphasized
the rhythmic aspects of the music; it lacked the dynamic tension of Jamai-
can engineers, who were always sensitive to both the atmospheric and the
rhythmic/structural aspects of the music. Laswell’s decisions, of course, re-
flects that his work was not aimed at the dancing crowd of a Jamaican
sound system audience, but the more reflective audience that (depending
on their age) encountered dub as either a stylistic variant of American psy-
chedelia, and/or as a cultural variant of contemporary Euro-American am-
bient electronica. It is among this audience that Laswell’s dub music has
had its most substantial impact.
In some ways, the criticisms of Laswell’s Marley project echo broader
criticisms of “neo-dub,” or what Adrian Sherwood referred to as “designer
dub”: music conceived from the beginning of the creative process as dub,
as opposed to the Jamaican practice of music being generally versioned
from vocal songs. Whether these criticisms reflect generationally based
purism or nostalgia or genuine insight varies from case to case. As previ-
ously discussed, the dub mix in Jamaica was merely one half of the vision
articulated within roots reggae; it usually backed an accessible pop song on
the flip side, against which it acquired its deconstructive significance. Thus,
even if Jamaican pop song structure was gradually transformed in its en-
counter with new technology, this transformation acquired its dynamic
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tension within the communal imperative of the dancehall/sound system: as
much as dub prefigured the fragmented aesthetics of electronica, it did so
with one foot firmly rooted in the practice of communal dance musics.
Without this centralizing impulse, some have claimed that “designer dub”
has tended to suffocate under the weight of increasingly complex technol-
ogy. Mark Sinker, for example, claims that “without a mainstream to riff
off, versions have far less force,”62 a point elaborated by Chris Sharp:
whereas King Tubby and Prince Jammy were concerned with making people dance,
with celebratory sonic audacity, with a delight in timbral novelty, these contempo-
rary dub scientists seem more concerned with chronicling their own malaise. . . .
The jouissance of 70s dub came from the sudden sense of possibility that the tech-
nical innovations of the time engendered. But the possibilities have kept multiply-
ing, equipment and sound sources spilling endlessly into the marketplace, threaten-
ing to swamp the composer’s capacity for comprehension. What was once
tantalizing has become bewildering. [Neo-dub] is the sound of dub fighting for
breath in the face of information overload.63
Simon Reynolds similarly claimed: “Where seventies roots reggae had a

spiritual aura, [digital] dub evoked only the geometrically plotted grid of
computer sequence programs . . . and the Jamaican dubmeisters also used
supple and interactive live rhythm sections where their digital dub succes-
sors depended on inelastic programmed beats and bass lines. All of which
explains why the difference between classic dub and ambient dub resembles
that between a stained glass window and a computer graphic.”64
Certainly innovation was at least partially predicated on the effort to
push against technical, conceptual, or procedural boundaries or con-
straints. At the same time, it is probable that Jamaican dub mixes sounded
cold and overtechnical to those accustomed to the norms of roots reggae in
the 1970s. So, as performance contexts such as raves (discussed below) in-
dicate, new forms of art and technology will by necessity generate new
forms of spirituality that will in turn inspire creative artists to transform
neutral machines into vessels of the highest inspiration.
Jamaican Music and the “Post-Soul” Era of

African American Popular Music
The period of African American music that developed from the mid-
1980s has sometimes been referred to as the “post-soul” era. The term
was coined by writers such as Nelson George to describe an era of Afri-
can American music (typified by, but not exclusive to, the New York City
context) in which the sensibility of 1960s/1970s soul music and the ideals
of the civil rights movement that formed its backdrop gave way to a new
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era of social (and correspondingly, aesthetic) values.65 This transition is
based on several significant social, musical, and technological develop-
ments in African American culture: increasing class disparity despite the
material gains of the civil rights movement, the flight of the African
American elite and professional classes from the urban areas, and the fis-
cal and infrastructural crises of the 1970s that transformed New York
City during the 1970s. Musical developments would include a genera-
tional shift in musical tastes and methods, a decline in traditional musical
education, and the simultaneous availability of new (especially digital)
and cheaper tools for the creation of music.66
In one sense, the “post-soul” idea can be positioned laterally alongside
ideas such as “post-blackness” and “post-nationalist,” as all of these terms
imply a transition away from the ethos, values, and symbols of the civil
rights movement. In the realm of culture and technology, however, it also
reflects the transformative role that various forms of (especially digital)
technology played in stimulating fundamental changes in the nature of in-
formation, communication, and experience. This transformation leads to
hip-hop, the musical genre that emerged during the mid-1970s and that
was the clearest musical reflection of all these socioeconomic and music-
technological transformations. The history of how this music developed
out of creative currents in New York City has been fairly well docu-
mented,67 but the emergence of hip-hop merits further contextualization
here, in order to understand the role of Jamaican music in the transforma-
tion of American dance music during the 1980s.
In New York City of the mid- to late 1970s, the dominant black dance
music was the party funk music of bands like Kool and the Gang, War, the
Ohio Players, Mandrill, and similarly organized groups. This music was
based upon a basic template that had been established by James Brown and
his musicians a decade earlier, and subsequently elaborated with rock ele-
ments by musicians like Sly Stone and George Clinton.68 Based upon a
fairly Africanized conception of harmonically static vamps and the percus-
sive hocketing of interlocking rhythm section parts, this type of funk repre-
sented a deconstruction of the (blues-, jazz-, and gospel-derived) harmonic
practices of 1960s rhythm and blues and a general shift from triple to duple
rhythmic structures.
The other dominant urban dance genre of the late 1970s was disco
music, which emerged from a sphere defined by Euro-American gay disco-
theque culture, and the fusion of European dance music producers (such as
Giorgio Moroder and Jean-Marc Cerrone) and African American vocal
divas (such as Donna Summer and Thelma Houston).69 What was new
about disco was that it was considerably easier to produce. Unlike funk it
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was not, for the most part, dependent on visible “star” personalities who
made personal appearances with large and highly specialized performing
ensembles. Even though disco had its star performers such as Donna Sum-
mer or the Village People, it was essentially a producer’s music, and its
practices helped define a new age of popular musical production.70
As a style, disco simplified the polyrhythmic innovations of funk (and as
such downplayed their implicit political resonances), leading some black
pop music critics to dismiss it as a nameless, faceless, and generic music that
contributed to the death of an era of innovative and socially conscious Afri-
can American dance music.71 But a deeper truth is that disco, with its em-
phasis on dancing for pure pleasure, simultaneously projected the aesthet-
ics of the black body into mainstream American culture in a way that hadn’t
taken place since the “jazz age” of the 1930s or the birth of rock and roll in
the 1950s.72
Beyond the ideologically charged dance floor debates, and away from
the floodlit stages of concert arenas and the glitter of celebrity disco-
theques, funk and disco records were both put to much different use in the
African American and Latino areas of New York City: there an ongoing
tradition of plundering and/or reinterpreting mainstream pop music prod-
ucts for reconsumption and reconfiguration outside of the mainstream was
intensifying because of the economic developments in New York City. By
the late 1970s, further deconstruction of funk and disco music was taking
place at block parties, discotheques, and house parties around New York
City by a younger generation of musical aspirants who, in the absence of
adequate funding for music programs in the city’s public schools, turned to
their parents’ record collections and home playback equipment for inspira-
tion and musical source material. Distilling the prior deconstructions of
funk and disco, DJs developed the technique of mixing between two turn-
tables to elongate brief snatches of excerpted music (“breaks” or “break
beats,” some as short as a few seconds) into long-form minimalist groove
suites, punctuated by superimposed horn or rhythm section riffs excerpted
from other recordings. As in the Jamaican sound system, these “suites”
were augmented by the rapping of the MC (same role as the DJ in Ja-
maica), and could be prolonged indefinitely depending on the wishes of
the rapper/MC or the dancers.
At the same time, a stream of new tracks began to be issued that used the
criteria of the “break” as fundamental to composition, with entire songs
now being composed of excerpted percussion interludes. What Kodwo
Eshun memorably referred to as “isolation of the “breakbeat”73 was a
transformative compositional strategy by which, through scratching and
(later) digital sampling, previously recorded music was deconstructed into
Coda / 245
minimal gestures that were then reconstructed according to the logics of
the sound collage. There were harmonic implications here. Scratching and
the digital sampling that supplanted it were based on the juxtaposition of
sounds chosen primarily for their rhythmic and textural value. Thus
scratching ultimately departed from the rules of functional harmony and
resulted in a type of collage-driven polytonality characteristic of hip-hop—
which in turn has shaped the harmonic tendencies of much electronically-
produced popular music.
This period of stylistic transformation initiated a new conceptual epoch
in black American dance music (and ultimately, popular dance music in gen-
eral) that might be considered a revolution of the songscape over the song.
The final catalyst in this transformation was the emergence of digital sound
technology that facilitated the easy reconfiguration of sound material. The
more DJs began to use finite reggae, soul, and funk songs as fodder for their
long-form song suites, the more they effectively reconfigured these materi-
als for subsequent manipulation in the digital domain.74 In this light, the
1960s/1970s generation of musicians who invested their expression in tradi-
tional (Western) musical instruments as a means of advancing the cutting
edge of black culture could be seen as the last practitioners of the old order.
Henceforth, their great works would be digitally reconfigured through new
forms of technology into distinctively black languages that almost entirely
depart from traditionally Euro-American conceptions of songcraft. Their
work was created during a period in which producers and engineers were
becoming as important to musical production as singers and instrumental-
ists,75 and in which dance music was in the midst of an intensive “African-
ization” that gradually transformed the short song forms of midcentury
popular music into longer forms more suitable for extended dancing.
What does all of this have to do with dub music? The musical evolution
of hip-hop is rooted in several stylistic streams, but one of the most crucial
is the innovations in Kingston’s recording studios and sound systems dur-
ing the 1960s and 1970s.76 The economically driven processes described
above had been foreshadowed almost a decade earlier in Jamaica, where
producers recycled musical material to maximize profits in a depressed econ-
omy incapable of supporting the large-scale purchase of musical instru-
ments and other musical technologies. More specifically, there was a strong
Jamaican influence upon the formative years of hip-hop in 1970s New York
City, facilitated by heavy Caribbean immigration to New York during the
1960s; as Peter Manuel notes in Caribbean Currents, the Jamaican popula-
tion in New York City is second only to the Jamaican capital of Kingston.77
The musical link is specifically credited to New Yorkers of Caribbean her-
itage like DJ Kool Herc (b. Clive Campbell, 1955) and Afrika Bambaataa
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(b. Kevin Donovan, 1957) who were directly responsible for these far-reaching
developments on black American popular music. What these musicians con-
tributed to African American music were the Caribbean-derived practices of
talking over pre-recorded music (toasting, referred to as “rapping” in the
United States), a patchwork-collage approach to (re)composition, the ap-
propriation and refashioning of musical technology, a tendency to strip pre-
recorded music to its purely rhythmic elements, and the modular reuse and
recombination of musical source materials.
Sonically and aesthetically, musicians like DJ Kool Herc essentially
transplanted the Jamaican sound system model to New York City, along
with the concept of mobile outdoor entertainment, which, for a brief mo-
ment in the late 1970s, was able to rearticulate urban space in a new, class-
inflected way in the form of the neighborhood block party. And as with
dub in Jamaica, the stylistic traits of the music grew very much out of the
formal structure of the dance event in which minimalist music was used as
the basis for improvised vocalizing and extended dancing. These roots re-
main discernible in contemporary hip-hop; the cross-cultural dialogue has
continued as ragga and hip-hop continue to influence each other and as the
influence of Jamaican music continues to be recognized on a global scale.78
The central stylistic difference, of course, was that Jamaican musicians
such as DJ Kool Herc, living and working in New York City, “toasted”
(rapped) over funk, soul, jazz, and rhythm-and-blues records instead of the
reggae of their native country. Structurally and functionally speaking, how-
ever, the concept of the breakbeat in hip-hop closely parallels reggae’s con-
cept of drum & bass. And it is, at least in part, because of this core concep-
tual similarity that popular music production in Jamaica and on the
American mainland has followed a similar trajectory since the 1970s. Given
this similarity, a comparison of dub with hip-hop offers an important op-
portunity to examine the alternate evolution of a body of musical strategies
that have contributed to an gradual “Africanization” of the Western popu-
lar dance song form.
Dub’s primary contribution to popular music, as described earlier, can
be found in the concepts of drum & bass/soundscape mixing, and the frag-
menting of syntax. Hip-hop’s most substantial contribution, on the other
hand, has been in the aesthetics of the breakbeat, which was later formal-
ized with the advent of digital sampling. Both are deconstructive composi-
tional strategies that have sensitized listeners to the microaesthetics of pro-
duction. Stacks of samples, all recorded at different times and places (and
thus implying different sonic atmospheres), have sensitized listeners to the
most subtle gestures of production. Excerpts of music that may last mere
seconds are nevertheless successfully exploited for the emotional impact of
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their sound environment on the listener. Listeners have thus been made
newly sensitive to timbre and texture in recordings. In this sense, hip-hop
producers such as the Bomb Squad, DJ Red Alert, and the RZA are similar
to Jamaican producers such as King Tubby and Lee Perry, in the way they
have helped stretch the parameters of sound in popular music.
Of course, the two styles follow different paths. Hip-hop (at least since
Public Enemy’s 1988 album It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back)
has typically relied upon the rhythmic hocketing of sound samples to create
a hypermasculinized, sonic space. Dub, on the other hand, tended toward a
more implosive aesthetic. An easy comparison might be to say that while
hip-hop, through its structures of stacked samples, tends to rely on a strat-
egy of accumulation, dub tends much more toward a minimalist aesthetic
of incompletion. Much has been written about both accumulation and in-
completion as conceptual traits in African-derived visual art forms,78 but to
my knowledge, neither has been seriously applied in analysis of the musical
forms of the African diaspora. Both were important strategies in the Afri-
canization of the Western pop song.
I believe that certain sonic differences between the two styles also reflect
the different times in which they developed. Hip-hop, born of a period in
which African American culture was gradually retreating in on itself under
the weight of various socioeconomic pressures, immerses the listener in a
fairly hermetic sound world. Dub’s atmospheric soundscaping, in contrast,
may reflect its own genesis in a period of expansive thinking, optimism, his-
torical fantasy, and hopefulness, as symbolized by the hopes of the Manley
years, the ascendance of Rastafari as a new and proactive black vision of the
world, and the long-term historical embrace of ancestral African culture.
Musically, hip-hop and dub meet at the intersection where carelessness,
carefreeness, and alienation from the European tradition inspire a shattering
of Western functional harmony into a neo-African polytonality; where
sound technology facilitates a manipulation of texture and timbre according
to a long-retained African predilection for thickly textured and percussive ar-
ticulation; where the African-derived aesthetic strategies of accumulation
and incompletion lead either to densely stratified layers of rhythmic sound,
or to minimalist groove patterns; where economic circumstances dictate a
reuse of previously recorded materials; where these previously recorded ma-
terials serve as the basis for real-time improvisation via the mix, the scratch/
sample, and/or the voice; and where people achieve transcendence on the
dance floor through the retained trance and possession logics of West African
musical systems. Both styles also reflect how an emphasis on Africa as cul-
tural motherlode gave way to and/or facilitated a period in which the ghetto
was symbolically transformed into the most authentic site of black culture.
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Theory and Meta-Dub: Paul D. Miller, Louis Chude-Sokei,
Paul Gilroy, and the CCRU
New forms of music will of necessity generate new modes of thinking and
writing about both music and culture. Such has been the case with dub.
Some of the literature addresses black cultures specifically; in other in-
stances, dub has been useful in a more abstract sense, to a wide range of
thinking across various disciplines.
The work of New York–based DJ/conceptualist Paul D. Miller (a.k.a.
DJ Spooky) reflects how dub has intersected in a practical way with more
traditional currents of electronic and experimental music. It also demon-
strates how the music has interacted with more theoretical dimensions of
experimental music, generating new models that have in turn influenced
practice. As a composer, Miller has been at the center of New York’s Illbi-
ent movement since the mid-1990s (other artists associated with this scene
would include Sub Dub, Byzar, and We).80 An obvious play on the estab-
lished term ambient, the illbient tag typically describes music that blends
dance rhythms (usually derived from dub and decelerated hip-hop) with
pure electronic textures given an ambient treatment—not in the soothing
ambient sense of Brian Eno’s work, for example, but in atmospheric treat-
ments of abrasive urban, industrial, and informational sounds. This pro-
cess, relying heavily on digital sampling, seems at least partially inspired by
musique concrète and other late modernist tape works, such as those by
Cage (for example, Williams Mix) or Stockhausen (for example, Hymnen).
A number of Miller’s musical works are, like the works of his musique
concrète forebears, built from found sounds (expanded to include dance
music sources) to produce pure soundscape works, such as his 1995 Necrop-
olis project in which he remixes the work of several of New York’s under-
ground ambient experimentalists by reaching into what he calls the “data-
cloud” of “viral sonic spores and chronotopes.” In practical terms, this
means a host of abstracted dance music and pure experimental sources
given a dense treatment that evokes the information deluge of the cyber-
netic age. Being for the most part derived from decelerated hip-hip and
neo-dub, the beats in Necropolis are fairly simplistic and not nearly so en-
gaging as the pure sound aspects of the piece. It is these ambient aspects
that provide the project with a cinematic scope that most clearly presents
Spooky’s vision.
But although Spooky has composed a number of nondance, pure sound
pieces of this type, much of his work (like the aforementioned German art-
ists) ultimately reflects the dub influence in its reconciliation of the abstract
sound emphasis of the experimental tradition with the body-oriented
Coda / 249
rhythms of dance music. The importance of Jamaican music in brokering
this fusion is made explicit in song/CD titles, and other references drawn
directly from Jamaica’s music and culture such as Riddim Warfare,
“Dancehall Malfunction,” “Soon Forward,” “Chinatown Dub,” the pair-
ing of his Optometry CD with a “version” set titled Dubtometry.
Miller is also a prolific writer and composer for whom musical composi-
tion and written theorizing are apparently complementary pursuits. Like
the members of England’s CCRU (discussed below), Miller has used the
internal processes of dub, hip-hop, and experimental music to ponder the
effects of broader phenomena (such as the information age) on aesthetics
and society in general. Miller trained in philosophy and French literature in
the late 1980s and early 1990s; inspired by the poststructuralist streams of
these disciplines, he has found in the reconfigurative practices of dub sonic
models processes he observes in society in general. His work represents an
important expansion of the older conceptual model of electronic and ex-
perimental music: whereas composers like Cage and Stockhausen drew on
artistic and nonartistic models (drawn from science, poetry, mathematics,
visual arts) from within the high European tradition and (later) various
Eastern philosophies (Taoism, Zen Buddhism) to expand their conceptual
vocabularies, Miller seems to have found equally provocative models in the
Africanist aesthetic and philosophical implications of dub and hip-hop.
Louis Chude-Sokei is a scholar of English specializing in postcolonial
literature, literary theory, and popular culture. In his music-related work,
he seems most concerned with generating what he calls a “hermeneutics of
black sound” configured to the dynamics of African, Afro-diasporic and
postcolonial culture. Conversely, he also cites dub as the central inspiration
for his literary work. Chude-Sokei’s thoughts on dub are outlined in three
seminal essays authored between 1994 and 1997. In “The Sound of Cul-
ture” (1997), he interprets Jamaica’s sound system culture as an embodi-
ment of a nationalist sensibility, and roots reggae and dub as particularly
vivid embodiments of Jamaica’s postcolonial culture. “Post-Nationalist
Geographies” (1994) offers a similar grounding of Jamaica’s music in the
post-1985 digital era and, within the broader contexts of the post–Michael
Manley years of the 1980s, the concurrent decline of Rastafari as a domi-
nant cultural narrative and the transnational networks of Jamaican musical
production and dissemination. “Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber” (1997)
grounds reggae’s sonic characteristics within the broader historical sweep
of Afro-diasporic cultural experience.81 Chude-Sokei’s work is a particu-
larly notable example of a stream of Jamaicanist scholarship in which strat-
egies of literary criticism have been brought to bear upon music. It was Af-
ricanist scholars who devised the concept of “oral literature” to account for
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deeply rooted traditions of verbal creativity. Similarly, the rise of deejaying
in Jamaica created a space in which scholars of Jamaica’s traditions of crea-
tive writing could bring literary insights to bear upon on the country’s
popular music. Influential work of this type has been done by Carolyn
Cooper, Kwame Dawes, and others. What distinguishes Chude-Sokei’s
work from most of his colleagues is his interest in going beyond text and
engaging the music from the perspective of its sound. It is dub music that
inspired him to take this approach.
Dub is a similarly potent presence in the work of sociologist Paul Gil-
roy, albeit more obliquely articulated: while references to Jamaican music
are frequent in his work, none of his major writings to date address dub
exclusively. As a scholar who portrays music as one of the most reliable in-
dexes of the history and state of black culture, however, Gilroy has in-
cluded dub in several of his most pivotal hypotheses. Gilroy came of age
in England in the 1970s, when black music (broadly construed) was a
powerful political and moral force in global culture. And if jazz and vari-
ous forms of popular music were considered musical embodiments of this
force in African American culture, reggae—tied to the experiences of En-
gland’s Caribbean emigrants—emerged as the most powerful embodi-
ment of this force in England. Reggae signaled the ascension of black Brit-
ain as a newly potent cultural force in the global articulation of
“blackness.” As such, Gilroy could claim in 1993: “There has been no con-
temporary equivalent to the provocative, hermetic power of dub which
supported the radical Ethiopianism of the seventies or of the anti-
assimilationist unintelligibility of bebop in the forties.”82 This manner of
claiming dub has, in fact, been broadly evident in England, where much of
the writing of cultural studies theorists and popular music journalists in-
vests the style with a philosophical, political, and cultural weight similar to
the weight jazz carried among the more visionary theorists of African
American culture in the 1960s and 1970s.
By drawing out the implications of its economic and social practices,
Gilroy has found in dub a sonic model for various broader cultural and
political processes. African American cultural critics (such as Albert Mur-
ray, Ralph Ellison, and Stanley Crouch) have used the communal pro-
cesses of jazz improvisation as a metaphor for the democratic ideal in so-
ciety. So does Gilroy find dub and its economics a potential model of
subaltern politics and a challenge to the constraints of capitalism. Com-
menting on the communal erotics of the Jamaican sound system, for ex-
ample, he noted its “Rabelaisian power to carnivalize and disperse the
dominant order through an intimate yet public discourse on sexuality and
the body [which] has drawn many outsiders into a dense network of
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black public symbols,” and extends this in order to ponder “the equally
distinctive public political character of these forms and the urban social
movement they have helped to create and extend.”83 In this interpreta-
tion, an aesthetic process coded with eroticized social resistance attracts
(and potentially mobilizes) listeners beyond the immediate context of its
creation. In “Diaspora, Utopia and the Critique of Capitalism” (1987),
Gilroy reflected on the economic and political implications of practices
such as versioning, observing:
The conflict between these traditions in black music and the constraining forms de-
manded by the economy of the music business is an extensive one. . . . There is a sub-
tle dialectic between technological developments and the outcome of struggles
between the priorities of black consumers and those of the record companies on
which they were forced to depend. . . . The deconstructive aspects of dub . . . lay bare
the anatomy of a piece and recognize in it a new order. The liberatory rationality
which is spelled out in the lyrics, if there are lyrics, is thus manifest in the consump-
tion of the musical culture. The whole dialogic process that unites performers and
crowds is imported into the culture’s forms. It becomes the basis of an authentic
public sphere which is counterpoised to the dominant alternative, from which, in
any case, blacks have been excluded. The arts which, as slaves, blacks were allowed
instead of freedom, have become a means to make their formal freedom tangible.84
The deconstruction of essentialist notions of racial identity has been a

central concern of Gilroy’s recent work. In Small Acts (1993), for example,
he argued that the ostensibly stable construction of black culture had his-
torically functioned as the “counter-culture” to Western modernity. Since
World War II, however, this age has been gradually eclipsed by a global age
in which a variety of factors made such stable constructions of identity far
more complicated and problematic.85 So while it is true that Gilroy has re-
sisted the simplistic viewing of black cultures through the fashionable lens
of postmodernism (preferring instead a revised definition of modernism as
presented in his Black Atlantic), his positioning of dub as an acute com-
mentary (in its time) on the state of black culture nevertheless implies that
he has found in the fluid dynamics of the music an ideal sonic metaphor for
mutable and contingent constructions of identity.86
Both Gilroy and Louis Chude-Sokei have also evoked the image of dub
(among other musical forms) as an alternate medium of history. This type
of interpretation seems to me to have grown out of two related streams.
First, a fairly straightforward technological argument: a McLuhanesque
understanding of new technologies for the storage of information (such as
analog and digital sound media) supplanting older technologies (such as
writing). Second, a rhetorical assertion of African-derived musics as, in-
itially, a template for artistic production in other media; later, an alternate
form of literature; and ultimately, an alternative historical medium.87
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Given that music has historically been the dominant artistic medium within
black culture, the notion of sound as history draws its conceptual grounding
from the reality of sound recording technology, as well as the oral history
practices of the West African societies that peopled the African diaspora; it
directly challenges the modernist Western notion that history is best or
most accurately preserved in written form.
Other examples of dub inspiring thought beyond the sphere of music
would include Jeff Salamon’s 1997 minisurvey of dub that appeared in
the pages of Artforum, a magazine devoted to the criticism of visual
arts.88 Marina Budhos’s 1999 book Remix examines the lives of immigrant
teenagers as a microcosm of the changing contours of cultural identity in
late twentieth-century America.89 John Homiak’s 1998 “Dub History” uses
the remix theme to discuss the instability of oral history in the African dias-
pora.90 The 2005 “Africa Remix” exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompi-
dou in Paris used the remix theme to explore how that travel and technol-
ogy have allowed migrant contemporary African artists to explode the
myopic stereotype of a unitary “African art,” forcing viewers to confront
the kaleidoscopic reality of contemporary African cultural and artistic pro-
duction.91 Such extramusical readings are almost certainly inspired by the
improvisatory nature of the music. Dub remains a dance music first and
foremost, but it has proved particularly useful when its conceptual pro-
cesses assume the foreground and the music suggests other parameters of
thought and experience. The reality is that dub grounds the abstract, ex-
perimental impulse in the sensual experience of the body; as such, it viscer-
ally embodies the reconciliation of “high” and “low” so valued by theorists
of so-called postmodern culture.92
This position at the crossroads of science and sensuality has also inspired
particularly imaginative ways of writing about music. Naturally, a new aes-
thetic form requires a new language of analysis, explanation, or criticism.
Kodwo Eshun, for example, has been in the forefront of an impressionistic
music criticism seemingly informed by the literary tendencies of poststruc-
turalist writing. In the following passage, he discusses Lee Perry’s use of
excerpted television dialogue on the Revolution Dub LP:
Revolution Dub is not so much produced as reduced by Perry. The song is x-rayed
into exoskeletal forms through which TV leaks. For “Woman’s Dub,” the dis-
torted snares drum like needlepoint magick, but rusted, ferric. “Kojak” is an intox-
icated mix, an echo chamber of moans in which space staggers and lurches danger-
ously. . . . By bringing the outside into the inside of The Song, Perry releases
sitcom ghosts into the spectral song. Perry samples TV before the sampler, just as
Holger Czukay uses radio, drawing signals down through the aerials into The
Song, crackling open another timezone inside the track. Space changes places. Re-
ality reverses itself.93
Coda / 253
Dub can also be seen as an indirect influence on topics assumed to be
completely unrelated to artistic production. Luciana Parisi’s 2004 Abstract
Sex uses the chaotic flows of biological and digital information to theorize
the evolution of reproductive processes; here again, the transformational
processes in the music can be read as having energized the rhetoric of an
unrelated field. The publication of Abstract Sex was commemorated with a
2004 event in London titled “Bacteria in Dub,” which featured audible ex-
cerpts of Parisi’s text, “versioned” into musical form by a DJ.94 In fact, both
Parisi and Kodwo Eshun have been associated with the Cybernetic Culture
Research Unit (CCRU), based at the University of Warwick in England.
Like DJ Spooky, Parisi’s use of dub in this manner reflects the CCRU’s
general strategy of “flipping” the interpretive “script,” so to speak. Instead
of using academic theory to explain music or using society to provide a
context for the music, these thinkers have seized upon certain structural
tendencies of the music and used them as a basis for theorizing about any
number of extramusical (aesthetic, social, political, biological, technologi-
cal, and so forth) processes. What makes such a link possible is technology
and its transformations of both artistic and social practices. In this way, the
music comes to rival the written word as a medium for theorizing, ulti-
mately positioned as an act of theory in and of itself. This understanding of
music as theory resonates with the aforementioned Africa-derived idea of
music as history; simultaneously, it demonstrates the way that art is capable
of energizing and/or revitalizing theory.
Parisi’s use of dub in this way also typifies the music’s conceptual useful-
ness in challenging the perceived foundations of modernism. If the mod-
ernist conception of the body, for example, is stereotypically held to be in-
herently stable, male, and neatly delineated, Parisi’s work draws upon the
“rhizomatic” and “code/flow” ideas of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari,
whose works Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus reject Freudian and
Lacanian ideas of various “original traumas” in favor of ideas of a (personal
and/or political) “body” in a continuous process of reconfiguration.95 It
draws upon the poststructuralist feminism of thinkers such as Luce Iriga-
ray, who deploys rhetorics of absence and invisibility as strategies for the
subversion of “phallocentric” understandings of gender and cultural (par-
ticularly linguistic) practices.96 Its implicit technoeroticism (in which ma-
chines are humanized, humans are mechanized, and the relationships
between them eroticized) draws upon the “cyborg” feminism of Donna
Haraway, whose ideas blur the dichotomy between humans and machines
in the modern world and similarly contest the boundary between science
fiction and social reality as an “optical illusion.”97 The dub-inspired genre
mutations of electronica (that is, Barrow’s idea of dub as stylistic “virus”)
d u b / 254
finds a clear parallel in her use of biologist Lynn Margulis’s theories of
symbiotic viral and bacterial relationships between humans and nonhuman
species98 (in fact, dub’s perpetual mutability strikes a resonant chord in an
age in which the virus has become a dominant global metaphor). Finally, in
an age when erotic desire itself has, of necessity, become more fragmented
and skewed, Parisi’s writing dramatizes the way dub’s fragmentary con-
struction of musical pleasure has helped articulate new strategies of eroti-
cism. The spectres of versioning, remixing, subversion of formal develop-
ment, genre-bending, and improvisation clearly haunt her ideas:
[There is] a third way out of the binarism between embodiment and disembodi-
ment to engage with the biodigital mutations of human sex. This third way maps
the emergence of a new (but ancient) kind of sex and reproduction, linking these
mutations to microcellular processes of information transmission that involve the
unnatural mixtures of bodies and sexes. The speeding up of information trading,
not only across sexes, but across species and between humans and machines, ex-
poses the traits of a non-climactic (non-discharging) desire spreading through a
matrix of connections that feed off each other without an ultimate apex of satisfac-
tion. . . . The mutual feedback between biology and technology marks an unpredict-
able proliferation of molecular mutations that poses radical questions not only
about human sex but also about what we take a body, nature and matter to be. This
new approach investigates the imminent perversion of mutant species, bodies and
sexes by the engineering of an altogether different conception of sex, femininity,
and desire—abstract sex.99
Thus, it is not only musicians who have transformed dub music into a glo-
bal influence. It is also writers and thinkers such as Miller, Chude-Sokei,
Gilroy, Eshun, and Parisi who have grappled most creatively with the soci-
ocultural implications of this music and shaped the metamusical resonance
of dub as it relates to broader issues of culture. In their hands, dub is grad-
ually evolving into the kind of broadly applied metaphor for early twenty-
first-century culture that jazz was for the late twentieth.
It is in this global setting that the dub and the remix have come to stand as
prominent metaphors of contemporary culture. The music’s strategies
have become a valuable existential resource for non-Jamaican, non-
Caribbean artists and intellectuals whose own work reflects a crisis (or at
the very least, a transformation) of certainty, authority, and meaning
within Western culture. As discussed in the previous chapter, dub might be
thought of as the electronic music of African exiles several generations re-
moved. But its sonic symbolism has also come to resonate with a global age
in which diaspora ironically represents one of the most stable examples of
“community” in our transnational moment and in which exile, in the
Coda / 255
words of Edward Said, “has been transformed so easily into a potent, even
enriching motif of modern culture.”100 As we have seen, dub contributed
musically to articulations of the postcolonial within Jamaica and the post-
imperial outside of Jamaica; the qualities of the music reflected a good
amount of what has been claimed as the postmodern in music.101 It is the
structural elements of fragmentation, discontinuity, and multiple meanings
that unites dub within this field of competing and complementary
“posts.”102 The music’s structural uncertainty resonates with an age of the
refugee, the nomad, the displaced person, the de-centered inhabitant of the
culturally exploding megapolis, the liminal terrorist, and a historical period
in which the old seems to be giving way to an uncertain new at an unprece-
dented rate. As Kevin Martin surmised, “Dub proved there was an audi-
ence eager for insecurity.”103 From the perspective of this book, such inse-
curity reflects shifting political and cultural contours, and demonstrates
how the cultural products of the (formerly) colonized ultimately exert in-
fluence upon the culture of the (former) colonizer.
This idea, of course, is nothing new. Thinkers from Fanon to Gilroy
have long argued for an understanding of the experiences of colonizer
and colonized as symbiotically intertwined, and this understanding inevi-
tably implies a cross-cultural renegotiation of our understanding of mod-
ernity and modernist art. The result is that the constellation of formerly
colonized cultures (including those of the African diaspora) are under-
stood not in opposition to modernity, but as modernity’s many local con-
jugations. The particular local conjugation I have addressed in this book
differs from typical understandings of Western artistic modernism,
which is often considered as either a deliberate break from the past, or a
depiction of the alienation of artists from the corporate and industrial
state.104 In contrast, modernism for artists of Africa and the African dias-
pora often represented an opportunity to seize the reins of self-definition
and to position themselves as agents in the postcolonial transformation of
society.105 Their rescuing of the definitions of black subjectivity from Eu-
rocentric discourses was essential to the postcolonial moment and perma-
nently altered the terms of debate on both sides. In this book, I have dem-
onstrated the role that musical technology and local concepts of
experimentation played in this redefinition. In James Lastra’s thinking, the
experience we describe as “modernity” has been fundamentally shaped by
the technological media of the modern era.106 Within divergent experi-
ences of modernity, then, these technologies become implicated in various
local dynamics of cultural redefinition, while ultimately remaining a com-
plementary part of modernity, newly understood (per Gilroy) in global
terms. The composite idea of technology being developed according to
d u b / 256
differing cultural priorities helps nuance the stereotypical “impact” model
in which technology is seen to flow in one direction from technologically
advanced to technologically marginal cultures.107
This same process is relevant to music. When we blend the parallel sig-
nificance of dub’s role within and outside of Jamaica, it becomes clear that
the central artistic revolutions of the late twentieth century were not ac-
complished solely in the intellectual and cultural centers of Europe and
America. They were also accomplished on the margins of Europe and
America, where Western cultural forms mixed, mingled, or collided with a
variety of non-Western forms in the creation of new aesthetic, cultural, and
technological centers.
Conclusion
A lot of people now are using the word “dub,” and I can understand the reason
why they do it, because it sounds hip. It’s trendy. But when I’ve gone out and done
dub events around the world, and particularly in certain European cities, people
say, “Play something faster.” They haven’t actually got a fucking clue! They don’t
understand at all the origins. . . . But it’s very convenient for their purposes and I
can understand that what we have been inspired by has inspired a whole new gen-
eration. And they’ve blatantly said, “We’ll have that for ourselves. We’ll nick that
for our purposes.” Which is quite healthy, it’s not bad. It’s just a fact of life.108
—Adrian Sherwood, 2001
Emerging from the multiple sites of recording studios, sound systems,

discotheques and raves, remix culture has transformed the practices of
popular song composition in several important ways. In the studio sphere,
where production and composition have increasingly overlapped, the ad-
vent of multitrack and later digital recording technology gradually al-
lowed studio engineers to reconfigure recorded materials in as many ways
as they desired and, in so doing, to introduce an ethos of improvisation
into the formerly fixed medium of the sound recording. In this coda, we
have seen that Jamaican music played a central role in this shift. As Steve
Barrow noted to me in 2004, “Madonna’s got a dub version, where did she
get that from? ‘Drum & bass’—what’s drum & bass? A new music? There’s
records from 1974 saying: ‘Drum & bass by King Tubbys.’ He was the guy
who did that. That all happened because of the sound system being out-
side of Jamaica.”109
This very different musical conception initially factored into currents of
musical exoticism and the Western audience’s need to regenerate its own
musical traditions through encounter with new and novel “outsider”
sounds. In the global music marketplace, dub’s low-fi, densely textured aes-
thetic and self-consciously crude production values marked it as an “authen-
tic” and exotic pop music to Western ears. This exoticism in turn allowed
Coda / 257
the music to factor into various sociomusical strategies outside of Jamaica,
such as the use of low-fidelity aesthetics to dramatize a distance from the
corporate music culture, or to dramatize a subcultural distance from what
was thought to be “mainstream” society. Thus, it is unsurprising that dub
production styles most influenced British popular music during the 1970s,
when the dissenting stance of punk music was influential. It is equally un-
surprising that although roots reggae had been popular for years, dub itself
gained wider recognition in the United States during the 1990s, concur-
rently with the rise of the self-proclaimed marginality of corporate hip-hop,
as well as the “alternative” genre of rock music, in which musicians em-
braced a deliberate low-fi aesthetic in order to distance themselves from the
increasing standardization of corporate rock music. Most recently, the rise
of electronica has enabled the music to be retrospectively constructed as a
primitivist music for the incipient digital age, despite the complex technol-
ogy through which it was produced.
Of course, this primitivism is a problematic construction; although
Jamaica’s engineers consciously and deliberately violated many conven-
tions of studio recording, they did it with a specific aesthetic in mind and
did not conceive of their work as self-consciously “low-fi.” In fact, they
were aspiring to just the opposite: to maximize their limited equipment to
achieve the best possible sound. Scientist, for example, articulated this in
competitive terms that undermine ideas of the “primitive”: “If you listen to
American music from the 1970s, and you listen to reggae from that time,
the fidelity of reggae was higher . . . the fidelity that we was getting in Ja-
maica at that time, a lot of record labels [in America] just didn’t have it.
Motown been putting out records using much better recording equip-
ment. They had the money that they could do it. But when you listen to
Motown, the drums were weak and way in the background.”110
I have argued that dub’s sonic and formal concepts have become models
for pop song composition in the digital age. If cutting edge pop music in
the digital age seems to deliberately subvert the industrial and modernist
narratives of mastery, the creators of dub were exemplars, creating a prac-
tice that was, to cite Houston Baker, a deliberate “deformation of mas-
tery.”111 Inevitably, this “deformation” was merely an intermediate step in
the creation of a new kind of mastery.
Not everyone hears this as mastery, of course. Linguist John McWhorter,
for example, bemoans both the hyperverbosity of rap and the fragmented
texts of electronica as musical legacies of the countercultural shifts of the
1960s, which he feels have contributed to a lessening of the (English) lan-
guage’s capability for sophisticated and nuanced expression:
d u b / 258
We could almost predict that after the sixties, a form of pop music would emerge
that is all about the performer talking over a beat. . . . Certainly we haven’t tossed
out melody and harmony altogether. But we can do without them if the beat is fine
enough. . . . The eternal pulsations of house music, in which lyrical fragments are
sprinkled thin as mere decoration, take our rhythmic fetish to its logical ex-
treme. . . . Rhythm is deeply, elementally seductive. But it remains a less elaborated
form of expression than the long, musical lines, with subtle shifting harmonies
underneath that the classical musician sweats over. Mahler was complex not only
within four measure units, but also in these units’ constant and unpredictable trans-
formations throughout a movement.112
One could, of course, make the counterargument that fragmentation is,

for very concrete reasons, a central coping mechanism of our time. In an
age of information overload, an aesthetic of fragmentation can be seen as a
way of using art to break down the power of excess wordage. Hence the
proliferation of fragmentary aesthetics in fashion, design, and advertising,
an aesthetic logic that will inevitably evolve its own sophisticated modes of
elaboration and abstraction. Fragmentation can also be seen as inevitable in
an age in which cultural codes of all kinds are being deconstructed, recon-
structed, and recombined at an unprecedented rate.113
Nevertheless, McWhorter raises an important point. Is it conceivable
that in the future, electronic manipulations of timbre, texture, and sound
space will be understood as containing emotional depth intellectual rigor
equal to that of (for example) the twelve manipulated tones of the Western
tradition? Only time will tell; in any case, I believe that Jamaica’s influence
on global pop music runs deeper than its complex of sonic influences. In
America and Europe of the 1960s and 1970s, events such as countercultural
music festivals were sites in which the spiritual, political, and cultural impli-
cations of new forms of sound technology (high-intensity amplification,
PA systems, sound processing circuitry) could be communally explored
and evaluated by musicians, audiences, and technicians alike. It is interest-
ing to note, though, that for every high-intensity amplification system
used, there was also an Indian spiritual guru, African traditional drummer,
or Native American rain chant. We infer that such festivals were also sites in
which the new technology was being evaluated in terms of the dominant
cultural, political, and spiritual tropes of the times. The same holds true of
the carnivalesque setting of the Jamaican sound system, sonically serviced
by recording engineers who, by virtue of their cultural location, implicitly
worked to ground the new sound technology within the critique of tech-
nology symbolized in the Rasta emphasis on “roots.” As dub moved be-
yond Jamaica, this dichotomy was in turn an influence in the rave culture of
the 1980s and 1990s, which was predicated on the juxtaposition of digital
Coda / 259
sound (and visual) technology and the countercultural ethos of the 1960s
festivals. A glance through the colorful rave advertisements collected in
Joel Jordan’s Searching for the Perfect Beat (2000) makes this juxtaposition
abundantly clear. Myriad forms of plant and animal life, wonders of global
topography and religious iconography are juxtaposed or fused with the
technological iconography of science fiction, warfare, and the computer
age. In these times, when new forms of sound technology seem to prolife-
rate faster than humans’ ability to digest and adapt them to specific needs,
communal settings such as concerts, raves, and festivals implicitly human-
ize and spiritualize these technologies.113
Although a thread can be drawn through these various cultural mo-
ments, my point here is not to assert a linear or causal connection. Rather, I
am suggesting that such naturalist values are typically asserted in conjunc-
tion with technological advances, in the communal hope that the technol-
ogy may remain accountable to social concerns and meaningful to human
concerns. With endless album covers displaying tape reels, mixing con-
soles, and banks of sound processors, Jamaican dub music certainly helped
iconicize the technology of the recording studio in the visual imagination
of popular music. But its Afro-inflected humanizing, communalizing, and
spiritualizing of new forms of sound technology is almost surely its most
profound contribution to global popular music.
d u b / 260
Appendix
Recommended Listening (by engineer)
SYLVAN MORRIS
at studio one
(Note—as Studio One’s heyday predated the rise of dub, most of the Studio One recordings
cited below are composed of vocal cuts.)
Horace Andy: Mr. Bassie
Heartbeat CD HB 88
Burning Spear: Creation Rebel
Hearbeat 11661=7664–2
Gladiators: Bongo Red
Hearbeat 11661–7662–2
Jackie Mittoo: Tribute to Jackie Mittoo
Heartbeat 189/190
Jackie Mittoo: The Keyboard King at Studio One
Universal Sound USCD 8
Various: Best of Studio One
Heartbeat HB 07
Various: Studio One Classics
Soul Jazz SJR 96
Various: Studio One Roots
Soul Jazz SJR 56
Various: Studio One Rockers
Soul Jazz SJR 48
Various: Studio One Scorcher
Soul Jazz 67
Appendix / 261
The Studio One Story (DVD)
Soul Jazz CD/DVD 68
at harry j
Burning Spear: Original Living Dub, Volume 1
Burning Spear BM 316
(Winston Rodney productions; dub versions of songs from Burning Spear’s Social
Living and Hail H.I.M. albums)
Bunny Wailer: Dubd’sco, Volumes 1–2
Solomonic/RAS 3239
(Bunny Wailer productions; dub versions of tracks from Wailer’s Blackheart Man,
Bunny Wailer Sings the Wailers and Roots, Radics, Rockers, Reggae albums)
Augustus Pablo: East of the River Nile
Shanachie CD 45051
(Augustus Pablo productions; instrumental and dub versions)
KING TUBBY
King Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown
Shanachie 44019
(Augustus Pablo productions)
King Tubby & Soul Syndicate: Freedom Sounds in Dub
Blood & Fire BAFCD 011
(Bertram Brown productions)
Dub From the Roots & The Roots of Dub
(Bunny Lee productions)
Reissued together on Moll-Selekta 8
King Tubby’s Special: 1973–1976
Trojan CDTRD 409
(A two-disc collection of tracks produced by Winston “Niney” Holness and Bunny
Lee)
Johnny Clarke: A Ruffer Version 1974–1978
Trojan TJACD 025
(Bunny Lee productions. A mixture of vocal and dub versions with several tracks
featuring the “flying cymbal” sound. Also contains mixes by King Jammy and
Philip Smart)
Sugar Minott: Ghetto-ology + Dub
Easy Star ES-1004
(Sugar Minott productions. A “showcase” album containing vocal songs and their
dub versions)
Yabby You: Jesus Dread 1972–1977
(Vivian “Yabby You” Jackson productions; features many vocal songs and dub
mixes)
Appendix / 262
Morwells Unlimited Meet King Tubbys: Dub Me
(Morwells productions)
PHILIP SMART
Creation of Dub (a.k.a. King Tubby Meets the Aggrovators at the Dub Station)
Attack BSMT 015
(Bunny Lee productions)
Tappa Zukie: Tappa Zukie in Dub
(Tappa Zukie productions)
Johnny Clarke: A Ruffer Version
Trojan TJACD 025
(Bunny Lee productions with several tracks featuring the “flying cymbal” sound.
Also contains mixes by King Tubby and King Jammy)
PRINCE JAMMY
Prince Jammy: Uhuru in Dub
CSA 2
(early Jammy productions; dub version of Black Uhuru’s Black Sounds of
Freedom album [a.k.a. Love Crisis])
Scientist and Prince Jammy Strike Back!
Trojan CDTRL 210
(Linval Thompson productions)
Hugh Mundell: Africa Must Be Free by 1983 + Africa Must Be Free Dub
Ras RASCD 3201
(Augustus Pablo productions; a “showcase” set containing vocal songs and their
dub versions)
Gregory Isaacs: Slum in Dub
CSA BS 1051
(Gregory Isaacs productions; dub version of Isaacs’s Slum album)
Horace Andy: In the Light + In the Light Dub
(Everton da Silva productions; a “showcase” set containing vocal songs and their
dub versions)
Horace Andy: Good Vibes
(Horace Andy productions; extended vocal-dub mixes originally released on 12")
Prince Jammy Meets Crucial Bunny in Dub
Auralux LUXX CD 016
(Ken “Fatman” Gordon productions. Also contains mixes by “Crucial” Bunny
Graham)
Appendix / 263
Dub Landing, Volumes 1 and 2
Auralux LUXX CD 017
(Linval Thompson productions. Also contains mixes by Scientist)
OVERTON “SCIENTIST” BROWN

linval thompson productions
Scientist: Scientist Meets the Space Invaders
Greensleeves GRELCD 019
Scientist: Scientist Encounters Pac-Man
Scientist and Prince Jammy Strike Back!
Trojan CDTRL 210
(also contains mixes by Prince Jammy)
Dub Landing, Volumes 1 and 2
Auralux LUXX CD 017
(also contains mixes by Prince Jammy)
Wailing Souls: Wailing
Volcano VPR 008; rereleased in resequenced form as Face the Devil (Trojan)
(A “showcase” set containing vocals songs and their dub versions)
Linval Thompson Sounds: Jah Jah Dreader Than Dread
Majestic Reggae MRCD 1005
(A mix of songs and dub versions)
henry “junjo” lawes productions

Scientist: Heavyweight Dub Champion
Scientist: Scientist Rids the World of the Curse of the Evil Vampires
Scientist: Scientist Wins the World Cup
bunny lee productions

Scientist: Scientific Dub
Clocktower/Abraham, various matrix #’s
LEE PERRY (AS BOTH PRODUCER AND ENGINEER)

early years through 1973– 1974
Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers 1967 to
1972, Volume Two
JAD-CD-1004
Appendix / 264
Upsetters: Return of Django
Trojan CDTRL 19
Upsetters: Eastwood Rides Again
Trojan CDTRL 125
Various: The Upsetter Box Set
Trojan Perry 1
Upsetters: Blackboard Jungle Dub
Auralux LUXX CD 004
The Upsetters & Friends: Version Like Rain
Trojan CDTRL 278
Lee Perry & Friends: Shocks of Mighty 1969–1974
Trojan CDAT 104
Lee Perry & Friends: Give Me Power
Trojan CDTRL 254
black ark years

Lee Perry: Scratch Attack
Ras RASCD 1415
(compilation containing an inferior version of Blackboard Jungle Dub, but also the
excellent Chapter One album)
Lee “Scratch” Perry (and various artists): Arkology
Island Jamaica CRNCD 6/524 379–2
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Friends: Open the Gate
Trojan CD PRY 2
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Friends: Build the Ark
Trojan CD PRY 3
Lee Perry (and various artists): Voodooism
Pressure Sounds PSCD 009
Lee Perry (and various artists): Produced and Directed by the Upsetter
Congos: Heart of the Congos
George Faith: To Be A Lover
Hip-O Select/Island B0001691–01
Upsetters: Super Ape
Hip-O Select/Island B0002430–02
Lee Perry Presents African Roots
Trojan 06076–80552–2
Appendix / 265
ERROL THOMPSON
at randy’ s
Various Artists: Java Java Dub
Impact Rebel 1
Impact All-Stars: Forward the Bass: Dub From Randy’s, 1972–1975
at joe gibbs
Joe Gibbs & the Professionals: African Dub All-Mighty, Chapters 1 & 2
Rocky One RGCD 023
(Joe Gibbs productions)
Joe Gibbs & the Professionals: African Dub All-Mighty, Chapters 3 & 4
Rocky One RGCD 024
Joe Gibbs & the Professionals: No Bones for the Dogs
Joe Gibbs & Errol Thompson: The Mighty Two
Heartbeat HB 73
Skin Flesh & Bones Meet The Revolutionaries: Fighting Dub, 1975–1979
Hot Pot CKV-CD-1005
(Lloyd “Spiderman” Campbell productions)
NEIL “MAD PROFESSOR” FRASER

Any recordings from Fraser’s extensive Dub Me Crazy or Black Liberation Dub
series, all on the Ariwa label.
Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor: No Protection
Gyroscope GYR 6619–2
ADRIAN SHERWOOD
Prince Far I: Cry Tuff Dub Encounter, Chapter 1
Danceteria RE129CD
Lee “Scratch” Perry & Dub Syndicate: Time Boom X De Devil Dead
EMI 7243 5 30026 2 6
Lee “Scratch” Perry: From My Secret Laboratory
Island RRCD 55 842 706–2
Creation Rebel: Historic Moments, Volume One
On-U Sound 7 72784–2
Appendix / 266
Creation Rebel: Historic Moments, Volume Two
On-U Sound 7 72799–2
Various: The On-U Sound Box
Cleopatra CLP-0576–2
DENNIS BOVELL
Winston Edwards & Blackbeard at 10 Downing Street
Studio 16 WE 0010
Blackbeard: I Wah Dub
More Cut / Zonophone 7243 5 82762 2 0
Dennis Bovell: Decibel
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Independent Intavenshun: The Island Anthology
Island 314 524 575–2
BILL LASWELL
Many dub projects on the Subharmonic label.
Bob Marley: Dreams of Freedom
Island 314–524 419–2
Various: Mysteries of Creation
Axiom 162–531 070–2
LLOYD “BULLWACKIES” BARNES

The Meditations: I Love Jah
Wackies 510
Wayne Jarrett: Bubble Up
Wackies 191
Horace Andy: Dance Hall Style
Wackies 1383
Horace Andy Meets Nago Morris / Wayne Jarrett: Mini-Showcase
Wackies 1716/1722
Creation Dub
Wackies 0041
Natures Dub
Wackies 306
Jamaica Super Dub
Wackies 1720
Appendix / 267
DRUM & BASS/ JUNGLE
A Guy Called Gerald: Black Secret Technology
Juice Box (no matrix no.)
LTJ Bukem: Mixmag Live!
Moonshine 60003–2
Various: Breakbeat Science
Vital SCIN CD00
Various: 100% Drum & Bass
Telstar TCD 2847
TRIP-HOP
Various: Headz
MoWax MW026CD
Portishead: Portishead
London/Go Beat 314–539–189–4
Massive Attack: Protection
Virgin 7243 8 39883 2 7
DJ SPOOKY
DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid: Necropolis: The Dialogic Project
Knitting Factory Works KFW 185
DJ Spooky: Dubtometry
Thirsty Ear THI 57128.2
DJ Spooky: Riddim Warfare
Outpost-Geffen
THE GERMAN CONTEXT

Rhythm & Sound
Basic Channel BC 01042
Rhythm & Sound: The Versions (Burial Mix)
Asphodel ASP 2019
Rhythm & Sound: See Mi Yah
BCP 55872
Maurizio: M-Series
Indigo 23722
Pole: 1
Matador OLE 339
Pole: 2
Matador OLE 359
Appendix / 268
Pole: 3
Matador OLE 428
Mouse on Mars: Instrumentals
Thrill Jockey Sonig 01 CD
OTHER RECORDINGS OF INTEREST

Keith Hudson: Pick A Dub
(Keith Hudson productions)
Keith Hudson and Friends: The Hudson Affair
Trojan 06076–80507–2
(Keith Hudson productions)
Augustus Pablo: King David’s Melody
Shanachie 45064
(Augustus Pablo productions)
U-Roy and Various: Version Galore
Trojan 06076 80383–2
(Duke Reid productions)
Aquarius Dub
Black Solidarity AQCD 001
(Herman Chin-Loy productions)
Prince Buster: The Message Dubwise
Melodisc MS7
(Prince Buster productions)
Appendix / 269
Notes
%
Introduction (pp. 1–25)
1. McEvilley 1993.
2. Henzell quoted in Davis and Simon 1982:51.
3. For example, see “Best of the Century” in Time (December 31, 1999). Lee
Perry was awarded a Grammy for his album Jamaican E.T. (Trojan/Sanctuary
Records, 2002).
4. Armstrong’s “King of the Zulus” features a skit midway through the
performance that includes a Jamaican voice. See The Best of Louis Armstrong: The
Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Sony, 1999).
5. The terms used in the stylistic periodization of Jamaican popular music have
differed in different accounts. To take two examples: Barrow and Dalton use the
term early reggae to indicate music created between approximately 1968 and 1972,
roots reggae to indicate music created between approximately 1973 and 1980, and
dancehall to indicate music created between approximately 1980 and 1985 (in this
account, dub music is discussed as a subgenre of the roots reggae and dancehall
periods). These authors use the term ragga to indicate the digital music that began
to be produced in 1985 (see Barrow and Dalton 1997:82–324). Norman Stolzoff
(2000), on the other hand, uses the term reggae to indicate all of the music
produced between 1968 and 1985, and uses the term dancehall to indicate the digital
music that began to be produced in 1985 (see his chapter “Post-Independence
Jamaica”). Stolzoff also uses the term dancehall in a broader sense, to refer to any
historical site in which Jamaicans enjoyed music communally. For my purposes in
this book, the most important distinction to be made is between music performed
by ensembles using standard popular music instrumentation (voice, electric guitar,
electric bass, drum set, keyboards, wind instruments, percussion, and so forth), and
music created by digital means (digital keyboards, samplers, drum machines,
computers, and so forth). Thus, I use “reggae” and “roots reggae” interchangeably
to refer to the music produced between approximately 1968 and 1985, and “ragga”
to refer to the digital music produced thereafter. I believe this is consistent with the
general usage of these terms in Jamaica.
6. Sources for this influence of experimental music on the popular tradition
would include Cope 1996; Shapiro 2000; and Prendergast 2000.
7. For sources on the musical legacy of punk, see Bennett 2001; or Laing 1997.
8. For sources on ambient music, see Bates 1997; Tamm 1989; and Mardis 2002.
Notes / 271
9. See Tingen 2001.
10. For sources on house and disco music, see Fikentscher 2000; and Lawrence
2003.
11. Chanan 1995:48.
12. See Davis 1985 and T. White 1983 for biographies of Marley.
13. See King 1998.
14. See also Stolzoff 2000:66.
15. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell interviewed August 2001. Also see
Bradley 2000:397 for more on the topic of Marley’s gradual distance from Jamaica’s
dancehall culture.
16. See Alexander Weheliye, “ ‘Feenin’: Posthuman Voices in Contemporary
Black Popular Music” (in Nelson 2002). The article makes the point that
authenticity in soul music was constructed upon relatively direct and unmediated
emotional expression.
17. Dave Hendley interviewed June 2002. Also see Bradley 2000:413 for a
discussion of the negative initial perception of reggae in Britian.
18. See Malm and Wallis 1992:38.
19. Chude-Sokei 1997b:5.
20. The Wailing LP is currently available, in resequenced form, on Trojan
Records as Face the Devil (Trojan CD TRL 360).
21. For an account of this performance and its background events, see Davis
1985:212–16.
22. In The Soundscape, sonologist R. Murray Schaefer offers a useful insight
about the transformations wrought on human audio culture by radio: “Radio
introduced the surrealistic soundscape. . . . The modern radio schedule, a
confection of material from various sources, joined in thoughtful, funny, ironic,
absurd or provocative juxtapositions, has introduced many contradictions into
modern life and perhaps contributed more than anything else to the breakup of
unified cultural systems and values” (Schaefer 1994:94).
23. Consult Gray 1991 for a comprehensive discussion of postindependence
Jamaican politics.
24. For example, see Hendley’s recollections in the notes to The Crowning of
Prince Jammy (Pressure Sounds PSCD 25).
25. See Lesser 2002; and T. White 1983.
26. See Lesser 2002 for a full-length biography of King Jammy.
27. Perry is the subject of a full-length biography by David Katz (2000).
28. For example, see Bilby in Manuel 1995:146.
29. See Waters (1985) for an examination of Manley’s use of reggae in his 1972
campaign. Also see King 1998.
30. One convenient starting point for a survey of religion in Jamaica is Morrish
1982.
31. Two comprehensive studies of Rastafari are Barrett 1997; and Chevannes
1994. See also Murrell 1999.
32. Hillman and D’Agostino 2003:291. For sources on the influence of Rastafari
across social classes, see Edmonds 2003.
33. See Stolzoff 2000:7.
34. The origins and etymology of the Hindi-derived term ganja have been
recounted in several publications; a brief introduction can be found in Shapiro
2003:210.
35. From the Wailing Souls LP The Very Best of the Wailing Souls (Greensleeves
GREL 99).
36. From the Horace Andy LP In the Light (Blood & Fire BAFCD 006).
37. From the Johnny Clarke LP Authorised Rockers (Virgin CDFL 9014).
Notes / 272
38. From the Wiser Dread compilation (Nighthawk 301).
39. From the Burning Spear LP Marcus Garvey (Island ILPS 9377).
40. From the Prince Far I CD Psalms for I (Pressure Sounds PSCD 35).
41. Manuel 1995:15.
42. See Hillman and D’Agostino 2003:291.
43. See Williams 1961:48–71.
44. Paul “Computer Paul” Henton, interviewed March 2002.
45. See Shapiro 2003:210–13.
46. Wallace as quoted in Van Pelt 2005:39.
47. Richardson 1992:130–31.
48. See Shapiro 2003:210.
49. Erlmann 1996b:49.
50. Prominent studies of hip-hop include Chang (2005), George (1998),
Perkins (1996), Potter (1995), Rose (1994) and Toop (1984).
51. For example, see the chapters devoted to dub in Davis and Simon (1982),
Hebdige (1987), Barrow and Dalton (1997), Potash (1997), Foster (1999), and
Howard (2004).
52. See Manuel 1995:237–40.
53. I have taken this phrase from John Corbett’s excellent essay “Experimental
Oriental: New Music and Other Others” in Born and Hesmondhalgh (2000).
54. The recent literature on electronically produced popular music (broadly
defined) would include Rose (1994), Johnson (1996), Poschardt (1995), Reynolds
(1998), Fikentscher (2000), Prendergast (2000), and Shapiro (2000). The
literature on the recording studio would include Eisenberg (1987), Chanan (1995),
Porcello (1996), Cunningham (1998), Howard (2004), Meintjes (2003), Zak
(2001), and Cogan and Clark (2003).
55. See also Meintjes 2003:9.
56. For example, see the chapter “Five Themes in the Study of Caribbean
Music,” in Manuel 1995; Walder 1998; and Mintz and Price 1992.
57. Obviously, this type of reference to “the music” evokes the contentious
debate around gender issues in historical musicology and music theory between
scholars such as Pieter Van den Toorn and Leo Treitler on one hand, and Susan
McClary, Suzanne Cusick, Susan C. Cook, and Ruth Solie, on the other.
Ethnomusicology, founded on both musicological and sociocultural inquiry and
the axiom that music both constitutes and is constituted by sociocultural forces, has
generally been less susceptible to this type of debate. See for example Solie 1995;
Van den Toorn 1995; Cook and Tsou 1994; Cusick 1994; and McClary 1994.
58. See Ramsey 2003: 19–22.
59. See Everett 1999.
60. See Thompson 2005.
1. Electronic Music in Jamaica (pp. 26–44)
1. Bilby in Manuel 1995:152.

2. See Bilby in Manuel 1995 for a historical survey of Jamaican music.
3. Ibid., 145. This account of pre-reggae Jamaican music is drawn mainly from
Bilby’s chapter.
4. Ibid., 152.
5. Barrow and Dalton 1997:8. For additional information on mento, consult
Neely (forthcoming). Also see Neely 2001.
7. Barrow and Dalton 1997:7. See also Neely (forthcoming).
Notes / 273
8. See Bilby in Manuel 1995:156.
9. Barrow and Dalton 1997:11.
10. Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, as quoted in the notes to Studio One Rockers
(Soul Jazz SJR CD48).
12. Bradley (2000:51) mentions Higgs and Wilson’s “Manny Oh,” Theophilus
Beckford’s “Easy Snapping,” and the Fowlkes Brothers’s “Oh Carolina” as typifying
the shift from R&B to ska.
13. See Bradley 2000:52 for more on the mento roots of the upbeat comping
style.
14. For a selection of Jamaican rhythm and blues recordings from this period,
consult Ska Boogie: Jamaican R&B, The Dawn of Ska (Sequel NEX CD 254).
15. See the Skatalites Foundation Ska (Heartbeat CD HB 185/186, produced by
Dodd), The Skatalites (Treasure Isle, produced by Reid), and/or Ska-Boo-Da-Ba
(West Side WESM 518, produced by Yap).
16. See Bradley 2000:163.
17. Both tracks can be found on the collection Tougher Than Tough: The Story of
Jamaican Music (Mango 162–539–935–2 518 399–2). See Bradley 2000:51 for more
on ska as a reflection of Jamaica’s independence.
18. There were also vocal songs with clear pro-African content, such as Lord
Lebby’s “Ethiopia” (see Katz 2003:34 for a discussion of this).
19. See Bradley 2000:157–58 for more on this role of the bass, and the overall
significance of the introduction of the electric bass to Jamaican music.
20. See Katz 2003:67, 78, and Bradley 2000:165–66 for more on the
introduction of the one drop pattern.
21. See Davis and Simon 1982:16; Bradley 2000:163.
22. Clive Chin interviewed March 1999. Pianist Gladstone Anderson makes a
similar observation about the less strenuous physical demands that rock steady
placed on musicians who had previously played ska (Katz 2003:69–70).
23. See Davis and Simon 1977:16–18, Katz 2003:80, and Bradley 2000:163–64.
24. Katz 2003:65.
25. See Katz 2003:76 and Bradley 2000:195. An excellent introduction to the
work of Lyn Taitt is Lyn Taitt & the Jets (2005). Hold Me Tight: Anthology 65–73
(Trojan 06076–80543–2).
26. These were the words with which Bunny Wailer opened his 1986 concert at
Madison Square Garden in New York City. Brodber and Greene similarly cite a
popular definition of “reggae” to be “fit for a king” (Brodber and Greene 1988:15).
27. “Toots” Hibbert in Davis and Simon 1992:17.
28. Lee Perry in Grand Royal #2 (1995), p. 69.
29. Drummer Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace as quoted in Van Pelt 2005.
30. See Davis and Simon 1992:14.
31. See Bradley 2000:157 for information on Byron Lee. For an excellent profile
of Jackie Jackson, see Gorney 2006.
32. For representative (and readily available) examples of the “one drop” rhythm,
see Bob Marley’s “One Drop” (from Survival, 1979), or his “One Love/People Get
Ready” (from Exodus, 1977). The title track of Exodus is also a good example of the
“steppers” rhythm, as is the slower “Jamming,” from the same album. Several
excellent examples of the “flying cymbal” pattern can be found on Johnny Clarke’s
CD A Ruffer Version, particularly on “None Shall Escape the Judgement,” “Enter
Into His Gates With Praise,” and “Move Out of Babylon Rastaman.”
33. “Do the Reggae” can be found on the Toots and the Maytals CD The Very
Best of Toots & the Maytals (Island, 2000). “People Funny Boy” can be found on
Notes / 274
the Lee Perry and the Upsetters CD Some of the Best (Heartbeat, 1990). “Nanny
Goat” can be found on the Larry Marshall LP Presenting Larry Marshall
(Heartbeat, 1990).
34. Brodber 1985:54.
35. See Katz 2003:95.
36. Philip Smart, interviewed June 2003.
37. Bradley 2000:194.
38. Jackie Jackson and Byron Lee tend to be associated with the rock steady era,
but were important players in the reggae era as well.
39. Sherwood, interviewed November 2001.
40. Computer Paul Henton interviewed March 2002. Also see Bradley 2000:171,
197, for an idea of the rock steady period as a high-water mark for Jamaican music,
and rock steady songs as Jamaica’s “universally acceptable pop package.”
41. This photo of Perry can be found in the photo section of Katz 2000, in the
notes to The Complete Upsetters Singles Collection, Volume One (Trojan, 1998) or
the notes to The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1967–1972, Part II (JAD,
1997).
42. This photo can be found on the back of the Lee Perry LP/CD Megaton Dub,
Volume Two (Seven Leaves, 1992).
44. Bradley 2000:199.
45. See Lastra 2000:84–91.
46. Chanan 1995:59.
47. Ibid., 77.
48. Ibid., 144–45.
49. Ibid., 118. Daniel’s “tapesichordist” term is cited by Matthew Malsky in his
essay in Lysloff and Gay 2003. Daniel actually coined the term in relation to
musique concrète, but I felt it was also useful in the context of my own discussion.
50. For background on Les Paul and the foundations of overdubbing, see the
chapter “Let There Be Sound on Sound” in Cunningham 1998.
51. Chanan 1995:104.
52. For sources on these producers, consult Williams 1972; White 1994;
McDermott 1992; and Martin 1979. The best source on Macero’s work with Miles
Davis is Tingen 2001. A good (although somewhat flawed and incomplete) general
introduction to the work of these producers is Cunningham 1998.
53. See Harding 1933, esp. chap. VIII “The Musical Significance of the New
Instrument.”
54. See Schwartz 1973:4–5, 70.
55. Ibid., 9.
56. See Doyle 2004:32.
57. Bradley 2000:22.
58. See Malm and Wallis 1992:47.
59. These two definitions of “electronic music” are offered in Schwartz 1973:4–
6. See also Chanan 1995:146.
60. For example, see Stockhausen’s Hymnen and Kurzwellen, Cage’s Williams
Mix, or Ussachevsky’s Wireless Fantasy.
61. See Schwartz 1973:253.
62. Smithies 2001.
63. See for example Lewis’s essay “Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological
and Eurological Perspectives,” in Fischlin and Heble 2004.
64. See Witmer 1989 for a survey of the colonial-era traditions of live musical
performance in Jamaica, which included jazz and blues.
Notes / 275
65. For a discussion of the social overtones of fidelity in popular music, see
Tony Grajeda’s essay “The Feminization of Rock” in Beebe 2002.
66. See Kobena Mercer’s essay “Romare Bearden, 1964: Collage as
Kunstwollen” and Lowery Sims’s essay “The Post-Modern Modernism of Wifredo
Lam”; both in Mercer 2005. Another relevant source is Rubin 1984.
67. See Gilroy’s essay “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity” in
Gilroy 1993a.
68. For example, see producer Prince Buster’s comments in Bradley 2000:11.
69. See Brodber and Greene 1988:15.
70. See Davis and Simon 1997:14, Manuel and Bilby 1995:156, Barrow and
Dalton 1997:14–17, or Stolzoff 2000:47–48.
71. Dodd quoted in the notes to Studio One Rockers (Soul Jazz SJR CD 48). The
information about his early equipment is taken from Barrow and Dalton 1997:15.
72. In Norman Stolzoff ’s account, Hedley Jones, who had learned his trade
while a member of the Royal Air Force in England, is probably Jamaica’s most
important pioneer of sound system electronics. Jones’s assistants Fred Stanford and
Jacky Eastwood went on to become the main electronic technicians for the sound
systems of Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd, respectively (see Stolzoff 2000:45). See
also Katz 2003:5, 47, for more information on Jones, and pp. 49–50 for more
information on Lloyd Daley.
73. Bradley 2000:4.
74. Chude-Sokei 1997b:188.
75. Clarke 1980:131–32.
76. See Corbett’s essay “Experimental Oriental: New Music and Other Others”
in Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000.
77. Malm and Wallis 1992:39.
78. Bilby in Manuel 1995:151–59. Witmer (1989:17) also refers to “a rich and
vibrant—but almost entirely undocumented—Afro-Jamaican folk or traditional
music culture.”
2. “Every Spoil Is a Style” (pp. 45– 94)
1. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell, interviewed August 2001.

2. The correct rendering of this in Jamaican patwa would actually be written
“every ’pwail is a style.” See Cassidy and LePage 1980. Special thanks to Dr. Cecil
Gutzmore for this reference.
4. Clive Chin, interviewed May 1998.
5. George “Fully” Fullwood, interviewed November 2001.
6. Overton H. “Scientist” Brown, interviewed September 2001.
7. Dave Hendley, interviewed June 2002.
8. Actually, the term riddim tends to be used in two ways that will become
clear throughout this text. In terms of musical composition, it is used to refer to
the aforementioned generic patterns (bass lines and/or chord progressions). In
terms of recording practice, it is used to refer to the chordal instruments (guitar
and keyboard instruments). When an engineer says, “We put the drum and bass on
one track and the riddim on another track,” he is using this second definition of
the term.
9. From the Jackie Mittoo CD The Keyboard King at Studio One (Universal
Sound USCD 8).
10. Clive Chin, interviewed March 1999.
Notes / 276
11. Chang and Chen 1998:84. The brief studio history in the next two
paragraphs is largely taken from Chang and Chen’s “From Zinc Shack to 16-Track:
Early Jamaican Recording Studios” (in Chang and Chen 1998), and Barrow and
Dalton, chap. 1.
12. See Steve Milne’s two-part interview with Goodall in Full Watts 3 (2 and 3).
13. Katz 2003:127.
14. See Barrow and Dalton 1997:38, and Katz 2003:47.
15. See Goodall’s comments in Full Watts 3 (2):46.
16. Clive Chin, interviewed July 2000.
17. Bunny Lee, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
18. Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, interviewed March 2002.
20. Dudley Sibley, interviewed May 2000.
22. Bunny Lee, interviewed March 2002. Lee gives a slightly altered recounting
of this incident in the notes to Lee Perry and the Upsetters’s Blackboard Jungle Dub
(Auralux LUXX CD 004).
24. Sylvan Morris, interviewed May 2000.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., both quotes.
28. Goodall as quoted in Full Watts 3 (2):47.
29. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell, interviewed August 2001. See also
Stolzoff 2000:129–30 for a discussion of dub plates.
31. Goodall, as quoted in Full Watts 3 (2):46.
33. The compilation CD Version Like Rain (Trojan CDTRL 278) traces Lee
Perry’s recycling of three of his most popular backing tracks.
35. Edward “Bunny” Lee, interviewed March 2002.
36. “Java” can be found on the CD This is Augustus Pablo (Above Rock ARM
2001).
38. Clive Chin, interviewed March 1999. For additional versions of the “Java”
riddim, see “Jaro” and “Maro” from the Clive Chin–produced CD Forward the Bass
(Blood & Fire BAFCD 022).
39. Sly Dunbar, in Stern 1998:74.
40. Bunny Lee, interviewed March 2002.
41. George “Fully” Fulwood, interviewed November 2001.
42. Adrian Sherwood, interviewed November 2001.
43. See Colin A. Palmer’s “Identity, Race, and Black Power in Independent
Jamaica,” in Knight and Palmer 1989.
44. Errol Brown, interviewed February 2006.
45. Overton “Scientist” Brown, interviewed September 2001, Los Angeles,
California.
47. Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, interviewed March 2002. Dunbar is referring to
“Watergate Rock.” Larry Marshall’s “I Admire You” vocal can be found on
Marshall’s I Admire You (Heartbeat CD HB 57), while the dub can be found on
King Tubby and Larry Marshall’s I Admire You in Dub (Motion FAST CD 004).
Notes / 277
48. Max Romeo, interviewed June 2000.
49. The Silvertones’s “Dub Your Pum Pum” and Big Joe and Fay’s “Dub A
Dawta” can be found on Trojan’s 3-disc X-Rated Box Set (Trojan TJEDT 048), and
I-Roy’s “Sister Maggie Breast” can be found on the Niney the Observer
compilation Observer Station (Heartbeat CD HB 68).
50. Bob Marley as cited in Davis and Simon 1992:44.
52. Clinton Fearon, interviewed November 2001.
54. Winston Riley, interviewed June 2000.
56. Robbie Shakespeare, interviewed March 2002.
59. Bunny Wailer, in discussion with Roger Steffens, in the notes to Dubd’sco,
Volumes 1 & 2 (Ras/Solomonic RAS 3239).
60. Blackman’s original vocal take can be found on the Augustus Pablo
compilation CD Classic Rockers, Volume 2 (Rockers International CD RP 012).
61. Both the vocal and dub versions can be found on the Augustus Pablo
compilation CD Classic Rockers (Island Jamaica 162–539–953–2).
62. See Sachs 1962: chap. 2, sec. VI.
63. Jah Grant, interviewed May 1999.
64. The vocal take can be found on the Earl Zero LP Only Jah Can Ease the
Pressure (Freedom Sounds, no label number), while the dub version can be found
on the King Tubby CD Freedom Sounds in Dub (Blood & Fire BAFCD 011).
66. From the Tappa Zukie CD From the Archives (Ras RAS CD3135).
67. From the I-Roy CD Don’t Check Me With No Lightweight Stuff (Blood &
Fire BAFCD 016).
68. From the Bob Marley and the Wailers CD Natty Dread (Tuff Gong CD
422–846–204–2).
69. From the compilation CD Tribute to Bob Marley (Trojan CDTRL 332).
70. See Barthes’s essay “Death of the Author” (in Barthes 1977).
72. Susan Cadogan, interviewed March 2002.
73. See a discussion of this tendency in Apter 1991.
74. Cooper 1995:68.
75. Marley, for example, seems to voice his feelings about Jamaica’s profuse
version culture in his song “Too Much Mix Up” (issued in 1983 on Confrontation,
Tuff Gong 422–846–207–2).
78. This approach can be heard on Johnson’s 1998 anthology Independent
Intavenshun: The Island Anthology (Island 314–524–575–2).
79. See Goodall’s comments in Full Watts 3 (2):46 (Gorney 1999).
80. This idea of a spatial experience of the dub mix has also been discussed in
Ingham 1999:122–26.
81. See Erlich in Davis and Simon 1982:106.
82. I have no information on the vocal release of this song. The dub mix can
be found on the King Tubby CD Freedom Sounds in Dub (Blood & Fire
BAFCD 011).
83. From the King Tubby LP Harry Mudie Meets King Tubby in Dub
Conference, Volume One (Moodisc HM 108).
84. From the Impact All-Stars’s CD Forward the Bass (Blood & Fire BAFCD 022).
Notes / 278
85. From the compilation CD 30 Years of Dub Music on the Go (Rhino RNCD
2046).
86. From the Yabby U CD Beware Dub (ROIR RE 188 CD)
87. Bunny Lee, interviewed March 2002.
88. “Operation” from The Upsetter Box Set (Trojan PRY 1). “Big Youth” from
The Message Dubwise (Melodisc MS 7).
89. The original version of “Mr. Bassie” can be found on Horace Andy’s CD
Mr. Bassie (Heartbeat CD HB 88). The later version can be found on Andy’s CD
Good Vibes (Blood & Fire BAFCD 019).
90. See Andy’s comments in the notes to his 1997 CD Good Vibes (Blood & Fire
BAFCD 019).
92. Lloyd “King Jammy” James, interviewed May 2000.
98. I would like to thank Junko Oba of Sewanee University for bringing this
very useful idea to my attention.
99. Juniper 2003:2–3.
100. See Tony Grajeda’s “The Feminization of Rock,” in Beebe 2002. Other
examples of this sort of gender-based interpretation associated with “new
musicology” would include essays in McClary 1991. Also, see Sandstrom (2000) for
a more specific discussion in the context of studio mixing techniques.
101. For further discussion, see Frances Aparicio, “Ethnifying Rhythms,
Feminizing Cultures,” in Radano and Bohlman (2000):106–10.
102. Eno 1996:293.
103. “African People” can be found on the Skin Flesh & Bones / Revolutionaries
CD Fighting Dub 1975–1979 (Hot Pot CKV-CD-1005).
104. Cronin, Russell (2005).
105. Goode in Smith 1970:174.
106. For an interesting discussion of this relationship between psychoactive
experience and sound, see Whiteley 1992. Whitely uses the term psychedelic coding.
107. See “Cannabinoid Pharmacology” in Gold 1989.
112. Winston Riley, interviewed June 2000.
114. Max Romeo, interviewed June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
115. Bobby Vicious, interviewed February 2000.
116. Philip Smart, interviewed June 2003, Freeport, New York.
118. Hicks 1999:66.
119. Cannabis has been most often classified as a “mild hallucinogen” that
exhibits both stimulant and depressant characteristics depending on a variety of
chemical and environmental factors. See http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic
3407.htm.
120. The origins of psychedelic rock are generally dated to the summer of 1965,
in the San Francisco music scene (associated with bands such as the Charlatans, and
venues such as the Longshoreman’s Hall, the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore
Theater). It was the combination of this improvisational, long-form music with
Notes / 279
projected light shows and the ingestion of hallucinogens that typified the style (see
Whiteley 1992:119).
122. See Steffens 2006. The article features excerpts from an interview with the
Wailers’s lead guitarist, Junior Marvin.
123. Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” can be found on the album of the
same title (Elektra, 1968), and the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star” can be found on Live
Dead (Warner Brothers, 1969)
124. Kantner quoted in Hicks 1999:69.
125. The Beatles “Blue Jay Way” can be found on Magical Mystery Tour
(Capitol, 1967), and the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Are You Experienced” can be
found on the album of the same name (Reprise, 1967).
126. See Whiteley 1992:5.
127. In these comments, Hicks is actually paraphrasing Timothy Leary’s idea of
“hallucinatory art.” See Leary 1966.
129. Schaefer 1994:115.
130. See Reynolds 1998:41.
132. See Stolzoff 2000:54.
133. From interview with Bobby Vicious, February 2002.
134. See Stolzoff 2000:54. Also, see pp. 126–27 for a discussion of “juggling.”
135. A concise definition of the “beat mixing” concept is offered in Reynolds
1998:271–72.
136. From the Lee Perry CD Shocks of Mighty (Attack CDAT 104).
137. From the Max Romeo CD Open the Iron Gate 1973–1977 (Blood & Fire
BAFCD 027).
138. Robert “Robbie” Shakespeare, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
140. See Gilroy’s essay “Diaspora, Utopia and the Critique of Capitalism,” in
Gilroy 1987:209.
141. Jameson in Foster 1983:125.
142. The idea of virtual technologies and the creation of “hyperreality” is
obviously drawn from the ideas of Jean Baudrillard. See Baudrillard 1995.
143. Chanan 1995:47. Anthony Seeger (in Frith and Marshall 2004) has also
noted that this process is currently repeating itself in the sampling of ethnographic
recordings of indigenous musics.
144. See Anthony Seeger’s “Traditional Music Ownership in a Commodified
World,” and also Martin Kretschmer and Friedemann Kawohl’s “The History and
Philosophy of Copyright,” in Frith and Marshall 2004.
145. For an interesting precursor to this discussion in the sphere of electronic
and experimental music, see Renauld 1958.
146. See Hebdige 1987:86–87.
147. See Dave Laing’s essay “Copyright, Politics and the International Music
Industry,” in Frith and Marshall 2004.
148. Taylor 1997:67.
149. Ellison 1964:234.
150. Achebe as quoted in Clifford 1988:207.
151. Computer Paul, interviewed March 2002.
152. This idea of the fluidity of technology is a dominant theme of the fourth
chapter of Sterne 2003.
153. See Sterne 2003:197.
Notes / 280
3. The “Backbone” of Studio One (pp. 95– 107)

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Katz 2003:121.
6. Sylvan Morris, interviewed May 2000. See also Bradley 2000:217–18.
8. See Brian Keyo’s comments in the notes to Tribute to Jackie Mittoo
(Heartbeat 189/190).
10. Ibid. Many people refer to Studio One as “Downbeat,” as this was the name
of Dodd’s sound system.
11. “Throw Me Corn” can be found on the compilation The Best of Studio One
(Heartbeat HB 07). “Things A Come Up To Bump” is available as a Studio One
single.
12. Sylvan Morris, interviewed June 2000.
13. From a Sound City accessories advertisement, reprinted in A. Thompson
1997:45.
14. The Sound Dimension included Phil Callender and Joe Isaacs (drums),
Leroy Sibbles and Boris Gardiner (bass), Eric Frater (guitar), Richard Ace (organ),
Robbie Lyn (piano), and Denzel Laing (percussion).
16. Ibid.
20. From the compilation Full Up: Best of Studio One, Volume Two (Heartbeat
CD HB-14).
21. Although many Studio One recordings from the late 1960 and early 1970s
contain tambourine, vocalist Freddie McGregor overdubbed additional
tambourine tracks on many of these original recordings from the 1960s to the late
1970s. My analysis here is based on the assumption that the tambourine heard on
“Love Me Forever” was part of the original recording.
22. From the compilation Best of Studio One (Heartbeat CD HB-07).
24. See Horace Andy’s comments in Bradley 2000:222–24.
25. “Musical Science” can be found on the Studio One LP Dub Store Special
(Studio One, no matrix number).
27. See Katz 2003:172.
28. See Stephen Davis’s comments in Davis and Simon 1982:126.
30. Marley’s “Crazy Baldhead” can be found on Rastaman Vibration (Island,
1976). Clarke’s cover version can be found on Tribute to Bob Marley, Vol. 1
(Crocodisc CC2–709).
31. Sadkin as quoted in Buskin 1999:214–15.
32. The various albums on the market with titles such as Bob Marley in Dub are
typically compilations of rhythm versions the Wailers recorded with Lee Perry.
33. Aston Barrett, interviewed November 2003.
35. Aston Barrett, interviewed November 2003.
Notes / 281
36. Errol Brown, interviewed February 2006. In addition to the two Burning
Spear LPs mentioned, Brown cites Marley’s Survival, Uprising, and Confrontation
LPs, as well as Rita Marley’s Who Feels It Knows It and Culture’s Cumbolo as
representative examples of his roots-era work.
37. Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell, interviewed August 2001
39. “Natural Way” and “Nature Dub” can be found on the Augustus Pablo CD
East of the River Nile (Shanachie CD 45051). Bunny Wailer’s “Armagideon” can be
found on Blackheart Man (Island 314–586–884–2) and “Armageddon Dub” can be
found on the Bunny Wailer CD Dubd’sco, Volumes 1 and 2 (Solomonic/Ras 3239).
4. “Jus’ Like a Volcano in Yuh Head!”

(pp. 108–139)
1. Producer Roy Cousins, as quoted in the notes to Dubbing With the Royals
(Pressure Sounds PSCD 44).
2. In Jamaica, King Tubby is often referred to (in speech and print) as “King
Tubbys.” This probably developed from a spoken conflation of the singular spelling
of his name with the possessive spellings of his studio and sound system
enterprises: Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi and King Tubby’s Studio. The name of
Lloyd “King Jammy” James, Tubby’s best-known protégé, is generally rendered in
a similar way, as “Jammys.”
3. The quote of King Tubby is from White 1983:230.
4. Tubby quoted in Davis and Simon 1982:114.
5. See Bradley 2000:6, 10, and Katz 2003:165.
6. Bobby Vicious, interviewed February 2002. For more background on the
evolution of “garrison politics” in Jamaica, see Kaufman 1985.
7. Later in the decade, U-Roy and U-Brown alternated roles as selector and DJ
for Tubby’s system.
8. Many of U-Roy’s best-known DJ versions of Treasure Isle tracks are
collected on the CD compilation Version Galore (Trojan 06076 80383–2).
9. Bobby Vicious, interviewed February 2002, Hartford, Connecticut.
11. Ibid., 314.
12. See Barrow and Dalton 1997:204.
13. Philip Smart, interviewed June 2003. See also Bradley 2000:296 for an
alternate account.
14. Bobby Vicious, interviewed February 2002, Hartford, Connecticut. A
photo of this amplifier can be seen in the photo section of Bradley 2000.
16. Edward “Bunny” Lee, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
17. I-Roy, as quoted in the notes to Don’t Check Me With No Lightweight Stuff
18. Bobby Vicious, interviewed February 2002, Hartford, Connecticut. For an
account of a similar incident that took place in St. Thomas outside of Kingston, see
I-Roy’s recollections in the notes to his Don’t Check Me With No Lightweight Stuff
23. See Barrow and Dalton 1997:203–4, and Bradley 2000:315.
Notes / 282
24. Lloyd “Jammy” James, as quoted in the notes to The Crowning of King
Jammy (Pressure Sounds PSCD 25).
26. For a brief biography of Jeep Harned, see “Florida Chapter to Honor Local
Heroes” (http://www.grammy.org/news.academy/0410florida.html) and “ ‘Jeep’
Harned Dies at 72” (http:///www.prosoundnews.com/stories/2003/march/0327
.1.shtml). For information on Mack Emerman and Criteria, see “Biograph: Mack
Emerman” (http://mixonline.com/ar/audio_biograph_mack_emerman/) and “Criteria
Recording Studios” (http://criteriastudios.com/html/hist.html).
27. Scientist to Steve Barrow, in the notes of Dub in the Roots Tradition (Blood
& Fire BAFCD 012).
28. See Barrow in the notes to King Tubby 1995:29.
29. See Bradley 2000:317 for an alternate account of Tubby’s customized fader
controls.
31. Edward “Bunny” Lee, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
33. The settings for the board’s high pass filter were as follows: OFF, 70Hz,
100Hz, 150Hz, 250 Hz, 500Hz, 1 kHz, 2kHz, 3 kHz, 5kHz, 7.5 kHz.
34. Representative (and readily available) examples of the “flying cymbal”
pattern can be found on Johnny Clarke’s CD A Ruffer Version: Johnny Clarke at
King Tubby’s 1974–1978 (Trojan TJACD 025), particularly on “None Shall Escape
the Judgement,” “Enter Into His Gates With Praise,” and “Move Out of Babylon
Rastaman.”
37. Ibid.
38. See the two-disc collection Roots of Dub and Dub From the Roots (reissued
together as Moll-Selekta 8).
39. For example, see the first disc of King Tubby’s Special (Trojan CDTRD
409), which features his dub mixes of Holness’s productions.
40. Lloyd “King Jammy” James, interviewed June 2000.
41. Overton “Scientist” Brown, interviewed September 2001, Los Angeles,
California.
<comp: Msp. 308 says “thin space” on either side of slash between “Tubby” and
“Prince,” in endnote 43.>
43. “A Heavy Dub” can be found on the King Tubby/Prince Jammy CD Dub
Gone 2 Crazy (Blood 7 Fire BAFCD 013), while “Marcus Dub” can be found on the
compilation CD 30 Years of Dub Music on the Go (Rhino RNCD 2046).
44. Campbell, in Bradley and Maycock 1999:68–69.
45. “Computer Paul” Henton, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
48. “Silver Words” can be found on the Niney the Observer compilation
Observer Station (Heartbeat CD HB 68), while “Silver Bullet” can be found on the
King Tubby collection King Tubby’s Special (Trojan CDTRD 409).
50. Johnny Clarke’s “Enter Into His Gates With Praise” and King Tubby’s “This
is the Hardest Version” can both be found on the CD A Ruffer Version: Johnny
Clarke at King Tubby’s 1974–1978 (Trojan TJACD 025).
51. Dennis Brown’s “Live After You” can be found on the compilation CD Rock
On: Greatest Hits from the Observer Label (Heartbeat 11661–7678–2), while King
Notes / 283
Tubby’s “Dubbing With the Observer” can be found on the CD King Tubby’s
Special (Trojan CD TRD 409).
52. Tommy McCook’s “Death Trap” can be found on the Yabby You CD Jesus
Dread (Blood & Fire BAFCD 021), and King Tubby’s “Living Style” can be
found on the Yabby U CD King Tubby’s Prophecy of Dub (Blood & Fire BAFCD
005.
53. “Sniper” can be found on the Jackie Mittoo CD The Keyboard Legend (Sonic
Sounds SON CD 0073), while “Dub Fi Gwan” can be found on the compilation
CD Dub Gone Crazy (Blood & Fire BAFCD 002).
54. “Totally Together” is available on the Jackie Mittoo recording Now (Studio
One CD 9016).
55. Edward “Bunny” Lee, interviewed by the author, March 2002, Kingston
Jamaica.
56. Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, interviewed March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
57. “Fire Fire” and “Fire Fire Dub” can be found on Yabby You CD King Tubby
Meets Vivian Jackson (Yabby You) (Prophet Records (YVJ 002). This recording is
also known by the title Yabby You & King Tubby Meet: Chant Down Babylon.
Trinity’s “Promise Is A Comfort to a Fool” can be found on his Shanty Town
Determination (Blood & Fire BAFCD 031).
58. Jacob Miller’s “Baby I Love You So” and King Tubby’s “King Tubby’s Meets
the Rockers Uptown” can both be found on the Augustus Pablo CD Classic Rockers
(Island 162–539–953–2).
59. See Ranglin’s 1996 recording Below the Bassline (Island Jamaica Jazz 314–
524–299–2) and Alexander’s 2001 recording Goin’ Yard (Telarc CD 83527).
60. Philip Smart, interviewed June 2003. Smart also remembered an early DJ
version of this rhythm, featuring Big Youth.
61. “Black Force” and “Cassava Piece” are both available on the Augustus Pablo
compilation Rockers International 2 (Greensleeves GRELCD 168). Pablo
apparently sold a cut of this riddim to Linval Thompson, who would use it for a
dub plate titled “Whip Them King Tubby” (accompanied by another dub version
mixed by Tubby). See Whip Them King Tubby (Auralux LUXXCD001).
62. Other engineers at the studio included Winston “Professor” Brown and Pat
Kelly.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. See also Katz 2000:216.
70. Johnny Clarke’s “Enter Into His Gates With Praise” is available on A Ruffer
Version (see note 49).“Ja Ja in De Dub” is available on Rasta Dub ’76 (Attack
BSMT 007).
71. Note that the DJ’s name is spelled differently in the album’s title, and on the
title song. The vocal track can be found on the Prince Alla CD I Can Hear the
Children Singing (Blood & Fire BAFCD 040). The dub mix can be found on the
Tappa Zukie CD Tappa Zukie in Dub (Blood & Fire BAFCD 008).
73. Lloyd “King Jammy” James, interviewed June 2000.
74. See Lesser’s King Jammy’s (Toronto: ECW, 2002).
75. See Dave Hendley’s notes to The Crowning of Prince Jammy (Pressure
Sounds PSCD 25).
Notes / 284
77. These biographical details are taken from Dave Hendley’s notes to The
Crowning of Prince Jammy (Pressure Sounds PSCD 25). See also Lesser 2002.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. See Jammy’s In Lion Dub Style (Jammys, no matrix no.); Kamikaze Dub
(Trojan TRLS 174); Uhuru in Dub (CSA CSLP 2); Gregory Isaacs: Slum in Dub
(CSA BS 1051).
82. See Lesser 2002:19.
84. “Jammy’s A Shine” can be found on the CD Fatman Presents Prince Jammy
vs. Crucial Bunny: Dub Contest (Auralux LUXX CD 016).
85. Ibid.
86. This mix is considered the definitive dub version of this tune. An alternate
mix, also by Jammy, is “Dub to the Rescue,” available on the compilation Dub Gone
Crazy (Blood & Fire BAFCD 002).
87. Both the vocal and dub versions can be found on Horace Andy’s In the Light
+ In the Light Dub (Blood & Fire BAFCD 006).
88. From the Scientist/Prince Jammy CD Scientist & Prince Jammy Strike Back
(Trojan CDTRL 210).
90. Overton “Scientist” Brown, interviewed September 2001.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. See Scientist’s comments in Katz 2003:310–11.
96. Ibid.
97. Linval Thompson, as quoted in the notes to Phoenix Dub (Motion Records
FASTCD011).
99. Horace Andy’s version of this song can be found on the compilation Mr.
Bassie (Heartbeat CD HB 88), while Peter Ranking’s version can be found on the
compilation Roots Tradition From the Vineyard (Munich MRCD 1004).
100. See Katz 2003:198, and Harry Hawkes’s notes to the CD compilation
Maxfield Avenue Breakdown (Pressure Sounds PSCD031).
101. See Katz 2003:217.
107. Ibid.
109. Also see The Dub Factor, a collection of Black Uhuru tracks remixed into dub
versions by Sly and Robbie along with engineer Paul “Groucho” Smykle (Island, 1983).
110. Thompson, as quoted in Full Watts 1(3):16.
111. McGregor’s “Jah Help the People” from the Linval Thompson compilation
Linval Thompson Sounds: Jah Jah Dreader Than Dread (Majestic Reggae MRCD
1005). The Heptones’ “Sufferer’s Time” from the Heptones 1976 album Party Time
(Mango CCD 9456).
112. From the Scientist LP Scientist Meets the Space Invaders (Greensleeves
GRELCD 019).
Notes / 285
113. From the compilation CD Linval Thompson Sounds: Jah Jah Dreader Than
Dread (Majestic Reggae MRCD 1005).
114. From the Scientist LP Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the
Vampires (Greensleeves GRELCD 25).
115. From the Wailing Souls LP Firehouse Rock (Greensleeves GRELCD 21).
116. From the Scientist CD Dub in the Roots Tradition (Blood & Fire BAFCD
012).
117. Doyle 2004:33. The specific technological developments Doyle mentions
include: the development of a fully electrical recording process, and condenser
microphones “amplified by means of vacuum tubes and recorded using an
electromagnetic head.”
118. Scientist as quoted in Full Watts 3(3).
5. Tracking the “Living African Heartbeat” (pp. 140 –162)

1. Lee Perry, interviewed November 2001.
2. Katz 2000.
3. Perry interviewed by Bruno Blum, cited in Katz 2000:8.
4. Sibley, interviewed May 2000.
5. Katz 1990: 7.
6. Romeo, interviewed June 2000.
7. Most of these singles can be found on the Lee Perry CD Chicken Scratch
(Heartbeat CD HB 53).
8. According to David Katz, Perry joined Coxsone’s organization as a partial
replacement for Prince Buster (Katz 2003:41).
9. Perry, quoted in May 1977:13.
10. From the Lee Perry CD Sounds From the Hot Line (Heartbeat CD HB 76).
11. See Katz 2000:181–82.
12. See for example, the cover photograph of Perry’s Mystic Miracle Star
(Heartbeat, 1982), in which he is presented as a shaman of sorts, holding what
appears to various talismans.
13. Edward “Bunny” Lee, interviewed March 2002. The song “Labrish” is an
early collaboration between Perry and Lee. See Lee Perry and the Upsetters: All the
Hits (Rohit RHCT 778).
14. These songs can be found on the Lee Perry CD People Funny Boy (Trojan
CDTRL 399).
15. See the chapter “Give Me Power: The Upsetter Emerges” from Katz 2000 or
Bradley 2000:227.
16. These songs can be found on the Lee Perry CD All the Hits (Rohit RHCT
778).
17. With the exception of “People Funny Boy,” the cited songs in this paragraph
can be found on the Lee Perry CD People Funny Boy (Trojan CDTRL 399). The
version of “People Funny Boy” mentioned here can be found on the Lee Perry CD
Some of the Best (Heartbeat CD HB 37).
18. Chin, interviewed June 2000.
19. Perry in 1994 interview with Bruno Blum, as quoted in Katz 2000:111.
20. See Bradley 2000:337. See also Dave Barker’s comments in the same
volume, p. 342. Bradley also cites Studio One singer Horace Andy and the self-
contained Gladiators band as significant in this regard (see Bradley 2000:346).
21. See Bradley 2000:343. The Perry/Wailers collaborations can be found on
The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1967 to 1972 Part II (JAD CD 1004), and
The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1967 to 1972, Part III (JAD CD 1005).
Notes / 286
22. The group had previously worked for several producers, including Lloyd
Charmers (with Charmers in place of Adams on organ) as the Hippy Boys, and for
Bunny Lee as the Bunny Lee All-Stars. David Katz notes that certain Perry
productions dating from this period used the Soul Syndicate band (Katz 2000:114–19).
23. See Diana Ross and the Supremes’ Anthology (Motown M9 794A3).
24. Perry quoted in Davis 1985:81.
25. The singers were alleged to have assaulted Perry following a payment
dispute (Katz 2000:134–35). Perry also later claimed that the Wailers sent gunmen
to his house by night to forcibly retrieve master tapes (see Terrell 1997:60).
26. The most stable edition of the later Upsetters was built around the nucleus
of drummer Mikey “Boo” Richards, bassist Boris Gardiner, guitarists Ernest
Ranglin and Robert Johnson, organist Winston Wright, and pianist Keith Sterling.
27. See Katz 2003:128.
28. “Medical Operation” can be found on the Upsetters CD Return of Django
(Trojan CDTRL 19). “The Popcorn” and “Knock on Wood” can be found on the
Upsetters CD Eastwood Rides Again (Trojan CDTBL 125).
29. “Connection” can be found on the Lee Perry CD The Upsetter Box Set
(Trojan PRY 1). “Kill Them All” can be found on the Lee Perry CD The Upsetter
Collection (Trojan CDTRL 195). I mention Frank Zappa here because Perry’s
treatment of collage work is somewhat similar to Zappa’s work on recordings such
as We’re Only In It For the Money (1968).
30. Perry in Barrow and Dalton 1997:204.
31. Philip Smart, interviewed June, 2003.
32. Riley’s “Woman’s Gotta Have It” can be found on the Lee Perry
compilation Shocks of Mighty (Attack CDAT 104). The Upsetters’ “Woman’s Dub”
can be found on Revolution Dub (Esoldun CC2–702). Leo Graham’s “Three Blind
Mice” and King Tubby’s “Three Times Three” can both be found on Shocks of
Mighty.
33. “Black Panta” can be found on Blackboard Jungle Dub (the best available
version is Auralux LUXX CD 004).
34. See the Auralux edition (Auralux LUXX CD 004).
35. The extended version of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” can be found on the
Temptations 1972 LP All Directions (Gordy G9621).
36. The productions of Glen Brown and Keith Hudson are particularly
interesting in this regard. See the Brown-produced Check the Winner (Greensleeves
47007) and Dubble Attack (Shanachie 47005), the Hudson-produced The Hudson
Affair (Trojan 06076–80507–2).
37. Chin, interviewed July 2000.
39. See Katz 2000:181, and Bradley and Maycock 1999:69.
40. Katz 2000:180–81.
42. Both “Curly Locks” and “Long Way” can be found on the Junior Byles
compilation Curly Locks (Heartbeat CD HB 208).
43. Thompson’s “Kung Fu Man” can be found on the Lee Perry CD The Quest
(Abraham CTCD 999).
44. These tracks can all be found on the Lee Perry LP Public Jestering (Attack
LP 108).
45. In fact, Marley would continue to work intermittently with Perry through
1980, realizing songs and song sketches like “Punky Reggae Party,” “Jah Live,”
“Rainbow Country,” “Rastaman Live Up,” “Blackman Redemption,” “Who Colt the
Game,” “I Know A Place,” an early version of “Natural Mystic,” and “Revolution
Dub.” Perry would also contribute informally to the material that Marley and the
Notes / 287
Wailers were recording for Island (especially on recordings such as Rastaman
Vibration [1976]), although many of these contributions went uncredited.
46. See Katz 2000:208–209.
47. The Bi-Phase came with several placards that fit over its housing, each of
which included markings for a specific effect settings. “Super Phasing” is one of these
placards. See “MuTron BiPhase” (http://www.superpage.com/riffs/desc_mutron
.html) and “Super Phasing” (http://homepage2.nifty.com/k-studio/K-STUDIO/
super%20phasing%sheet.htm).
48. The original track can be found on the Lee Perry CD People Funny Boy
(Trojan CDTRL 399); the later mix can be found on the Lee Perry CD Scratch &
Company: Chapter One (RAS CTCD 1415).
49. From the Junior Murvin CD Police & Thieves (Mango 162–539–499–2).
50. From the Lee Perry CD Voodooism (Pressure Sounds PSCD 009).
51. From the Lee Perry CD Scratch & Company (see note 48).
52. From the Lee Perry CD Open the Gate (Trojan CD PRY 2).
53. Ibid.
54. See the three-disc compilation Phil Spector: Back to Mono (1958-1969) (Phil
Spector Records 7118).
56. From the Max Romeo CD War Inna Babylon (Polygram B00025XL0).
57. From the Junior Murvin CD Police & Thieves (Mango 162–539–499–2).
58. From the Susan Cadogan CD Hurts So Good (Trojan CDTRL 122).
59. The songs can be found on Linda McCartney’s CD Wide Prairie (Capitol
CDP 7243 4 97910 2 2).
61. Susan Cadogan, interviewed March 2002.
63. The Congos: Heart of the Congos (Blood & Fire BAFCD 009).
64. George Faith: To Be A Lover (Island/Hip-O-Select B0002693–02)
65. William Bell’s “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” available on The Best of William
Bell (Stax 8541).
66. From the Lee Perry CD Build the Ark (Trojan CD PRY 3).
68. Upsetters: Super Ape (Island/Hip-O-Select B0002430–02).
69. The earlier version can be found on the Lee Perry LP Chapter One (RAS
CTCD 1415).
72. Max Romeo, interviewed May 2000.
73. From the Lee Perry CD Open the Gate (Trojan CD PRY 2).
74. From the Lee Perry CD Produced and Directed by the Upsetter (Pressure
Sounds PSCD 19).
75. Katz 1999:48.
76. From the Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus CD Love Thy Neighbor (Live
& Learn CD 001). The sound of these tracks suggests that they were subsequently
completed at Dynamic, with Sylvan Morris engineering.
77. See Lee Perry Presents African Roots (Trojan 06076–80552–2).
79. See Frere-Jones 1997. Also see Henk Targowski’s recollections in Katz
2000:335.
80. See David Katz’s recollections in Mack 1995, or Corbett 1994.
81. See Henderson 1996:60.
Notes / 288
83. There are several conflicting accounts of the precise cause of the blaze. For
background, see Katz 2000:363–65.
6. “Java” to Africa (pp. 163–184)

3. Ibid. JAD was the company formed by Johnny Nash, Arthur Jenkins, and
Danny Sims to represent Bob Marley as a songwriter outside of Jamaica.
4. Chin, as quoted in Full Watts 3 (1):33.
5. Chin, interviewed March 1999.
8. Pablo as quoted in Hurford and Kaski 1987:49.
9. See Pablo’s comments in Hurford and Kaski 1987:36. For examples of the
minor-key ska music that might have inspired him, see the Skatalites Ska-Boo-Da-
Ba (West Side WESM 519), an excellent 1964 collection produced by Justin Yap.
10. Chin, as quoted in Full Watts 3 (1):33.
12. Ellis’s original vocal can be found on the 17 North Parade compilation.
Pablo’s version can be found on his CD This Is Augustus Pablo (Above Rock ARM
2001).
14. From the 17 North Parade compilation (Pressure Sounds PSCD 17).
15. From the Augustus Pablo CD This Is Augustus Pablo (see note 12).
16. Both “Extraordinary Dub” and “Extraordinary Version” can be found on
the CD compilation Forward the Bass (Blood & Fire BAFCD 022).
17. Chin, interviewed by Brian Lindt and William Taylor, WKCR.
18. This information taken from Harry Hawke’s notes to the Mighty Two
compilation No Bones for the Dogs (Pressure Sounds. PSCD 37).
19. Katz 2003:132.
21. Ibid.
24. Chin, interviewed July 2000. Randy’s Dub is currently available as part of
the Forward the Bass compilation (see note 16).
26. See Clive Chin’s comments in the notes to the Forward the Bass compilation
(see note 16).
27. “Earthquake” can be found on the Mighty Two compilation No Bones for
the Dogs (see note 18).
28. Chin, interviewed May 1999.
29. From the Augustus Pablo CD This Is Augustus Pablo (see note 12).
30. See Barrow and Dalton 1997:214.
31. Ibid, 154.
7. “City Too Hot” (pp. 185–195)
1. This chapter takes its name from Lee Perry’s song of the same name. See Lee
Perry and Friends (1988). Open the Gate. Trojan CDPRY2.
Notes / 289
2. See C. Taylor 1997.
4. Gray 1991:216.
5. For a recounting of these events, see the introduction to Gunst 1995. For
more detailed analysis and background, see Gray 1991:chap. 11.
6. See Gunst 1995 for a comprehensive discussion of this process.
7. Chude-Sokei in Potash 1997:216. See also Ross 1998.
8. On this theme of reaction against excessive foreign influence, also see Bradley
2000:502.
9. David Katz (2005) notes that Smith’s song was not actually the first Jamaican
pop song to be entirely built from electronic rhythm patterns, but it was the most
distinctive and as such, had the most dramatic impact. Katz (2005) also offers a
good profile of the significance of “Sleng Teng.”
10. See Barrow and Dalton 1997:273–84.
11. Jammy refers to these as “human” riddims in Lesser 2002:38. For a
discussion of the roots of Jamaican popular music in marching band–oriented
schools such as Kingston’s Alpha School for Boys, see Witmer 1987.
12. See Lesser 2002:42.
14. See Phantom’s recollections in Barrow and Dalton 1997:285.
15. Anthony Red Rose’s “Tempo” can be found on the compilation CD Tougher
than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music (Island 162–539–935–2). Pressure Sounds’
Firehouse Revolution (Pressure Sounds PSCD34) compilation chronicles some of
the digital music from Tubby’s second studio.
16. Although widely assumed to be a robbery, several people insisted during
my trip to Kingston that Tubby’s death had in fact been ordered by an unknown
third party. His assailant was said to have been one of several prisoners who were
killed by the police during my spring 2000 visit, as they tried to escape from a
Kingston prison.
17. Scientist, interviewed November 2001.
20. See Monty Alexander’s 2004 CD (with Ernest Ranglin): Rocksteady (Telarc
CD 83531). It’s interesting to note that in addition to the cover of “East of the River
Nile,” the back cover photo shows Ringling holding a melodica, another probable
reference to Augustus Pablo.
21. Prince Buster, as quoted in Bradley 2000:xvi.
22. Jammy, as quoted in Katz 2005.
23. Chude-Sokei, in Potash 1997:218.
24. “Ringo Rides” was recorded in 1966, and is collected on the Skatalites 1998
release Ska-Boo-Da-Ba (West Side WESM 518).
25. For further discussion on this topic of the lack of original music
composition in the digital era of Jamaican music, see Bradley 2000:509.
26. Chude-Sokei, in Potash 1997:222.
27. See, for example, Public Enemy’s landmark CD It Takes a Nation of Millions
to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988).
8. Starship Africa (196– 219)
1. This chapter takes its name from Starship Africa, the Adrian Sherwood–
produced album by Creation Rebel.
2. Erlich quote in Davis and Simon 1982:105.
Notes / 290
3. The interpretation of West African bocio figurines (from Benin Republic) as
“empowered cadavers” is introduced in the first chapter of Blier 1995, while the
Surrealist nonsense word game of “exquisite corpses” is discussed in Lewis 1988:21).
Both ideas interest me in the context of dub music through their suggestions of
bringing something dead or used back to life, of reinvesting a spent object with a new
power. Both ideas also resonate with specific interpretations of dub (discussed later in
this chapter); some formal aspects of bocio figurines reflect a traumatic history of
slavery and internecine warfare, while the Surrealist “exquisite corpse” wordplay was
a group exercise in deconstructing the logic of language, reflecting a cynicism toward
the Western heritage of logic and reason in the wake of World War I.
4. Agawu 1995.
5. I am using the term echo in this way here, despite my distinction between the
effects produced by delay (echo) and reverb (spatial simulation) devices in chapter 2.
6. Chude-Sokei 1997b.
7. Said 1990:357.
8. Clifford 1994:306.
9. Ibid.:307.
10. Dawes 2001.
11. Said 1990:360.
12. Doyle (2004) relates that reverb in early recordings of classical music
provided listeners “virtual access to the acoustic regime of the concert hall” (34).
13. Davis 1983:79.
14. For example, see the section titled “Trance or Ecstasy?” (Rouget 1985:3).
15. See the first two sections of Rouget 1985: “Trance and Possession” and
“Music and Possession.”
16. See Rouget 1985:80–81.
18. Both this and the previous quotation taken from Apter 1991:255.
19. Chude-Sokei (1997b) has approached this from a slightly different angle,
speculating that “individual subjectivity could be lost in the pounding volume of a
sound system that was devoted to freeing the body from the oppressive imbalance
of black labor and white capital” (196).
20. Perry interview in K. Martin 1995.
21. See Doyle 2004:31.
22. See Eargle 1995:283.
23. Neil Fraser, interviewed May 2000.
24. Clive Chin, interviewed July 18, 2000.
25. Winston Riley, interviewed June 5, 2000.
26. Frere-Jones 1997:67.
27. Montgomery 1997:56.
28. Mikics 1995:372.
29. For example, see the introduction to Manuel 1995.
30. David Mikics paraphrases Frederic Jameson to speculate that magical realist
cinema relies on disjunctions among differing cultures and social formations that
“coexist in the New World as they usually do not in Western Europe.” See Mikics
1995:372, and Jameson’s “On Magical Realism in Film,” in Jameson 1988. See also
the comments of Alondra Nelson in the introduction to Nelson 2002: “flux of
identity has long been the experience of African diasporic people” (3).
31. Zamora and Faris 1995:6.
32. Slemon quote in Zamora and Faris 1995:408.
33. Ibid.:415.
34. Walcott cited in Mikics 1995:371.
35. D’Haen quote in Zamora and Faris 1995:372.
Notes / 291
36. Jameson 1986:311.
37. Carrie Rickey [1979]. “Reviews: New York,” Artforum; excerpted in Fine
2003.
38. Bloom states that “there is an intimate and interactive relationship between
the individual and the group and our individual identity is closely tied to our
“group self ” . . . in fact, our group self may be the core component of our sense of
personal identity. . . . Making these assumptions allows us to tentatively apply
concepts rooted in individual dynamics to the psychology of the group” (quote in
Tedeschi 1998:180).
39. See Felman and Laub 1992 for a comprehensive source.
40. Clifford 1994:317.
41. Felman 1995:27.
42. Gilroy 1993a:chap. 6.
43. Both quotations from Gilroy 1993a:105.
44. See Gilroy 1993a:chap. 6.
45. From Jafa 1994.
46. This idea of an aesthetic complex of “dissonance, destruction and decay”
was inspired by Susan Blier’s discussion of Beninoise bocio figurines (Blier
1995:28).
47. See Katz 2003:7–9, and “The Dancehall As A Site of Clashing” from
Stolzoff 2000:8–12.
48. See I-Roy’s comments in the notes to I-Roy CD 1997.
49. This particular characterization of the “emotional pendulum” of
posttraumatic experience is taken from Erikson in Caruth 1995:184.
50. See Hoffman 1989:32.
51. See ibid.:7–13 for a discussion of collage in the context of these various
artistic movements.
52. Ibid.:22.
53. Gabbard 1991:111.
54. Erlmann 1996a.
55. Here I am paraphrasing the words of Jorge Luis Borges as quoted in R. F.
Thompson 2005:3.
56. See Glick and Bone 1990:sec. IV (“Aesthetic and Philosophic Inquiries on
the Nature of Pleasure”) for a discussion of anhedonia, or avoidance of pleasure
as a symptom of trauma. The Borges reference is taken from R. F. Thompson’s
2005.
57. Delany as quoted in Dery 1994:190–91.
58. Meintjes 2003:84.
59. The word “Afro-futurism” is generally considered to have been coined by
Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future” (Dery 1994).
60. See the following for perspectives on Afro-futurist thought: Dery 1994;
Corbett 1994; Eshun 1998; Lock 1999; Reynolds 2000; Greg Tate’s “Ghetto in the
Sky” and “Dread or Alive” (both in Tate 1992); and Nelson 2002.
61. See especially Sextant (Columbia/Legacy CK 64983) in this regard. The
remaining work of Hancock’s Mwandishi band can be found on Mwandishi: The
Complete Warner Brothers Recordings (Warner Bros. 2–45732).
62. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland (MCA/Experience
Hendrix MCAD 11600).
63. For example, see Earth, Wind and Fire’s albums Spirit (1976) and All & All
(1977).
64. Sun Ra, Space Is the Place (Impulse IMPD 249), Astro-Black (Saturn/
Impulse AS 9255), and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy (Evidence ECD 22036–2).
See also Sun Ra’s video Space Is the Place (Rhapsody Films 9025).
Notes / 292
65. See Parliament, Mothership Connection (Casablanca 824–502–2), The Clones
of Dr. Funkenstein (Casablanca 842–620–2), Parliament Live/P-Funk Earth Tour
(Casablanca 834–941–2), and the concert video George Clinton and Parliament-
Funkadelic: The Mothership Connection (Pioneer Artists PA-98–599-D).
66. See Miles Davis, Dark Magus (CBS/Sony 50DP 719), Get Up With It (CBS/
Sony50DP-712–3), Agharta (Columbia/Legacy C2K 46799), and Pangaea
(Columbia/Legacy C2K 46115).
67. See May’s Innovator (Transmat, 1986), or Mills’s Waveform Transmissions
(Caroline, 1992).
68. See Chanan 1995:chap. 3, “Polyhymnia Patent.”
69. For example, see the cartoon cover illustrations of Scientist’s Heavy Metal
Attack (Clocktower CD 124), Scientist Encounters Pac-Man (Greensleeves
GRELCD 46), Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires
(Greensleeves GRELCD 25), Scientist Meets the Space Invaders (Greensleeves
GRELCD 19), and Scientist and Prince Jammy’s Scientist and Jammy Strike Back
(Trojan CDTRL 210). Thanks to Adrian Sherwood for the clarification regarding
Greensleeves’s decision to package Scientist’s music with Tony McDermotts’s
science fiction imagery (Adrian Sherwood, interviewed November 2001).
70. See Hayward’s “Sci Fidelity—Music, Sound, and Genre History” and
Nabeel Zuberi’s “The Transmolecularization of [Black] Folk: Space is the Place, Sun
Ra and Afrofuturism”; both in Hayward 2004.
71. Overton “Scientist” Brown, interviewed September 2001. His comments
refer to an interview found in Davis and Simon 1982:110. “Flying” fader switches,
which move automatically in tandem with an automated mixing system, are a
distinctive feature of mixing consoles manufactured by the British company Neve.
73. Hannah Appel, personal communication, September 2001.
74. See Gilroy 1993a:chap. 2, for a more philosophical grounding of this point,
especially the section titled “Slavery and the Enlightenment Project.”
75. See Stolzoff 2000:201–202 for a discussion of the symbolic violence of the
sound clash.
76. Perry as quoted in Toop 1995:114–15.
79. Meintjes 2003:73.
80. This theme is prominently explored in Lastra’s (2000) first chapter, esp.
pp. 18–21.
81. Wendell Bell, for example, is a scholar of “future studies,” and credits a 1956
trip to Jamaica with stimulating his interest in this area. In Bell’s words, “I went to
Jamaica in 1956 to do urban research, specifically intending to study the social areas
of the city of Kingston to compare with work I had done in metropolitan areas of
the United States. At the time, Jamaica was in transition from being a British
Crown Colony to becoming a politically independent state . . . it was a heady time
in Jamaica. Everyone was looking forward. All the talk was of coming
independence, of what had to be done, and of what Jamaica would be like—and
ought to be like—in the future, after independence. . . . Studying how the
decisions of nationhood were being made in the new states of the Caribbean, I
began to understand the general principles of futures thinking and the role they
play in individual and collective decisions everywhere, in all settings and all
situations, in both old and new states.” See “On Becoming and Being a Futurist”
2005:113–24.
82. An insightful discussion of the “insanity” trope in black culture can be found
in Corbett 1994.
Notes / 293
83. I thank Hannah Appel for bringing this Jamaican resonance of the term
science to my attention (September 2001). For another perspective on this
resonance, see Bradley 2000:309.
84. Martin in notes to Martin 1995. Cassidy and LePage 1980 offers the following
definition of duppy: “The spirit of the dead, believed to be capable of returning to
aid or (more often) harm living beings, directly or indirectly; they are also believed
subject to the power of OBEAH and its practitioners who can ‘set’ or ‘put’ a duppy
upon a victim and ‘take off ’ their influence” (164).
85. This is a consistent theme throughout Gilroy’s work, but receives its most
comprehensive treatment in The Black Atlantic (Gilroy 1993a).
86. Wilson-Tagoe quote in Makward 1998:293.
87. Bryan’s “Money Generator” can be found on the compilation Studio One
Scorcher (Soul Jazz SJR CD 67); “Musical Science” can be found on Dub Store
Special (Studio One, no matrix no.).
88. I might add that another resonance of the phrase “science fiction” concerns
the similarities between black popular musics and what Mark Dery (1994) describes
as “the sublegitimate status of science fiction as a pulp genre in Western literature
[that] mirrors the subaltern position to which blacks have been relegated
throughout American history” (180).
89. Nelson 2002:4.
90. See Alondra Nelson’s comments in Nelson 2002:7.
91. Marsh quote in Chang and Chen 1998:151.
92. See Thomas 2000 for a reference on this literature.
94. D’Haen citation in Zamora and Faris 1995:202.
95. See the introduction to Gikandi 1992.
96. Obviously, I am drawing here upon the ideas of Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak’s seminal “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (reprinted in Spivak 1995).
97. Yinger 1982:163.
98. See Katz 2003:5.
100. Lastra 2000:7.
101. See Chude-Sokei 1994, as reprinted in Potash 1997:216. Chude-Sokei is
drawing upon ideas of Paul Gilroy as presented in Gilroy 1993a and b.
102. Painter Fikre Gebreyesus, in conversation, August 2002.
103. It has also influenced specifically musical trends in Africa: see, for example,
the dub-influenced work of Nigerian juju and fuji musicians such as King Sunny Ade
(Juju Music, Mango CCD 9712) and the uncredited Fuji Dub (Triple Earth TRECD
116). Engineer Godwin Logie, who worked with Black Uhuru on The Dub Factor (as
well as their concert tours), was involved in the production of both of these albums.
104. David Dabydeen, as quoted in an interview in Dawes 2001:202.
105. Yabby U as quoted in the notes to King Tubby’s Prophecy of Dub (BAFCD
005).
106. The idea of these devices creating new sensory realities is inspired by
Sterne’s (2003) introduction to his fifth chapter (220–25), while the idea of these
technologies as “prosthetic” devices is taken from the introduction to Lastra 2000
(esp. p. 6).
107. See Dawes’s “Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry: Madman/Prophet/Artist” (in Dawes
1999).
Notes / 294
Coda (220 – 260)
1. Augustus Pablo quoted on Disciples Boom-Shacka-Lacka Reggae and Dub

Site, http:freespace.virgin.net/russell.bell-brown/pabl02htm.
2. Rob Tannenbaum 1992.
3. For other accounts of the growth of Jamaican music in England, see
deKoningh, Griffiths 2003. See also Barrow & Dalton 1997:chap. 8 (“Reggae in
England”), or chaps. 11 and 18 of Bradley 2000.
4. Steve Barrow, interviewed May 2004.
6. A good source on these social tensions is Solomos 1989.
8. For example, see Burning Spear Live (Mango 9513), Toots and the Maytals
Live (Mango 9647) or Bob Marley and the Wailers Live (Island 548896).
10. Jah Shaka as quoted in “Interview With Jah Shaka,” http://www.jahwarrior.
freeuk.com/ivshaka.htm.
11. Boyarin’s term, as cited in Clifford 1994:305. For the Bradley references, see
Bradley 2000:114, 431, and 434.
13. Cousins, as quoted in the notes to Dubbing With the Royals (Pressure
Sounds PSCD 44).
14. Johnson 1996:6. See also Bradley 2000:447–49.
16. Steve Barrow, interviewed May 2004. Don Letts is the producer of a 2002
compilation CD titled Dread Meets Punk Rockers Uptown (EMI), which
reconstructs the type of reggae set he might have played to an audience of punk
enthusiasts at the Roxy club during the late 1970s.
17. Clive Austen, interviewed June 2002.
18. See A. R. Kane’s 69 (Rough Trade US 45 CD) and Americana (Luaka
Bop/Warner Bros. 9–26669–2).
19. Public Image, Ltd. (1981) Second Edition (Warner Brothers 3288–2).
20. Sherwood interviewed by Greg Whitfield, from “The Adrian Sherwood
interview: the On-U Sound experience, the On-U Sound family,” www.uncarved
.org/dub/onu/onu.html.
21. As quoted in Johnson 1996:76.
22. Ibid.:53.
23. See Bradley 2000:121 for a discussion of the high level of experimentation in
the British dub scene.
24. In addition to my own 2001 interview with him, information on Sherwood
in this section is taken from the following websites: “Adrian Sherwood,”
www.tt.net/onusound/sherwood.html; “Adrian Sherwood,” www.obsolete.com
/on-u/sherwood.html; “Adrian Sherwood,” www.jahsonic.com/AdrianSherwood
.html; and “The Adrian Sherwood interview: the On-U Sound Experience, the On-
U Sound family,” www.uncarved.org/dub/onu/onu.html.
25. Adrian Sherwood interviewed November, 2001.
26. Ibid.
27. See various (1999) On-U Sound Box (Cleopatra CLP-0576–2); Creation
Rebel’s Historic Moments Volume One (1994, On-U Sound 7–72784–2), and
Historic Moments, Volume Two (1995, On-U Sound 7–72799–2); Lee Perry’s
From The Secret Laboratory (Island RRCD 55 706–2, 1990); and Time Boom X De
Devil Dead (1987, EMI 7243 5 30026 2 6).
28. Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser, interviewed May 2000.
Notes / 295
29. Fraser interviewed by David Katz, from “The Ariwa Story,” www.niceup
.com/writers/david_katz/ariwastory.com. In addition to my own 2000 interview
with him and the Katz article cited above, information on Fraser in this section is
taken from the following websites: “More Loony Tunes: Interview With the Mad
Professor,” www.reggae-vibes.com/concert/madprof/madprof.htm; and “The Mad
Professor—Interviewed!” www.obscure.co.nz/culture/mad_professor_interview.
30. Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser, as interviewed by Grant Smithies at
http://www.obscure.co.nz/culture/mad_professor_interview.
31. Fraser, interviewed May 2000.
32. Ibid.
33. Biographical information on Bovell in this section is primarily taken from
two web articles: “Dennis Bovell,” www.lkjrecords.com/dennisbovell.htm, and
“Dennis Bovell: The Interview,” www.jovemusic.com/ewe.net/british/dbovell.htm.
34. Bovell, as interviewed by Norman Darwen (1999): “Dennis Bovell: The
Interview” (see note 33).
35. Ibid.
36. Bovell, as told to Nichols in the notes to Dennis Bovell (2003), Decibel
(Pressure Sounds PSCD 39).
37. For good sources on electronica, see Prendergast 2000. Reynolds 1998; the
film Modulations (directed by Iara Lee), and Shapiro 2000.
38. For listening purposes, a good reference is Shapiro 1999.
39. Intelligent Jungalist (1994), “Barehedd One” from The Best of
Underground Dance, vol. 1 (LOW CDX25).
40. A Guy Called Gerald (1995), Black Secret Technology (Juice Box).
41. Reynolds 1998:251–52.
42. Ibid.:257.
43. Johnson 1996:10.
44. The 2002 compilation The Wild Bunch: Story of A Sound System (Strut
CD 019) re-creates a typical 1980s set by the Wild Bunch crew, the Bristol-based
sound system who were the spark plug of hip-hop in England and several members
of whom went on after 1986 to form the nucleus of the seminal trip-hop (vocal)
group Massive Attack.
45. Several interesting examples of this reconciliation can be found on Massive
Attack’s Protection (1994).
46. Jacob Haagsman (2004), “Rhythm & Sound: Jamaican Hallucinations
in Stripped-Down Slowmotion,” http://www.reggae-vibes.com/concert/rhythm
_sound.htm.
47. Two surveys of this type of work are the Clicks & Cuts compilation (Mille
Plateaux label, 2000), and the Sound of Cologne compilation (Sound of Cologne
label, 2000).
48. Betke, interviewed June 2002. The recordings he cites are both productions of
Lloyd “Bullwackie’s” Barnes. See Horace Andy (1980s), Dance Hall Style (Basic
Channel/Wackie’s 1383); and Wayne Jarrett (1980s), Bubble Up (Wackie’s WRCD 191).
49. See Reynolds’ “Pure Fusion: Multiculture Vs. Monoculture” (2001).
Reprinted at http://members.aol.com/blissout/purefusion.htm.
50. See Maurizio (1997), M-Series. Basic Channel MCD.
51. See the reproduction of the label logo in Haagsman 2004 (see note 46).
52. The influence of dub on British dance music is examined in Barrow 1995.
53. See Macro Dub Infection, volume 1 (Caroline CAROL 1795–2: 1995) and 2
(Gyroscope GYR 6638–2: 1996).
54. Haagsman 2004 (see note 46).
55. See Gilroy 2005; and Baucom 1999.
56. Reynolds 1998:354.
Notes / 296
57. Reynolds’s chapter “Roots ’n’ Future” chronicles the background factors to
the emergence and popularity of drum & bass (Reynolds 1998).
58. Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) in Micallef 1996:28.
59. Barnes as quoted in “Wacky and Bullish,” http://sfbg.com/37/14/art
_music_bullwackie.html.
60. Bob Marley (1997), Dreams of Freedom: Ambient Translations of Bob
Marley in Dub (Island 524419). The title of Laswell’s remix project seems a reference
to Island Records’ four-disc box set of Marley material, Songs of Freedom.
61. See Laswell’s comments in “The Island Life Interview With Bill Laswell:
Dreams of Freedom,” http://www.bobmarley.com/albums/dreams/session.html.
62. Sinker 1994:60.
63. Sharp 1996:60.
64. Reynolds 1998:193.
65. George 2004.
66. The sociological background to the emergence of hip-hop is thoroughly
documented in Rose 1994.
67. The best source on the early years of hip-hop is Fricke and Ahearn 2002.
68. See Vincent 1996 for a history of funk music.
69. See Fikentscher 2000:chap. 2.
70. For sources on disco music, consult Shapiro 2006; Lawrence 2003; and
Brewster and Broughton 1999: chap. 6. For a representative musical overview of
the New York–based African American/Latin American social dialogue at the root
of disco, consult the seven-disc CD compilation of 12" releases on New York’s
Salsoul label (the label name says it all) spanning the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
See From the Salsoul Vault, vols. 1–7 (Salsoul SPLK2–8048 through SPLK2–8054).
71. See George 1988: chap. 6.
72. A good background source for this theme is Talty 2003, esp. chaps. 6 and 8.
73. Eshun 1997:2.
74. Consult Brewster and Broughton 1999 and Poschardt 1995 for studies of the
rise of DJ culture.
75. See Alexander G. Weheliye, “ ‘Feenin’: Posthuman Voices in Contemporary
Black Popular Music” (in Nelson 2002).
76. See Hebdige 1987: chapt. 16 for an account of this influence.
77. Manuel 1995:241.
78. What has been less documented is the role that performance contexts
played in the early development of hip-hop, and the way this also reflected a Jamai-
can cultural influence. In most early accounts, recordings have tended to be em-
phasized over performance contexts. I believe the reason for this has less to do
with trends in scholarship and more to do with an anomaly of recent New York
City history. Among the most important crucibles in the development of hip-hop
music were the outdoor “block parties,” summertime community events that
flourished in New York City during the late 1960 and early 1970s. In addition to
live bands, crews of young DJs and rappers typically provided part of the musical
entertainment at these events; as such block parties became hothouses for the de-
velopment of the emerging hip-hop form. From about 1980, however, New York
City officials made it progressively more difficult for residents to obtain permits to
hold these block parties (see chap. 4 of Rose 1994 for a discussion of the civic op-
position to rap-based public events). As a result, the block party phenomenon de-
clined from this time.
At the same time as the decline of the block parties, the rap group Sugarhill
Gang released their seminal “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979, generally considered to be
the first significant commercial recording of rap music. Thus, the block party (as a
significant social force) declined as an influence on the music at precisely the same
Notes / 297
moment that hip-hop became a commercially recorded music and began to be
documented in journalistic circles. In fact, the recording of “Rapper’s Delight” was
itself a mere consolidation of creative currents that had been brewing around New
York City for several years. Had the block party component survived for just a few
more years, it would most likely have been a more prominent part of the music’s
history, and the Jamaican contribution to hip-hop would be more clearly evident.
79. For example, see Rush 1999.
80. A good introduction to these artists is the 1996 compilation Incursions in
Illbient (Asphodel 0968). A good introduction to Paul D. Miller’s theoretical work
is Rhythm Science (Amsterdam/New York: COMA, 2004).
81. “Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber” takes its title from a dub track produced by
Rupie Edwards. See Rupie Edwards and Friends (1997), Let There Be Version
(Trojan CDTRL 280).
82. Gilroy 1993a:100. Many scholars would make a similar claim for hip-hop
music in the 1990s.
83. Both quotations from Gilroy 1993b:35.
84. Gilroy 1987:215.
85. Gilroy’s ideas on this cultural shift are neatly summarized in the introduction
to Small Acts (Gilroy 1993b).
86. See Gilroy 2000.
87. For example, see Toni Morrison’s comments on jazz as a template for
creative writing (as quoted in Gilroy 1993a:78).
88. See Salamon 1997.
89. Budhos 1999.
90. See Homiak’s “Dub History: Soundings on Rastafari Livity and Language,”
in Chevannes 1998.
91. See Njami 2005.
92. An insightful discussion of these “high-low” issues in relation to black
popular culture is Potter 1994.
93. Eshun 1998:065. He refers to Holger Czukay, bassist in the influential
“Krautrock” group Can.
94. See Parisi 2004. For information on the “Bacteria in Dub” event, see
http://space-ape.com/bacteriaindub.html.
95. See Deleuze and Guattari 1977 and 1988. For a more immediately accessible
summary of these ideas, consult Bogue 1989.
96. See Irigaray 1977 and 1985.
97. See Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and
Socialist Feminism in the 1980s” reprinted in Haraway 2004. For ideas of techno-
eroticism, see Springer 1996.
98. See Margulis 1986.
99. Parisi 2004:4.
100. See Said 1990.
101. Jameson 1991 and Lyotard 1984 offer the most frequently cited
characteristics of artistic production in the so-called postmodern age. Cornel West
has problematized the application of these ideas to black (primarily African
American) cultural production in his “Black Culture and Postmodernism,” in
Kruger and Marini 1989.
102. I am drawing here upon Jonathan Kramer’s ideas of the postcolonial in
music as presented in Kramer 1996. I am also drawing upon ideas of the linkage
between the characteristics of postcolonial and postmodern music as discussed in
Renee T. Coulombe’s “Postmodern Polyamory or Postcolonial Challenge?” in
Lochhead and Auner 2002.
Notes / 298
103. Kevin Martin in notes to Martin 1995.
104. See Lowery Sims’s “The Post-Modernism of Wifredo Lam” in Mercer
2005.
105. Ibid.
106. Lastra 2000:4.
107. See Sterne 2003:7 for a discussion of this “impact” model of technological
encounter.
109. Steve Barrow, interviewed May 2004.
111. Baker 1987:49.
112. See McWhorter 2003:200 and 209.
113. See also Browning 1998.
114. See Jordan 2000.
Notes / 299
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Victor Axelrod (p.k.a. Ticklah). May 2003, New York City (via telephone).
Aston “Familyman” Barrett. November 2003, New Haven, Connecticut.
Steve Barrow. May 2004, Paris, France.
Stefan Betke (p.k.a. Pole). June 2002, London, England.
Errol Brown. February 2006, Kingston, Jamaica (via telephone).
Overton H. “Scientist” Brown. September 2001, Los Angeles, California; Novem-
ber 2001, Seattle, Washington.
Susan Cadogan. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Michael “Mikey Dread” Campbell. August 2001, Coral Springs, Florida; Novem-
ber 2001, Seattle, Washington.
Clive Chin. May 1998, March 1999, July 2000, Queens, New York.
Rob Connelly. May 2003, Northampton, Massachusetts (via telephone).
Ryan Cowan. May 2003, New Haven, Connecticut.
Lowell “Sly” Dunbar. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Clinton Fearon. November 2001, Seattle, Washington.
Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser. May 2000, Hoboken, New Jersey; June 2002, Lon-
don, England.
George “Fully” Fullwood. November 2001, Seattle, Washington.
Jah Grant. May 1999, New York City.
Tim Haslett. May 2001, Cambridge, Massachusetts (via telephone).
Dave Hendley. June 2002, Whitstable, England.
Paul “Computer Paul” Henton. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Lloyd “King Jammy” James. June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Clive Jeffery. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Edward “Bunny” Lee. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Larry Marshall. June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Jah Mike. June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Sylvan Morris. May 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
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Lee “Scratch” Perry. November 2001, New Haven, Connecticut.
Winston Riley. June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Max Romeo. June 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Robbie Shakespeare. March 2002, Kingston, Jamaica.
Adrian Sherwood. November 2001, Seattle, Washington.
Dudley Sibley. May 2000, Kingston, Jamaica.
Philip Smart. June 2003, Freeport, New York.
Bobby Vicious. February, 2002, Hartford, Connecticut.
Bibliography / 316
Index of Songs and Recordings
%
“007,” 221 “Black Candle,” 152–53

“400 Years,” 145 “Black Force,” 123
“Black Heart,” 59
“Addis Ababa,” 30 Black Liberation Dub, 230
Africa Music Be Free By 1983, 155 “Black Panta,” 148, 149–50
African Dub, 170–72, 194–95, 230 Black Secret Technology, 234
African Roots (Lee “Scratch” Perry), 159, 161 “Black Vest,” 158
African Roots (Wackies), 241 Blackboard Jungle Dub, 148–49, 151, 168,
Agharta, 209 210
“Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” 52 “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 144
“Ambush,” 105 “Blue Jay Way,” 84
Aquarius Dub, 94, 123 “Born For A Purpose,” 226
“Are You Experienced,” 84 “Bosrah,” 126
“Armageddon Dub,” 106–7 Bubble Up, 237
“Armagideon,” 106–7 “Bucky Skank,” 148–50
“Assignment #1,” 167 “Build,” 220
Astro-Black, 209 Burnin’, 102–3
“Axe Man,” 56 “Bus-a-Dub,” 152, 153
Axis: Bold as Love, 144
“Cassava Piece,” 123, 171
“Baby I Love You So,” 65–66, 122–23 Catch a Fire, 102–3
“Bad Lamp,” 152 “Chapter Three,” 171
Badda Dan Dem, 101 “Chase the Devil,” 158
“Bandits Taking Over,” 137, 138 “Chicken Scratch,” 141
“Barehedd One,” 234 “Chinatown Dub,” 250
Bass Culture, 231 “City Too Hot,” 159
“Battle Axe,” 56 “Clint Eastwood,” 146
“Be Holy, My Brothers and Sisters,” 16 Cloak and Dagger, 151
“Better Collie,” 17 Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, 209
Better Dub, 100 “Cold Sweat,” 145, 147
“Beware Dub,” 74 “Come Along,” 158
“Big Tongue Buster,” 152, 153 “Complete Control,” 226
“Big Youth,” 75 “Connection,” 147
Black Ark Experryments, 230 “Corpse Rises, The,” 137, 138
“Black Bat,” 152–53 Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, 209

“Coxsone’s riddim,” 48 Electric Ladyland, 208
“Crazy Baldhead,” 103–4 “Enter Into His Gates With Praise,” 119–20,
“Crazy Baldhead Man,” 103–4 126
Creation Dub, 241 “E.T.,” 8
Creation of Dub, 125 “Ethiopia,” 241
“Croaking Lizard,” 158 “Ethiopian Kings,” 72–73
“Cross-Over,” 158 “Ethiopian Version,” 72–73
“Curly Dub,” 158 “Every Man Ought to Know,” 88
“Curly Locks,” 151, 158 “Evil Ways,” 121
“Cutting Razor,” 152 “Evol Yenoh,” 144
“Exodus,” 30
Dance Hall Style, 237 Exodus, 1, 83
“Dancehall Malfunction,” 250 “Extra-Ordinary Dub,” 167–68
Dark Magus, 209 “Extraordinary Version,” 167, 168, 171
“Dark Star,” 83
“Death Trap,” 120 Farover, 105
Decibel, 232 “Fidel Castro,” 30
“De-Materialize,” 137–38 “Fight I Down,” 170
“Di Great Insoreckshun,” 232 “Fire Fire” (a.k.a. “Fire Inna Kingston”),
“Distant Drums,” 30 121–22
“Do the Reggay,” 33 “Fire Fire Dub,” 121–22
“Do Your Thing,” 150 “Fisherman,” 189
“Doctor Demand,” 152 “Fittest of the Fittest Dub,” 74
“Don’t Get Crazy,” 67–68 “Five Nights of Bleeding,” 232
“Don’t Get Weary,” 67–68 “Flash Gordon Meets Luke Skywalker,”
“Don’t Get Weary Joe Frazier,” 68 130–31, 138
“Don’t Rock My Boat,” 145 “Follow Fashion,” 137, 138
“Dracula,” 56 Forces of Victory, 231
Dread Beat & Blood, 231 “Forward March,” 30
Dreams of Freedom, 242 “Free Up the Weed,” 17
“Drum Song,” 48 “French Connection,” 147
“Dub A Dawta,” 61 From The Secret Laboratory, 228, 229
“Dub Along,” 158
Dub Conference, 232 Get Up With It, 209
“Dub Fi Gwan,” 120–21 “Government Dub,” 129–30, 131
Dub From the Roots, 115, 148 “Government Land,” 129–30
Dub Me Crazy, 230 Grassroots of Dub, The, 228
Dub Store Special, 100, 102 “Guiding Star,” 55
“Dub the Pum Pum,” 61
“Dub Three,” 171–72 Hail Him, 105
“Dubbing With The Observer,” 119, 120 “Have A Little Faith,” 169
Dubd’sco, 95 Heart of the Congos, 84, 156, 157–58, 161
Dubtometry, 250 “Heavy Dub, A,” 116
“Duppy Conqueror,” 56, 145 “Heavy Duty Dub,” 73
“Duppy Conqueror Version 2,” 56 Heavyweight Dub Champion, 139
“Duppy Conqueror Version 3,” 56 “Hello Carol,” 101
“Herb Vendor,” 17
“Earth,” 234 “Hidden Camera,” 239
“Earthquake,” 170 Historic Moments, 229
“East of the River Nile,” 189 “Honey Love,” 144
East of the River Nile, 95, 155, 159, 166, 230 “Houses of Parliament,” 159
Eastwood Rides Again, 151 “Hurt So Good,” 154
“Easy Skanking,” 17 Hymnen, 249

“I Am the Upsetter,” 143 “Lock Jaw,” 146
“I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” 157 “Long Way,” 151
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” 83 “Look Within Yourself,” 123
“In the Midnight Hour,” 157 “Love and Meditation,” 101
Innovator, 209 Love Crisis, 128
“International Herb,” 17 “Love Me Forever,” 99–100
“Israel in Harmony,” 16 “Love of the Common People,” 169
It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us “Love Thy Neighbor,” 159
Back, 248
Ital Dub, 228 Macka Dub, 125
“It’s Alright,” 145–46 Macro Dub Infection, 238
“It’s Too Late,” 167 “Marcus Dub,” 116
I-Wah Dub, 232 “Marcus Garvey,” 189
Marcus Garvey, 16
“Jah Help the People,” 137 “Medical Operation,” 147
“Jah Jah Dub,” 123 Message Dubwise, The, 94, 230
“Jah Jah In De Dub,” 126 “Miss Jamaica,” 30
Jamaica Super Dub Session, 241 “Miss Wire Waist,” 73–74
“Jammy’s A Shine,” 129 “Money Generator,” 213
Jammy’s in Lion Dub Style, 128 “More Axe,” 56
“Java,” 56–57, 166 Mothership Connection, 209
Java Java Dub, 94 “Mr. Bassie” (1971 version), 76–77
Juks Incorporation, 100 “Mr. Bassie” (1978 version), 76–77
“Just A Dream,” 112 “Mr. Brown,” 56
“Just Say Who,” 116 “Musical Science,” 101–2, 213
“My Boy Lollipop,” 221
Kamikaze Dub, 128 Mystic Warrior, 230–31
“Kaya,” 17
Kaya Dub, 127 “Nanny Goat,” 33
Keyboard King, 121 Natty Dread, 102–3, 164
“Kill Them All,” 147 “Natural Way,” 106
“King of the Zulus,” 2 “Nature Dub,” 106
“King Solomon,” 30 Necropolis, 249
“King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown,” No Protection, 231
65–66, 122–23, 171 “No Sympathy,” 145, 146
King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown, 65, “No Water,” 145
122–23, 166, 228 “None Shall Escape the Judgement,” 125
King Tubby Surrounded by the Dreads at the
National Arena, 228 “Oh, Mr. D.C.,” 132
“King Tubby’s Key,” 66 “One Drop,” 105
“Kingdom Rise, Kingdom Fall,” 16 On-U Sound Box, 229
“Knock on Wood,” 147 “Open the Gate,” 154
“Kojak,” 253 “Operation,” 75
“Kung Fu Man,” 152 Optometry, 250
Kung Fu Meets the Dragon, 151–52 “Ordinary Man,” 167–68
“Leave Rasta,” 16 “Pablo in Dub,” 172

“Legalize It,” 17 Pangaea, 209
“Live After You,” 119, 120 “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” 149–50
“Live Injection,” 147 “People Funny Boy,” 33, 142, 143, 144
Living Dub, 95 Pet Sounds, 37
“Living Style,” 120 “Police and Thieves,” 154, 226
LKJ in Dub, 231 “Popcorn, The,” 147

Presenting the Gladiators, 101 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 144
Protection, 231 “Shackles & Chains,” 66
Public Jestering, 152 “Shashimani,” 241
“Pussy Galore,” 141 “Sick and Tired,” 143
“Silver Bullet,” 118–19
Randy’s Dub, 170 “Silver Words,” 118–19
Rare Reggae Grooves from Studio One, 132 “Sister Maggie Breast,” 62
Rasta Dub, 125 “Slippin’ Into Darkness,” 150
“Rasta No Born Yah,” 16 Slum in Dub, 128
Rastaman Vibration, 102–3, 164 “Small Axe,” 56, 145
“Reflections,” 146 “Sniper,” 120–21
“Return of Django,” 143 “Song of Blood,” 232
Return of Pipecock Jackson, The, 229 “Sonny’s Lettah,” 232
Return of the Super Ape, 161 “Soon Forward,” 250
Revelation Time, 155 “Sophisticated Cissy,” 147
Revolution Dub, 253 “South China Sea,” 30
Rhythm and Sound, 238 Space Is the Place, 209
Riddim Warfare, 250 “Stalag 17” riddim, 76, 189, 234
“Ring the Alarm,” 191 Studio One Disco Mix, 132
“Ringo Rides,” 190 “Sufferer’s Time,” 137
“Rings Around Saturn,” 234 “Sun Is Shining,” 129
“River,” 153 Super Ape, 158–59, 210
“Roast Duck,” 141 Survival, 105
Roast Fish, Collie Weed and Cornbread, 161, Synchronisms No. 1, 39
229
“Roast Fish, Cornbread and Collie Weed,” “Take It Easy,” 31
17 “Talking Blues,” 69
“Rockfort Rock” rhythm, 171 Tappa Zukie in Dub, 125, 126
“Rockit,” 241 “Tapper Zukie In Dub,” 126
Roots of Dub, The, 115, 148 “Tedious,” 153
“Rub-A-Dub Style,” 133 “Tempo,” 188
“Run For Cover,” 143 “Them Never Love Poor Marcus,” 116
“Things A Come Up to Bump,” 98
Sandinista, 226 This Is Augustus Pablo, 165, 166–67
“Satan Side,” 59 “This Is The Hardest Version,” 119–20
“Say So,” 65 “Three Blind Mice,” 87–88, 148
“Science,” 212 “Three Times Three,” 87–88, 148
Scientific Dub, 101, 137 “Throw Me Corn,” 98, 100, 101
Scientist and Jammy Strike Back, 130–31, 133, “Tighten Up,” 143, 153
139 Time Boom X De Devil Dead, 228, 229
Scientist Encounters Pac Man at Channel Tings and Times, 231
One, 139 “To Be A Lover,” 157
Scientist Meets the Space Invaders, 139 To Be A Lover, 84, 156–58
Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of “Too Late,” 167
the Vampires, 139 “Totally Together,” 121
Scientist Wins the World Cup, 139 Tribesman Assault, 241
“Scratch the Dub Organizer,” 153 “Tripe Girl,” 55
Second Edition, 226 “Turn Back the Hands of Time,” 157
“See A Dub Face,” 137, 138
“See A Man Face,” 135, 137, 138 Uhuru in Dub, 128
“Set Them Free,” 143–44 “Under Me Sleng Teng,” 188

“Vampire,” 154 Williams Mix, 249
“Vibrate On,” 166 “Wire Dub,” 73–74
“Woman’s Dub,” 148, 253
Wailing, 7 “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” 148
“War Inna Babylon,” 154, 158 “Wonderful World,” 221
Waveform Transmissions, 209
“Wet Dream,” 163 “Ya-Ya,” 157
“What A Botheration,” 144 “Yogi Man,” 30
“When Jah Come,” 158
“When You Walk,” 142 “Zion’s Blood,” 158
“Who No Waan Come Cyaan Stay,” 7

Index of General Subjects
%
4Hero, 233 Afrobeat, 242

Afro-futurism, 208–9, 213, 234
A. R. Kane, 226 Agawu, Kofi, 197
Abalos, Inaki, 140 Aggrovators, the, 46, 47, 104, 120
Abbey Road Studios, 37 Alcapone, Dennis, 55, 229
Abstract Sex (book), 254 Alexander, Monty, 41, 123, 189
Ace, Charlie, 153 Alpha and Omega, 227
Ace, Richard, 96–97 Alpha School, 29
Achebe, Chinua, 92 Alphonso, Noel, 130
Adams, Glen, 145 Alphonso, Roland, 30
Adams, Lloyd “Tin Leg,” 143, 149 ambient music, 2, 3, 131, 226, 233, 238, 242,
“Aesthetics of the Global Imagination, The” 243, 249
(essay), 207 America. See United States
Africa, 30, 34, 35, 43, 166, 217; African cul- American Recording Academy, 113
ture, 214, 215, 250, 256; African influence Anderson, Gladstone, 143, 147
on Jamaican music, 26–27, 60, 103, 213; Andy, Horace, 99, 225, 230, 235, 237, 238,
African musical cultures, 40; African na- 241; songs by, 16, 17, 76–77, 129–30, 135
tionalism, 15, 35–36, 198; African repatria- Angola, 186
tion, 7, 16, 198, 199; African roots, 60, Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela, 242
142, 186, 198, 200, 212, 213, 215; as cul- Anthony Red Rose, 188
tural symbol, 30, 36, 60, 187, 198, 199, “anti-languages,” 215–16
202, 218, 230, 248; as narrative theme, 13, Antilles, the, 1, 204
33, 192, 193, 208, 209, 210, 213–14 Anti-Oedipus (book), 254
“Africa Remix” (exhibition), 253 Appel, Hannah, 211
African arts, 22, 92 Apter, Andrew, 201
African-derived musics, 26–28, 32, 63, 70, Arbiter, Ivor, 98
193, 200, 209, 214, 252 Ariwa (record label/sound system/studio),
African diaspora, 18, 20, 192, 197, 198–200, 230; photo, 183
208, 223, 250, 256; arts of the, 40, 205, Armstrong, Louis, 2, 30
214, 248, 256; cultural memory of the, Arp, Jean, 207
92, 204, 205, 213; oral history in the, 253. Arrows the Ambassador (sound system), 53,
See also diaspora 86, 109
African Head Charge, 229 art music, 22, 37, 38–39, 40, 91
African Rhythm (book), 197 Artforum (magazine), 253
Africanist aesthetics, 41–42, 197, 250 Atkinson, Bryan, 31
Africanization, 246, 247, 248 Atlantic Records, 37

Auralux (record label), 25 211; creation of, 150–52; decline of, 161,
Austen, Clive, 226 188; musical style, 202; photos, 178, 179;
Australia, 49 musicians associated with, 62; sound of,
Automatic (pressing plant), 105 8, 74, 84, 100, 120, 155, 166, 171, 229, 232,
Ayler, Albert, 40 241; technology at, 153–54
Black Atlantic, The (book), 24, 252
“Bacteria in Dub” (event), 254 Black Harmony (sound system), 86
Bailey, Gil, 9 Black Power movement, 15
Bailey, Noel “Sowell,” 134 Black Uhuru, 11, 58, 63, 70, 84, 128, 134, 136,
Baker, Houston, 258 228
Ball, Philip, 24 Blackman, Paul, 65
Bambaataa, Afrika, 246–47 “blackness,” 33, 35, 213, 217, 244, 251
Banton, Buju, 193 Blackwell, Chris, 102, 104, 105, 153, 164
Banton, Pato, 230 Blake, Christopher “Sky Juice,” 134
Baraka, Amiri, 41 blaxploitation, 149–50, 239
Barbados, 231 Blood & Fire (record label), 25
Barker, Dave, 147 Bloom, Sandra, 204
Barnes, Lloyd “Bullwackies,” 9, 162, 237, 238, blues, 28, 76, 119, 149, 201, 208, 244
240–41 Bobby Vicious, 63, 82, 109, 111, 189, 191,
Barrett, Aston “Family Man,” 33, 58–59, 103, 216
104–5, 134, 145, 146, 147, 149 Bomb Squad, 194, 248
Barrett, Carlton “Carlie,” 33, 58, 72, 103–4, Booker T. and the MGs, 147
135, 145, 147, 171–72, 234 Booms, James, 154–55
Barrow, Steve, 25, 46, 111, 155, 172, 218, 222, Boone, Pat, 28
226, 238, 254, 257 Boothe, Ken, 118
Barthes, Roland, 69 Borges, Jorge Luis, 203
Basic Channel (record label), 237, 240 Boston, 8
Bassies, the, 98 Bovell, Dennis “Blackbeard,” 70, 227, 231–
Baucom, Ian, 239 33; photo, 184
BBC, the, 231 Bradley, Lloyd, 25, 33, 36, 109, 150, 170, 223
Beach Boys, the, 37 Brad’s Record Shack, 9
Beastie Boys, the 231 Bradshaw, Sonny, 29
Beatles, the, 24, 37, 45, 84, 144 Brathwaite, Kamau, 215
bebop, 61, 251 breakbeats, 3, 233, 234, 235, 245, 247
Becker, Jimmy, 74 Brevett, Tony, 67
Beckford, Ewart. See U-Roy Brigadier Jerry, 87, 88, 216
Beenie Man, 193 Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color
Bell, William, 156–57, 232 (book), 24
Bennett, “Deadly” Headley, 228 Bristol, 223, 235
Bennett, Val, 29, 143 Britz, Chuck, 37
Berklee College of Music, 8 Brixton, 221
Berlin, 240 Broadber, Erna, 33
Berry, Chuck, 28 Broggs, Peter, 132
Betke, Stefan, 236–37 Bronx, the, 9, 240
Beverly’s All Stars, 47 Brooklyn, 9
Beverly’s Studio, 47 Brown, Charles, 28
Bible, the, 152, 166 Brown, Cleveland “Clevie,” 134, 188
Big Joe and Fay, 61 Brown, Dennis, 5, 11, 54, 119, 120
Big Youth, 55, 216, 224 Brown, Errol, 60, 70, 104–5, 139, 242
Bilby, Kenneth, 25, 27, 44 Brown, Glen, 33, 58, 117
Birmingham, 223 Brown, Hux, 143
Bishop, Maurice, 15 Brown, James, 28, 145, 147, 244
Black Ark (studio), 10, 13, 19, 35, 142, 159–60, Brown, Overton H. “Scientist.” See Scientist

Brown, Winston “Professor,” 41 164, 170; other comments, 31, 48, 50;
Bryan, Karl, 213 photo, 180
Bryan, Stanley “Barnabas,” 135, 136 Chin, Earl “Rootsman,” 9
Bucknor, Syd, 50, 96, 114, 135 Chin, Pat, 163
Budhos, Marina, 253 Chin, Vincent, 163
Bunny and Ricky, 154 Chin-Loy, Herman, 94, 123, 164
Burnett, Watty, 154, 156 Chin’s Radio Service, 127
Burning Spear, 8, 11, 16, 95, 105, 157, 189, 190 Choir School, 163, 164
Burru (folk genre), 26, 200 Chude-Sokei, Louis, 7, 187, 190, 192, 198,
Byles, Junior, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 158 221, 250–51, 252, 255
Byzar, 249 Clarke, Johnny, 16, 47, 103–4, 115, 116, 119,
125, 126, 217, 230, 231
Cabaret Voltaire, 227, 228 Clarke, Sebastian, 43
Cadogan, Susan, 69, 154, 155, 160 Clash, the, 225, 226
Cage, John, 3, 39, 214, 249, 250 classical music, 82, 138, 200, 201–2, 259
call-and-response, 27, 67, 68, 156 clave, 60
calypso, 28, 29, 49 Cliff, Jimmy, 4, 30, 46, 102, 221, 222
Cameron, Wally, 97 Clifford, James, 199, 204–5
Campbell, Clive. See DJ Kool Herc Clinton, George, 244
Campbell, Cornell, 238 Coburn, Roy, 29
Campbell, Michael “Mikey Dread.” See cocaine, 187, 193
Mikey Dread Cole, Nat King, 28
Canada, 121 Cologne, 38, 40
Capleton, 193 colonization, 15, 23, 26, 186, 203, 209, 213,
Cardiff, 223 215, 216, 256
Carib Gems (record label), 228 Coltrane, John, 3, 40, 209
Caribbean Basin Initiative, 186 Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Cen-
Caribbean Currents (book), 246 ter, 40
Carlton and the Shoes, 99–100 Computer Paul, 17, 34, 63, 81, 93, 99, 116,
Carpentier, Alejo, 203 134, 135–36
Carter, Errol “Flabba Holt.” See Holt, Errol Comtech, 95–96
“Flabba” Congolese pop music, 159
Casio keyboard, 188 Congos, the, 84, 144, 155, 156, 161, 189
Castro, Fidel, 14, 186, 198 Constructivists, 207
Centre Georges Pompidou, 253 Cooper, Carolyn, 43, 251
Cerrone, Jean-Marc, 244 Corbett, John, 22, 41, 43
Césaire, Aimé, 15 Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, 167
Chanan, Michael, 24, 37, 90, 217 Count Machuki, 55
Chang, Jeff, 241 Count Shelley, 223
Channel One (studio), 10, 89, 104, 116, 133, country music (American), 201
139, 161, 164, 188; photo, 177; sound of, Cousins, Roy, 108, 134, 224
70, 106, 135–37; technology at, 50 Coxsone’s Record Mart, 9
Chaplin, Charlie (DJ), 87, 88, 216 Creary, Warren “Benbow,” 33
Chess (record label), 201 Creation Rebel, 229
Chicago, 45, 201 Creation Steppers, 229
Chin, Clive, 33, 57, 94, 124, 163–65, 166–67; Criteria Recording Studios, 104, 113
comments about dub music, 53, 55, 62, Crooklyn Dub Consortium, 240
64, 165, 202; comments about Errol Cropper, Steve, 157
“Errol T.” Thompson, 164, 165, 167, Crouch, Stanley, 41, 251
168–70, 171; comments about “Java,” 57, Crystallites, the, 47
166; comments about other musicians, Cuba, 1–2, 14, 44, 186, 198
136, 144, 150, 166; comments about Cubists, 207
Randy’s and other studios, 47, 50, 150, Culshaw, John, 36

Culture, 11, 17, 157 Dixon, Bobby “Digital,” 188
Cure, the, 228 DJ Kool Herc, 45, 246, 247
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), DJ Red Alert, 248
250, 254 DJ Spooky, 41, 249–50, 254, 255
Czukay, Holger, 253 Dodd, Clement “Coxsone,” 89, 97–98, 99,
112, 117, 223; as producer, 29, 30, 33, 34,
Dabydeen, David, 217–18 49, 50–51, 96, 100–102, 132, 133, 163, 213;
Dadaists, 207 as sound system operator, 28, 29, 42, 109,
Daley, Lloyd “Matador,” 42 142; as studio owner, 46, 50; collabora-
Dalton, Peter, 46, 172 tion with Lee “Scratch” Perry, 141–43,
dancehall music, 11–12, 62, 79, 131, 134–35, 162; photo, 173. See also Sir Coxsone’s
137, 172, 187–88, 190–91, 240. See also Downbeat; Studio One
ragga Doncaster, 223
dancehalls, 4–5, 42, 146; in New York, 12; Donovan, Kevin, 247
role in addressing social issues, 216; role Donovan, Ras, 238
in the creation of dub, 63–64, 86, 88, 110, Dorsey, Lee, 156, 157
161, 243; role in the dissemination of Dowd, Tom, 37
Rastafari, 15; sound quality of music in, Doyle, Peter, 138
103, 104, 105, 131, 201, 238. See also sound Dr. Alimantado, 55, 226
systems “Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber” (essay), 250
Daniel, Oliver, 37 Dread, Junior, 154
Darwen, Norman, 231 Dread, Mikey. See Mikey Dread
Davidowsky, Mario, 39 Drifters, the, 144
Davis, Carlton “Santa,” 33–34, 114–15, 128, drum and bass: as aesthetic, 36, 103, 104, 105,
135 149, 158, 167, 194, 236, 247; as compo-
Davis, Miles, 3, 37, 208, 209, 242 nents of dub, 62, 77, 87, 118, 119, 120, 121,
Davis, Ronnie, 129 126, 128, 130, 152, 153, 156, 165, 206; as dis-
Davis, Stephen, 25, 29, 31, 109, 200 tinct genre, 57–61, 72, 102, 123, 148, 233–
Davis, Tyrone, 156, 157 34, 238, 257; influence on modern elec-
Dawes, Kwame, 199, 218–19, 251 tronic music, 230, 237; musicians asso-
deejaying, 70, 220, 232; as component of ciated with, 145, 171. See also jungle music
dub, 62, 63, 68–69, 86–87, 90, 189, 201, Drummond, Don, 30, 35, 41, 166
215–16, 223; as component of other mu- dub: aesthetics of, 77–80; as African-derived
sics, 191, 193–94, 234, 245; by specific music, 63, 214; as communal art form,
deejays, 88, 109; comparison with psy- 88–89, 214–15; as electronic music, 38–41;
chedelia, 83–84; rise of, 55–56, 197, 251. as product of the African diaspora, 198–
See also sound systems 99, 205–6; as reflective of Jamaican his-
Dekker, Desmond, 221 tory, 197–202, 204–8, 218; comparison to
Delahaye, Junior, 241 hip-hop, 20, 61, 245–48; comparison to
Delany, Samuel, 208 psychedelia, 82–85; comparison to
Deleuze, Gilles, 254 ragga, 193–94; compositional strategies
DelNaja, Robert, 227 of, 52–55, 64–76, 197–98; decline of, 188–
Dennis, Rudolph “Garth,” 7 89; definition of, 61–64, 127; economics
Depeche Mode, 228 of, 89–93; forerunners of, 26–34, 36–38,
Detroit, 209, 237 57–61; influence on global popular
D’Haen, Theo, 204, 215 music, 2, 3, 10, 20, 41, 221, 225–27, 255–
diaspora, 20, 199, 207, 212, 255. See also Afri- 60; influence on scholarship, 249–55; in-
can diaspora tellectual property issues in, 90–91, 189;
“Diaspora, Utopia and the Critique of Capi- neo-dub, 13, 224, 225, 227–43, 249; rela-
talism” (essay), 252 tionship to reggae, 34, 63, 140, 212, 224,
Diddley, Bo, 28, 45 243–44; relationship to ganja, 80–82;
Dillinger, 55, 216 role of the deejay, 55–56, 62, 63, 68–69,
disco, 3, 32, 85, 115, 244–45 86–87, 90, 189, 201, 215–16, 223; role of

the producer, 46–49; role of the sound Emperor Faith (sound system), 53, 86, 109
system, 42–44, 51–55, 63–64, 85–89, 110, England. See United Kingdom
161, 243. See also reggae Eno, Brian, 3, 80, 249
Dub Band, the, 231 Erlich, Luke, 72, 196
“Dub History” (essay), 253 Erlmann, Veit, 20, 207
dub plates, 51–55, 61, 64, 89, 105, 108, 109, Ernestus, Mark, 236, 237–38
110, 112, 113, 125 Eshun, Kodwo, 41, 245, 253, 254, 255
dub poets, 62, 70, 231 Ethiopia, 15, 199, 217
Dub Specialist, 100, 101. See also Dodd, Etu (folk genre), 26
Clement “Coxsone” Everett, Walter, 24
Dub Syndicate, 229 “Excursion on the Version” (radio segment),
dubstep, 239 226
Duffus, Shenley, 149 experimental music, 2–3, 19, 40–41, 75, 92,
Duhaney Park, 50, 169, 188; photo, 177 209, 233, 236, 249, 250
Dunbar, Lowell “Sly,” 34, 72, 128, 135, 136,
171, 234; comments and interviews, 51, 58, Faith, George, 84, 156–57
61, 62, 70, 81, 84–85, 122, 136, 155, 159, Fanon, Frantz, 15, 256
169; photo, 178. See also Sly & Robbie Faris, Wendy, 203
Dunkley, Errol, 231 Fats Domino, 143
Dunrobin High School, 124 Fearon, Clinton, 62, 101
Dylan, Bob, 144 Federal (studio), 49, 50, 54, 71, 105
Dynamic Studio, 10, 96, 105, 108, 143, 151, Felman, Shoshana, 205
170; music recorded at, 104, 116, 123, 147, “feminization” of song form, 79–80
148; photos, 173, 174; technology at, 49, Fender bass, 32
113–14, 123, 170 Flesh and Bones, 170
Dynamics, the, 47 Floyd, Eddie, 147
“flying cymbal” (drumming pattern), 32,
Earth, Wind and Fire, 208 114–15, 119, 120, 128
Eastwood, Jacky, 42 Foreman, George, 68
Eccles, Clancy, 47, 143, 164, 165 Fort Lauderdale, 113
Echo Minott, 128 Fowler, Robert, 215
Eckstine, Billy, 28 France, 227
ecstatic contemplation, 200, 202 Francis, Squingine “Squingy,” 188
Edison, Thomas, 36 Frankie Knuckles, 220
Edwards, Vincent “King,” 42, 142 Fraser, Neil “Mad Professor.” See Mad
Edwards, Winston, 228 Professor
Eek-A-Mouse, 11 Frater, Eric, 98
Egypt, 208, 209 Frazier, Joe, 68
El Salvador, 186 Freeport, 125
El Toro (sound system), 127 Frere-Jones, Sasha, 202
Electric Lady (studio), 37 Full Experience, 158
Electro-Harmonix (sound processor manu- Fulwood, George “Fully,” 33, 47, 58, 59
facturer), 153 funk, 61, 63, 193, 208, 241, 244–45, 246, 247
electronic music, 3, 2, 8, 19, 38–41, 92, 209, Futurists, 207
236, 238, 241, 249, 250
electronica, 45, 85, 92, 162, 221, 227, 233–39, Gabbard, Krin, 207
242, 243, 254, 258 Gabriel, Walda, 238
Ellington, Duke, 35 Gainsbourg, Serge, 227
Ellis, Alton, 167 Gaisberg, Fred, 36
Ellison, Ralph, 92, 251 ganja, 5, 16, 17–18, 31, 35, 80–82, 120, 160,
Emerick, Geoff, 37 186–87, 193, 223, 224
Emerman, Mack, 113 García Márquez, Gabriel, 203
EMI (record label), 37, 222 Gardiner, Boris, 33, 58, 97

Garnett, Bill, 49–50, 102, 135, 163, 169 Harriott, Derrick, 47, 164, 169
Garvey, Marcus, 5, 15, 16, 116 Harriott, Joe, 41
Gatherers, the, 149 Harry J Studio, 10, 19, 50, 95, 102, 104, 105–
Gaylads, the, 132, 141 6, 164; photo, 174
Gebreyesus, Fikre, 217 Harvard Stadium, 8
General Echo, 167 Hayes, George “Buddy,” 7
George, Nelson, 243 Hayes, Isaac, 150
Germany, 235–38, 239 Hayward, Philip, 209–10
Ghana, 197, 199 HCF (studio), 125
Giant (sound system), 42 Heartbeat (record label), 25, 132
Gibbs, Joe, 5, 33, 74, 143, 169–71, 172, 188, Henderson, Richard, 160
194, 216. See also Joe Gibbs’s Studio Hendley, Dave, 11, 25; comments about the
Gikandi, Simon, 215 Black Ark, 151, 160, 161; comments about
Gillespie, Dizzy, 30 King Tubby’s studio, 112, 117; comments
Gilroy, Paul, 24, 41–42, 89, 205, 207, 239, about reggae in Jamaica, 47–48, 83; com-
251–52, 255, 256 ments about reggae in the U.K., 6, 222,
Gladiators, the, 62, 99, 101 223, 224, 225–26
Glass, Philip, 39 Hendrix, Jimi, 37, 45, 83, 208. See also Jimi
Gnawa (Moroccan folk genre), 241 Hendrix Experience, the
Gold Star (studios), 37 Henri, Pierre, 38, 39
Goldie, 233 Henton, “Computer Paul.” See Computer
Gombe (folk genre), 26 Paul
Goodall, Graeme, 49, 50, 53, 54, 71, 96 Henzell, Perry, 1, 102
Goode, Erich, 80 Heptones, the, 13, 55, 137, 155
Gordon, Ken “Fatman,” 223 Herrera, Juan, 140
Gordon, Vin, 172 Heywood, Winston, 155
gospel music, 28, 244 Hibbert, Toots, 141. See also Toots and the
Graham, “Crucial” Bunny “Tom Tom,” 135, Maytals
136 Hicks, Michael, 84
Graham, Leo, 87–88, 148, 151, 152–53, 154 highlife, 30
Grajeda, Tony, 79 hip-hop, 2, 238, 240, 258; comparison to dub
Grandmaster Flash, 45 and ragga, 20, 61, 194, 245, 247–48; his-
Grant, Eddy, 227 tory of, 3, 29, 244–46; influence on
Grateful Dead, the, 83 modern electronic music, 85, 193, 229,
Gray, Noel, 188 233–35, 236, 239, 247, 249; scholarship
Greensleeves (record label), 134, 139 on, 41, 250
Gregory, Tony, 164 Hiroshima, 204
Griffiths, Albert, 101 Hit Run (record label), 228
grime, 239 Hoffman, Katherine, 207
Guattari, Felix, 254 Hollywood, 36, 37
Guy Called Gerald, A, 233, 234 Holness, Winston “Niney the Observer,”
Guyana, 229 89, 115, 143, 165
Holocaust, the, 204, 205
Haagsman, Jacob, 235, 238, 239 Holt, Errol “Flabba,” 33, 58, 131, 134
Haiti, 26, 44 Homiak, John, 253
Half Pint, 128 Hoo-Kim, Ernest, 5, 10, 135, 136
Hamilton, Anthony “Soljie,” 135, 136 Hoo-Kim, Joseph “Jo-Jo,” 5, 10, 135
Hancock, Herbie, 208, 241 house music, 2, 3, 233, 237, 238, 239
hand drums, 28 Houston, Cissy, 164
Haraway, Donna, 254 Houston, Thelma, 244
Harbour View, 124, 163 Houston, Whitney, 241
Harder They Come, The (film), 102 Hudson, Clive, 9
Harned, Grover C. “Jeep,” 113 Hudson, Keith, 59, 225

Hugh, Sang, 16 10, 11–12, 31, 109; Rastafari influence in,
Hunt, Clive “Lizard,” 170 15–17, 187; relationship to the United
Hynes Auditorium, 8 Kingdom, 26, 30, 35, 44; relationship to
the United States, 14, 17, 18, 36, 44, 186,
Illbient movement, 249 213; “roots” era in, 21, 35, 95, 192, 193,
Impact All-Stars, the, 47 207, 220. See also Kingston
Impressions, the, 225–26 Jamaica Technical High School, 96
Indian classical music, 241 Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation (JBC),
industrial music, 227 4, 49
Innocence, 220 Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), 10, 109, 186,
Inspirations, the, 143, 153 240
Institute of Contemporary Art, 237 Jamaican Recording Studio. See Studio One
Intelligent Jungalist, 234 Jamerson, James, 146, 149, 150
International Monetary Fund, 187 James, C. L. R., 15
Irie, Nolan, 230 James, Lloyd “King Jammy.” See King
Irigaray, Luce, 254 Jammy
Iron, Devon, 154, 158 Jameson, Frederic, 90, 204
Iron Butterfly, 83 Jamiroquai, 231
I-Roy, 55, 62, 68, 111, 231 Japan, 79
Isaacs, Gregory, 5, 11 Jarrett, Wayne, 237, 241
Island (record label), 60, 102–3, 104, 123, 153, jazz, 19, 30, 35, 50, 251, 255; avant-garde, 40–
161, 164, 170, 222, 231, 242 41; comparison to dub, 8, 57, 61, 68, 217;
I-Tones, the, 8 history of, 3, 37, 208–9, 245; in Jamaica,
28, 188, 189; influence on dub, 55, 74, 104,
Jackson, Carlton, 154 117, 158; influence on other musics, 34,
Jackson, Clifton, 143 39, 235; interaction with Jamaican music,
Jackson, Jackie, 31, 32, 143 70, 123, 151, 193; interaction with other
Jackson, Michael, 45 musics, 241, 242, 244, 247; scholarship
Jackson, Millie, 154 on, 92, 207
Jackson, Vivian “Yabby You.” See Yabby You Jefferson Airplane, 83
JAD Records, 164 Jenkinson, Tom, 239
Jafa, Arthur, 205 Jerry, Jah, 29
Jagger, Mick, 241 Jets, the, 31
Jah Love (sound system), 87, 88 Jimi Hendrix Experience, the, 84, 144
Jah Shaka, 223, 227, 230 Joe Gibbs’s Studio, 10, 19, 50, 70, 163, 169,
Jah Walton, 238 170, 189; photo, 181
Jah Wobble, 226 Johnson, Harry, 10, 102, 164
Jah Woosh, 69, 80 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 11, 62, 70, 231, 232–33
Jamaica: African legacy in, 26–27; as re- Johnson, Phil, 225, 235
flected in its music, 23, 30, 31, 190, 192, Johnson, Roydel, 156
193, 197–98, 204, 206, 256; copyright is- Johnson, Sir J. J., 143
sues in, 90–92; culture in, 41, 103, 216, Johnson, Wycliffe “Steely,” 134, 188
219, 250; decline of dub in, 188–89; de- Jones, Hedley, 42
cline of reggae in, 185–88; development Jones Town, 234
of ragga in, 188; development of reggae Jordan, Joel, 260
in, 31–34; development of rock steady in, Jordan, Louis, 28
30–31; development of ska in, 29–30; jungle music, 2, 122, 233–34, 235, 239. See also
drugs in, 17–18, 81, 186–87, 193; early mu- drum and bass
sical developments in, 26–28; history of, Juniper, Andrew, 79
14, 26, 186–87, 207; images of Africa in,
199; influence on global popular music, Kantner, Paul, 83–84
1–2, 4–7, 21, 24, 38, 217, 221, 259; musical Katz, David, 25, 31, 141, 147, 150–51, 159, 190,
legacy of, 34, 40; political struggles in, 216, 229

Kawongolo, Kawo, 159, 161 Kofi, 230
Kelly, Pat, 126–27, 170 Koki, 238
Kendal, 141 Kool and the Gang, 244
Kenner, Rob, 42 Kraftwerk, 236
Kete (folk drumming genre), 27 Kramer, Eddie, 37
Khouri, Ken, 27, 49 Kumina (Afro-Jamaican liturgical genre),
King Attorney (sound system), 86 26–27, 35
King, Bertie, 29
King Edwards the Giant (sound system), 142 Lamont, Eric “Bingy Bunny,” 134, 167–68, 170
King Jammy, 19, 132, 133, 134, 189, 225, 227, lancer, 27
243; comments and interviews, 78, 113, Lastra, James, 24, 212, 256
114, 115, 117, 119, 127, 128, 129, 131, 190; Laswell, Bill, 240, 241–43
photos, 175, 181; relationship with King Lawes, Henry “Junjo,” 5, 33, 134, 137, 188
Tubby, 12, 124, 126–31; works by, 76, 84, Lee, Byron, 10, 32, 49, 96, 113
129–31, 138, 188 Lee, Bunny, 127, 128, 132, 225; as major figure
King Jammy’s Studio, 12–13 in dub, 5, 33, 89, 112–13, 114–15, 116–17,
King Stitt, 55 119, 120, 125, 134, 143, 161, 164, 165, 170,
King Tubby, 43, 196; as major figure in dub, 196, 229, 235; comments and interviews,
2, 8, 35, 38, 61, 84, 89, 94, 108–33, 210, 50–51, 52, 54, 56, 59, 75, 78, 102, 110, 114,
216, 217, 227, 234, 243, 257; attitude to- 115, 121, 122, 143, 163, 169; photo, 177;
ward ganja, 81, 82; collaboration with works by, 104, 125, 137, 148
Augustus Pablo, 33, 134, 166; collabora- Legge, Walter, 36
tion with Bunny Lee, 33, 52, 56, 134; col- Lesser, Beth, 12, 127
laboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Letts, Don, 226
148–50, 159; comparisons with, 59, 138, Levine, Larry, 37
140, 152, 167, 172, 232, 248, 155–56, 160; Levy, Barrington, 134
death of, 11, 12, 188–89; influence on Levy, Douglas, 241
King Jammy, 12–13, 124, 126–29; influ- Lewis, Alva, 145
ence on others, 230, 237, 241; influence Lewis, George, 40
on “Prince” Philip Smart, 124–26, 185; in- Lewis, Hopeton, 31
fluence on Scientist, 8, 132–33; innova- Lewis, Peter and Paul, 154
tions by, 9, 51, 52, 56, 57, 60, 74, 75–76, “lickshot,” 201
165; photos, 175, 182; style of, 83, 206, Lindt, Brian, 168
224; works by, 65–66, 72–73, 74, 87–88, Lingala, 159
103–4, 118–23 Little Axe, 229
King Tubby’s Home Town Hi Fi (sound Little Richard, 28, 35
system), 55, 56, 86, 108–11 Little Walter, 45
King Tubby’s Studio, 10, 11, 12–13, 19, 93, Liverpool, 223
106, 112–18, 131, 134, 137, 151, 155, 158, 188, Living Color, 228
189; photo, 175 “Living Memory and the Slave Sublime”
Kingston, 68, 88, 124, 125, 127, 141, 211, 221; (essay), 205
as birthplace, 95, 108, 112, 126, 132, 163, Livingstone, Bunny “Wailer.” See Wailer,
165; as location of musical innovations, 2, Bunny
18, 44, 225, 246; audiences in, 28, 42; im- LKJ Records, 231
ages of, 210; musicians in, 131, 134; politi- Lloyd Coxsone (sound system), 223
cal rivalries of, 109, 240; Rastafari in, 15; London, 161, 225, 228, 231, 232, 236, 254; Ja-
social conditions in, 14, 27, 132, 190; maican music in, 6, 221, 222, 223, 224;
sound systems of, 5, 42, 108–9, 111, 234; musical innovations in, 37, 45; photo, 183
studios in, 10, 12–13, 46, 50, 56, 58, 140, Lone Ranger, 101
163, 169, 188; violence in, 10–11, 43, 142, Lord Kelly (sound system), 109, 127
186, 187, 206, 239 Love Joys, the, 241
Kingston College, 166 lover’s rock, 5, 232
Kingston Technical, 127 LTJ Bukem, 233, 234

Lydon, Johnny (Rotten), 226–27 McDermott, Tony, 139
Lyn, Robbie, 96–97 McDonald, Lloyd “Bread,” 7
McGregor, Freddie, 133, 137
Macero, Teo, 37 McEvilley, Thomas, 1
Macka B., 230 McKenzie, Lancelot “Maxie,” 135, 136
Mackie’s, 88 McWhorter, John, 258–59
Mad Professor, 13, 40, 160, 162, 202, 212, 225, meditation, 81–82, 202
227, 229–31, 235; photo, 183 Meditations, the, 13, 159, 241
Madonna, 257 Meek, Joe, 37, 38
magical realism, 197, 203–4, 207 Meintjes, Louise, 24, 208, 211–12
Mahler, Gustav, 259 Memphis, 119, 201
Mais, Don, 135 mento, 27–28, 29, 30, 49
Malcolm, Carl, 73 Mercer, Kobena, 41
Malcolm, Hugh, 143 merengue, 29, 63
Malm, Krister, 44 Meters, the, 147
Manchester, 223 Miami, 28, 104, 113, 186
Mandrill, 244 Michael, Ras, 159
Mango Records, 231 Michigan & Smiley, 132, 133
Manley, Michael, 11, 14, 16, 128, 186, 190, 193, Mighty Diamonds, the, 13
198, 200, 207, 248, 250 Mighty Two, the, 169, 170, 171. See also
Manning, Carlton, 100 Gibbs, Joe; Thompson, Errol “Errol T.”
Manuel, Peter, 16, 246 Mikey Dread, 4, 225, 226; comments and
Margulis, Lynn, 255 interviews, 5, 45, 51, 53–54, 63, 66, 81, 85–
marijuana. See ganja 86, 106, 116, 154, 159, 186; photo, 182
Marley, Bob, 2, 12, 58, 60, 62, 83, 124, 139; Mikics, David, 203
collaboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Miller, Jacob, 65–66, 122, 123
9, 13, 144–46; death of, 185–86; interna- Miller, Paul D. See DJ Spooky
tional fame of, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 46, 91, 153, Mills, Jeff, 208, 209
190, 191, 222, 226, 240; popularity in Ja- minimalism, 3, 39, 226, 236, 237
maica, 4–5, 70, 103; Rastafari influence Minott, Sugar, 8, 132, 133
on, 15, 16, 17, 217; sound of, 81, 134; Mississippi State University, 113
works by, 1, 17, 69, 102–5, 145–46, 164, Mittoo, Jackie, 29, 48, 73, 96–97, 99, 120–21,
242. See also Wailers, the 147, 166
Marley, Rita, 139 Modeliste, 145
Maroons, the, 69 Molenga, Seke, 159, 161
Marre, Jeremy, 153, 155 Montego Bay, 28, 127, 169
Marsh, Dave, 214 Montgomery, Will, 202
Marshall, Larry, 33, 96, 98, 100 Moore, Dizzy, 166
Martin, George, 37, 45 Moore, Johnny, 30
Martin, Kevin, 89, 201, 212, 256 Moore, Thurston, 45
Masekela, Hugh, 164 Morant Bay, 111
Massachusetts College of Technology, 127 Morgan, Derrick, 30
Massive Attack, 227, 231, 235 Moroder, Giorgio, 244
Matthews, Winston “Pipe,” 7 Morris, Sylvan, 38, 40; association with
Matumbi, 231, 232 Harry J Studio, 19, 95, 98, 102–4, 105–6;
Maurizio, 237 association with Studio One, 19, 50, 51,
May, Derrick, 208, 209 72, 76, 95–100, 101–2, 105, 133, 163; collab-
Mayer, Roger, 83 oration with Augustus Pablo, 166; com-
Mayfield, Curtis, 225–26, 232 ments and interviews, 52–53, 54, 60–61,
mazurka, 27 77, 78, 95–99, 110; influence on Errol
mbari houses, 92 “Errol T.” Thompson, 163, 171; photo,
McCartney, Paul and Linda, 155 174; works by, 95, 99–100, 102–5, 106–7
McCook, Tommy, 30, 74, 120, 166, 172 Motion (record label), 25

Motown (record label), 28, 34, 146, 258 collaboration with King Tubby, 33; collab-
Motta, Stanley, 27, 49 oration with Lee “Scratch” Perry, 13; com-
MoWax (record label), 235 ments and interviews, [...], 220; friend-
Mundell, Hugh, 155 ship with “Prince” Philip Smart, 124, 125;
Murray, Albert, 251 photo, 180; works by, 16, 56–57, 95, 106,
Murvin, Junior, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 226 122–23, 155, 159, 166–67, 171, 172, 189, 228
Music Centers, Inc. (MCI), 113 Palmer, Robert, 155
Musical Youth, 227 palo (Afro-Cuban liturgical genre), 26
musique concrète, 38, 39, 75, 249 Pama (record label), 228
Musitronics, 153 Parade, the, 10, 50, 163
Mutabaruka, 62 Paris, 40, 253
Mwandishi, 208 Parisi, Luciana, 254–55
Myton, Cedric, 156 Parker, Charlie, 30
Parks, Lloyd, 33, 58, 167
Nagasaki, 204 Parliament, 208, 209
Nash, Johnny, 164 Patterson, Seeco, 103
Nelson, Alondra, 213 patwa, 7, 159, 194, 212, 215, 233
New Age Steppers, 229 Paul, Les, 37, 38
New Jersey, 153 Peego (engineer), 188
New Orleans, 28, 30, 160 People Funny Boy (book), 141
New York City, 7, 10, 40, 161, 221, 240; Ja- People’s National Party (PNP), 10, 14, 109,
maican music in, 9, 12, 246; other musics 186, 240
in, 3, 37, 45, 220, 240–41, 243–45, 246– Perry, Lee “Scratch,” 8, 196; as major figure
47, 249 in dub, 1, 2, 9, 19, 33, 34–35, 38, 69, 93,
New York Dolls, the, 225 94, 112, 140–62, 164, 165, 217, 219, 227; as
Nicaragua, 186 studio owner, 10, 13, 62, 150–51, 153–55,
Nichols, Jeb Loy, 232 159–61, 188; attitude toward ganja, 82;
Nigeria, 92 collaboration with Adrian Sherwood,
Ninja Tune (record label), 235 228, 229; collaboration with Augustus
Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (studio), 40 Pablo, 166; collaboration with Bob Mar-
Notting Hill Carnival, 222 ley and the Wailers, 56, 99, 103, 144–46;
Nottingham, 223 collaboration with Mad Professor, 230–
Now Generation, 170 31; comments and interviews, 185, 201,
Nyabinghi (Rastafarian liturgical genre), 27, 211; comparisons with, 106, 115, 120, 168,
103, 145, 146, 159, 166, 200, 213 169, 171, 230, 232, 248; influence on oth-
ers, 237, 241; life abroad, 13, 188, 189, 206,
Obeah, 102, 142, 160, 212 225; mental state of, 160–61, 212; musical
Ohio Players, the, 244 innovations by, 74, 76, 80, 100; photo,
Olympic Studios, 37 178; sound of, 202; works by, 17, 33, 75,
One People, 8 84, 87, 137, 141–50, 151–54, 156–59, 210,
“one-drop” (drumming pattern), 31, 32, 76, 226, 253. See also Black Ark
87, 99, 103, 115, 126, 130, 135, 193, 238 Pete, Jamaal, 101
On-U Sound, 228, 229 Peter Chemist, 41, 160
oral culture, 18, 22, 70, 90, 91, 93, 204, 214, Perez, Ras, 238
217, 250–51, 253 Petty, Norman, 38
Orb, the, 231 Phantom (engineer), 188
Orientalism, 43 Philips, Sam, 38
Osaka, 40 Philpott, George, 170
Osbourne, Brad, 125 Photek, 233, 234, 239
Osbourne, Johnny, 133, 134 Pickett, Wilson, 156, 157
Pinkney, Dwight, 134
Pablo, Augustus, 151, 165–67; as major fig- Pitterson, Karl, 59, 73–74, 105, 108, 123, 125,
ure in dub, 9, 58, 84, 117, 134, 196, 230; 170, 242

Pocomania (folk genre), 26–27, 142 Marley and the Wailers, 4, 15, 144, 190,
Pole, 236–37, 238 217; influence on contemporary Jamai-
Portishead, 235 can music, 193; influence on other musi-
possession, 200–201, 241, 248 cians, 81, 166, 217; influence on reggae,
“Post-Nationalist Geographies” (essay), 221, 5, 7, 11, 16, 18, 33, 80, 99, 144, 186, 187,
250 190, 200, 241; influence on ska, 30;
Pottinger, Sonia, 164 music of, 27, 122, 145, 156, 159, 200; mys-
Presley, Elvis, 28, 186 ticism in, 241; narratives of, 187, 190,
Pressure Sounds (record label), 25 192, 198, 202, 213, 223, 248, 250, 259;
Price, Billy, 164 popular images of, 225; slang, 61–62;
Prince Alla, 126 themes in song lyrics, 67, 88, 106, 122,
Prince Buster, 75, 94, 142, 190, 212, 230, 240 200, 201, 202, 217
Prince Far I, 16, 225, 228 raves, 85, 233, 243, 257, 259–60
Prince Jammy. See King Jammy Ray Symbolic (sound system), 53, 86
Prince Jazzbo, 55, 152, 158 Reagan, Ronald, 186, 187
Prince Patrick (sound system), 127 Record Plant (studio), 37
Professionals, the, 169, 171 Red Hills, 109
Professor, 41 Redding, Otis, 119, 157
Prophet, Michael, 134, 230 Redwood, Rudolph “Ruddy,” 52, 112
Prophets, the, 121, 122 “Reflections on Exile” (essay), 198
Protestant hymns, 27, 156 reggae, 196, 201, 218, 219; as an African-
Prysock, Arthur, 28 derived music, 16, 70, 250; as communal
psychedelia, 8, 18, 34, 80, 82–85, 128, 157, art form, 215; as source material, 75, 246,
200, 202, 209, 224, 235, 242 247; “country” reggae, 157; creation of,
Public Enemy, 194, 248 31–34; decline of, 185–88; devotional reg-
Public Image, Ltd., 226 gae, 166; economics of, 47–49, 161; em-
punk music, 3, 222, 225–26, 228, 233, 258 phasis on Africa, 199; fusion with jazz,
151; history of, 2, 4–7, 13, 31–34, 44, 76,
quadrille, 27 91, 95, 99, 102–3, 119, 128, 131, 134–35, 143,
Queens, 9 144–45, 159, 163–64, 185–88, 190–92; in
the United Kingdom, 221–23, 225–27,
Radio Jamaica Rediffusion (RJR), 49, 50 228, 231–32, 251; in the United States, 8,
Radio London, 226 9, 240–41, 258; influence on other musi-
Radiodiffusion Française (studio), 40 cal styles, 162; innovations in, 9, 46, 57–
ragga, 13, 17, 29, 62, 172, 187–88, 190–91, 195, 61, 87, 93, 133; musical traits of, 105, 120,
199, 247. See also dancehall music 121, 142, 145, 146, 147, 150, 166–67, 193,
Ramsey, Guthrie P., 23 213, 238; Rastafari influence on, 11, 15, 16,
Randy’s Impact (record label), 168. See also 17, 187, 200, 210, 217; relationship to
Randy’s Studio dub, 34, 63, 140, 212, 224, 243–44; rela-
Randy’s Studio, 47, 50, 53, 62, 125, 143; Errol tionship to ganja, 17, 18, 80, 81; relation-
“Errol T.” Thompson’s association with, ship to Jamaican culture, 14, 23, 35–36,
10, 19, 105, 112, 124, 145, 163–64, 166, 169– 190, 214, 216, 250; relationship to neo-
70; Lee “Scratch” Perry’s association dub, 229, 230, 231, 234, 242; scholarship
with, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150, 151; photo, on, 23–25, 141; sound quality of, 21, 60,
180 71–72, 80, 81, 97, 132, 210, 258; uptown
Ranglin, Ernest, 29, 41, 123, 189 reggae, 50. See also dancehall music; dub;
Ranking, Peter, 135, 137 Marley, Bob; ragga
rap, 193, 258 Reich, Steve, 3, 39
rapping. See toasting Reid, Arthur “Duke,” 169, 223; as producer,
Rastafari, 21, 82, 110, 134; beliefs of, 14, 15– 29, 30, 33, 34, 49, 50–51, 146; as sound
16, 198; growth of, 15–16; importance of system operator, 42, 109, 142; as studio
ganja to, 17, 18, 80; in Africa, 199; in the owner, 46, 52, 96, 105, 112, 117. See also
United Kingdom, 222; influence on Bob Treasure Isle; Trojan

Reid, Junior, 128 Sachs, Curt, 66
Reid, Norris, 123 Sadkin, Alex, 104, 105
Remix (book), 253 Safari, Rupununi, 230
Revival (Jamaican folk genre), 26–27 Said, Edward, 198, 199, 256
Revolutionaries, the, 46, 136 Salamon, Jeff, 253
Reynolds, Simon, 234, 235, 237, 239, 243 salsa, 63
rhumba, 29 Sam & Dave, 119
rhythm and blues (R&B), 28–30, 31, 32, 34, Sammy Dread, 137, 138
37, 61, 100, 142, 145, 193, 201, 209, 225, San Francisco, 83
244, 247 Santana, 121
Rhythm and Sound, 236, 237–38 santería (Afro-Cuban liturgical genre), 26
rhythm versions, 54 Schaefer, R. Murray, 85
Richards, Mikey “Boo,” 34, 171 Schaeffer, Pierre, 38, 39
Richardson, Bonham, 18 Schwartz, Peter, 220
Rickey, Carrie, 204 science fiction, 8, 101, 138–39, 154, 197, 208–
riddim, definition of, 48 10, 212, 213, 214, 254, 260
Riley, Jimmy, 148 Scientist, 40, 41, 59, 100, 136–39, 160, 188,
Riley, Winston, 62, 81, 191, 202 212; collaboration with King Tubby, 19,
Riser, Paul, 149 124, 132–33; collaboration with Linval
Robinson, Lloyd, 132 Thompson and Junjo Lawes, 33, 134;
Robotiks, the, 231 comments and interviews, 47, 60, 78–79,
rock music, 3, 98, 104, 225, 244; “alternative” 82, 110, 113–14, 115, 136, 188–89, 191, 210,
rock, 258; experimental rock, 3, 233; pro- 211, 215, 227, 258; life abroad, 206; pho-
gressive rock, 83, 128, 144; rock & roll, 5, tos, 175, 176; works by, 8, 101, 137–39
28–29, 35, 41, 82, 100, 186, 245. See also Scott, Lincoln “Style,” 34, 134, 135, 225, 228
psychedelia; punk music sea shanties, 27
rock steady, 30–31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 58, 95, 99, Seaga, Edward, 11, 49, 186, 187, 190, 207
135, 142, 143, 145, 165, 201, 221 Searching for the Perfect Beat (book), 260
“rockers” (drumming pattern), 135 Selassie, Haile, 5, 15, 154, 217
Rockers International, 122, 166 Sex Pistols, the, 226
Rockwell, John, 41 Shadow (record label), 235
Rodigan, David, 226 Shakespeare, Robbie, 33, 58–59, 63, 70, 81,
Rodney, Walter, 15 84–85, 89, 106, 128, 136, 171, 191, 201;
Roland Company, 153, 154 photo, 178. See also Sly & Robbie
Romeo, Max, 88, 151, 154, 155, 158, 163; com- shango (Afro-Trinidadian liturgical genre), 26
ments and interviews, 61, 69, 81–82, 89, Sharp, Chris, 243
141, 159, 194 Shaumark and Robinson, 155
Roots Radics, the, 46, 131, 134, 135, 137, 188, Shepherd’s Bush, 221
225, 228 Sherman, Bim, 228
Roots, Rock, Reggae (film), 153, 155 Sherwood, Adrian, 13, 25, 34, 59, 78–79, 162,
Roots Tradition (record label), 135 189, 224, 225, 226, 227–29, 242, 257;
Ross, Diana, 146 photo, 184
Ross, Stan, 37 Shirley, Roy, 112
Rouget, Gilbert, 200, 202 Sibbles, Leroy, 33, 58, 76, 96–97, 99, 100, 130
Roxy, the, 226 Sibley, Dudley, 51, 52, 57, 97, 141
Roxy Music, 3 Silvertones, the, 61
Ruby, Jack, 33 Simon, Peter, 29, 31, 35
Ruddock, Osbourne “King Tubby.” See Simply Red, 228
King Tubby Simpson, Gerald, 234. See also Guy Called
rude boys, 31, 33, 144, 187, 190 Gerald, A
Ruts, the, 231 Sims, Lowery, 41
RZA, the, 248 Sinclair, Dennis “Blackbeard,” 231

Sinker, Mark, 243 equalizer, 97–98; Roland Space Echo
Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat (sound system), (delay device), 153, 154, 158; Scully recorder,
42, 55, 98, 141, 241 49; Sound City amplifier, 98; Sound Tech-
Sir George (sound system), 109 nique console, 170; Soundcraft mixing
Sir Jessus, 223 console, 153; Soundimension mixing con-
Sir Mike (sound system), 109 sole, 98, 100; Tannoy monitors, 112; Teac
Sixteen, Earl, 125, 230 3340 recording console, 150; Teac mixing
Size, Roni, 233 console, 150; Telefunken speaker, 71
ska, 14, 29–31, 32, 33, 35, 95, 141, 142, 190, 221 Sound of Africa (book), 24
Skatalites, the, 8, 30, 46, 190 “Sound of Culture, The” (essay), 250
Skin, 170 sound processing, 2, 9, 37, 38, 51, 59, 61, 62, 63,
slackness songs, 5, 16, 79, 141, 163 71–78, 83, 84, 86, 93, 126, 130, 136, 155, 158,
slave orchestras, 27 168, 208, 213, 235, 238, 260; accumulation,
slavery, 23, 26, 27, 186, 197, 204, 205, 209, 213 67–70, 248; backward sound, 75; back-
Slemon, Steven, 203 ward tape manipulation, 37, 45, 84, 144;
Sly & Robbie, 5, 58, 70, 85, 128, 131, 134, 136, bleed-through, 74, 118, 138; clicks and
172, 227; photo, 178. See also Dunbar, cuts, 236; delay effect, 72–73, 74, 76–77,
Lowell “Sly”; Shakespeare, Robbie 78, 79, 98, 100, 106, 110, 121–22, 123, 128,
Small Acts (book), 252 129, 130, 131, 137, 138, 149, 153, 154, 171, 197,
Small, Millicent, 221 198; disruption, 72, 73, 86–87, 129, 200,
Smart, “Prince” Philip, 132, 133; collabora- 205, 206–7; distortion, 75, 93, 158, 167,
tion with King Tubby, 19, 60, 124–26; 194; double-tracking, 84, 100; dropout,
comments and interviews, 33, 57, 82, 108, 52, 88, 102, 118, 119, 120–21, 126, 129, 130,
110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 123, 124–26, 138, 152, 156, 166, 172, 220; echo effect, 8,
127, 148, 185, 188; life abroad, 206; photo, 72, 73, 78, 80, 83, 93, 98, 106, 110, 118, 121–
176; works by, 126 22, 123, 129, 137, 138, 144, 147, 149, 151, 156,
Smith, Byron, 50, 105, 108 158, 172, 192, 197, 198, 201–2, 220; equal-
Smith, Earl “Chinna,” 59 ization, 36, 51, 73–74, 77, 86, 88, 132, 133;
Smith, Mikey, 62 erasure, 196; extraneous material, 74, 131,
Smith, Patti, 225, 227 147, 158, 168, 171, 194; feedback, 45, 127,
Smith, Slim, 52, 112 152; filtering, 73, 88, 118, 119, 120, 126, 130,
Smith, Wayne, 188 131, 138, 153, 232; fragmentation, 2, 56, 57,
Smithies, Grant, 229 64–66, 70, 71, 77, 79, 107, 120–21, 123, 138,
Solid Foundation (book), 141 152, 158, 194, 196, 197, 199–200, 202, 203–
Soul Jazz (record label), 132 4, 206, 216, 224, 233, 234, 235, 247, 256,
soul music, 5, 30, 119, 128, 145, 147, 149, 150, 258–59; incompletion, 57, 248; overdub-
156, 193, 225, 243, 246, 247; “post-soul,” bing, 37, 57, 118, 133, 144, 168, 171, 172, 194,
243–44 206, 230; panning, 71, 84, 128, 130; phase
Soul Syndicate, 46, 118, 131, 170, 188 shifting, 84, 101, 120, 153–54, 156, 157, 232,
Sound Dimension, the, 98 241; reverberation, 7, 8, 36, 71–72, 74, 77,
sound equipment: Alice mixing console, 150– 80, 98, 100, 115–16, 118, 120, 121, 123, 126,
51, 153; API mixing console, 135; Electro- 127, 128, 130, 137, 138, 144, 145, 147, 149,
Harmonix Small Stone (phase shifting de- 153, 156, 168, 170, 171–72, 192, 197, 198, 199,
vice), 153; Fuzz Face distortion pedal, 98; 200, 201–2, 234; sampling, 3, 172, 193, 194,
Grantham reverberation unit, 151; Ma- 228, 233, 235, 236, 245–46, 247–48, 249,
rantz amplifier, 151; MCI mixing console, 253; scratching, 235, 245–46, 248; sequenc-
113–14, 115, 119, 121, 123; Mutron Bi-Phase ing, 3; sound effects, 37, 74, 89, 118, 132,
(phase-shifting device), 153; MXR Phase 133, 144, 149, 168, 170, 171, 172, 190, 194–
45 (phase-shifting device), 153; MXR 95, 230; talk-overs, 88; tape loops, 3, 72,
Phase 90 (phase-shifting device), 153; 115, 157; tape noise, 100, 101, 156, 158; tape
MXR Phase 100 (phase-shifting device), speed manipulation; 75, 87, 88, 149, 168,
153; Neve mixing console, 210; Pultec 213; tape splicing, 37, 75

sound systems, 83, 144, 251–52; as location of steel pan music, 28, 31
musical innovations, 46, 51–54, 88, 102, Steel Pulse, 11
110, 171, 246; as primary location of dub, Steffens, Roger, 25
43–44, 63, 78, 85–87, 88–89, 189, 200– “steppers” (drumming pattern), 32, 128, 157,
201, 238, 242, 243, 257; as primary loca- 171, 238
tion of ragga, 193; competitions Stereo (sound system), 109
between, 53–54, 85, 90, 141–42, 206, 211, Sterne, Jonathan, 24
214; culture of, 103, 109, 161, 250, 259; Stewart, Mark, 227
deejaying and, 55–56, 63, 197, 215, 216, Sting, 241
245; definition of, 5; importance to Ja- Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 3, 39, 40, 235, 249,
maican culture, 42–43, 91; in England, 250
82, 221, 223, 225, 232, 234, 235; in the Stolzoff, Norman, 43, 86
United States, 82, 240, 247; King Stone, Sly, 244
Tubby’s, 108–12, 117; operators of, 12, 28, Stubblefield, Clyde, 145
29, 124, 127, 210; rise of, 42; sound qual- Studio One, 49, 132–33, 169, 188, 216, 229;
ity of, 32, 58, 71, 85–86, 194, 200–201. See founding of, 50, 141; innovations at, 34,
also dancehalls; deejaying 52; Lee “Scratch” Perry’s association with,
sound technology, 13–14, 24, 44, 80, 90–91, 141, 143, 146; musicians at, 34, 48, 62, 121,
93, 160, 232, 253, 256, 259–60; advances in, 166; photo, 173; riddims of, 48, 58, 97, 161,
19, 36–38, 113, 118, 138, 143, 192, 210–11, 171, 193, 241; sound of, 50, 101; “Studio
212, 214, 217, 218, 239; amplifiers, 45, 95, One Stereo” mix, 54; Sylvan Morris’s as-
98, 109, 110, 111, 113, 127, 132, 151, 201, 210, sociation with, 19, 50, 51, 72, 76, 95–100,
259; balance control, 54; delay units, 72– 101–2, 105, 133, 163; works produced at,
73, 76–77, 100, 115, 121–22, 123, 131, 137, 48, 98, 99–100, 101, 132–33, 135
138, 149, 153, 154, 158, 171, 198, 234; digital Studio One (record label), 50
technology, 85, 217, 221, 233, 234, 244, Sub Dub, 249
246, 257, 259–60; digitization, 12–13, 93, Subharmonic (record label), 242
188, 191–94, 240, 243; dub’s use of, 8, 35, Summer, Donna, 244, 245
39, 40, 46, 57, 204, 208, 212, 213, 217, 248, Sun Ra, 208–9
258; echo units, 72, 98, 115, 151, 156; equal- Sun Records, 201
ization controls, 32, 80, 86; equalizer, 97– Sunshine Showdown, 68
98, 115; faders, 64, 112, 114, 119, 121, 210; Supremes, the, 146
high-pass filter, 114, 115, 119, 122, 131, 138; Surrealism, 197, 207
multitrack technology, 37, 49, 50, 55, 63, Sutherland, Gallimore, 101
77, 89, 90, 93, 96, 97, 105, 106, 112, 114, Swaby, Horace “Augustus Pablo.” See Pablo,
115, 117, 135, 150, 163, 168, 169, 170, 188, Augustus
210, 230, 257; mute switch, 64, 114, 121; swing music, 29, 60
other musics’ use of, 45, 85, 239, 243, 247, Syndrums, 136
248; phase shifters, 153; reverberation
units, 71, 75–76, 110, 115–16, 118, 138, 154, Tackhead, 228
198; samplers, 220, 253; sequencers, 220; Taitt, Lynn, 31
speakers, 71, 85, 97–98; turntables, 45, 55, Talking Heads, 3
211, 245; wah-wah pedal, 146 Tambu (folk genre), 26
Spanish Town, 52, 109 Tamoki Wambesi (record label), 224
Spector, Phil, 37, 154 tango, 24
Spencer Park School, 232 Tannenbaum, Rob, 220
Sprosen, John, 227 Taoism, 250
Squarepusher, 239 Tate, Greg, 41
St. Andrew, 124 Taxi Gang, 136. See also Dunbar, Lowell
St. George’s College, 124 “Sly”; Shakespeare, Robbie
St. Hilare, Paul, 238 Taylor, Cecil, 40
Stanford, Fred, 42 Taylor, Michael, 130
Stax-Volt (record label), 28, 119, 147, 157 Taylor, Rod, 72

Taylor, Timothy, 92 U-Brown, 55, 216
Techniques All-Stars, 234 UK Duke Reid (sound system), 223
techno music, 2, 233, 234, 236, 237, 238, 239 United Kingdom, 34, 41, 47, 49, 111, 112, 136,
television, 227 164, 218, 254; Jamaican immigrants in, 5,
Temptations, the, 149 221–25, 251; Jamaican music in, 83, 104,
Tenor Saw, 191 105, 128, 129, 130, 134, 154, 163, 221–27;
testimony, 204–5 musical developments in, 3, 37, 202, 227–
Tetrack, 123 35, 239; relationship to Jamaica, 26, 30,
Thatcher, Margaret, 187 35, 44. See also London
Third World, 227 United States, 41, 43, 47, 91, 125, 136, 139,
Thomas, Jah “Nkrumah,” 187–88 150, 253, 257, 259; African American civil
Thomas, Nicky, 169 rights movement, 14–15, 198, 243–44; Ja-
Thompson, Errol “Errol T.,” 2, 81, 93, 94, maican music in, 4, 11, 58; musical devel-
140, 150, 163–72, 230; association with opments in, 3, 28–29, 37, 38, 82, 83, 93,
Joe Gibbs, 10, 33, 74, 169–71, 194–95; as- 113, 217, 220, 240–48, 258; relationship to
sociation with Randy’s Studio, 10, 19, Jamaica, 14, 17, 18, 36, 44, 186, 213. See
105, 112, 124, 145, 163–64, 166, 169–70; in- also New York City
novations by, 38, 57; photos, 180, 181; University of Warwick, 254
works by, 163, 165, 166–68, 169, 170–72 Up Park Camp, 110
Thompson, Linval, 5, 33, 133, 134, 137, 152, 187 Upsetters, the, 46, 47, 87, 134, 143, 145, 147,
Thompson, Robert Farris, 24 148–50, 151, 152–53, 155, 156, 157, 158–59,
Thousand Plateaus, A (book), 254 161
Throbbing Gristle, 227 U-Roy, 51, 55, 56, 109, 110, 112, 149, 224, 230
Tikiman, 238 Ussachevsky, Vladimir, 39
Time (magazine), 1
Tippatone (sound system), 86 Velvet Underground, 225
Tito, Ras, 191 Village People, the, 245
toasting, 5, 6, 21, 39, 55–56, 62, 68, 84, 109, Virgin (record label), 222
194, 216, 220, 234, 235, 245, 247. See also vodun (Afro-Haitian liturgical genre), 26
deejaying von Oswald, Moritz, 236, 237–38
Toop, David, 41 VP Records, 9
Toots and the Maytals, 4, 33
Toronto, 127 wabi/sabi, 79
Tosh, Peter, 4, 5, 15, 16, 17, 58, 63, 70, 134, Wackie’s (record label), 241
144–46, 222 Wackie’s (sound system), 240
trance music, 234 Wailer, Bunny, 11, 63, 95, 102, 103, 106–7,
Treasure Isle (studio), 52, 89, 96, 112, 188; 144, 146
founding of, 50; musicians at, 34, 166, Wailers, the, 1, 4, 9, 56, 58, 62, 83, 99, 102–4,
240; riddims of, 58, 161, 171, 193, 241; 129, 141, 144–47, 149, 153, 159, 170, 242
songs of, 109, 166; sound of, 50, 105, 241 Wailing Souls, the, 7, 16, 134, 137, 138, 157
Tricky, 235 Walcott, Derek, 196, 203, 204
Trinidad, 44 Wales, Josey (DJ), 87, 88, 216
Trinity, 55 Walker, Errol “Bagga,” 33, 58, 97
trip-hop, 2, 227, 231, 233, 235, 239 Wallace, Leroy “Horsemouth,” 17, 34, 72,
Trojan (sound system), 42, 142 106, 130, 135
Trojan Records, 228, 242 Wallace, Willy D., 8
Tuari, Baba, 27 Wallis, Roger, 44
Tuff Gong (studio), 70, 105, 139 Walters, Burt, 144
Turner, Big Joe, 28 Wandsworth, 232
Turner, J. M. W., 120 War, 150, 244
Washington Gardens, 10, 13, 150
U2, 3 Waterhouse, 10–11, 12–13, 43, 109, 111, 112,
UB40, 231 118, 127, 128, 148

We, 249 World’s Fair, 40
West Indies Records (WIRL), 49, 96, 143 Wright, Winston, 143, 147
West Kingston, 10, 13, 29, 60, 109, 110, 150,
151 Yabby You, 9, 74, 116–17, 121, 122, 134, 165,
Western Recorders (studio), 37 217, 218, 230
White, Timothy, 12 Yap, Justin, 30
Whiteley, Sheila, 84 Yellowman, 11, 134
Whitfield, Norman, 149 Yinger, J. Martin, 215
Williams, Ranford, 145 Young, LaMonte, 3
Williams, Raymond, 17
Williams, Willie, 132 Zamora, Lois, 203
Wilson, Brian, 37 Zap Pow, 153
Wilson, Chris, 25 Zappa, Frank, 75, 147
Wilson, Delroy, 116, 141, 164 Zen Buddhism, 250
Wilson-Tagoe, Nana, 212 Zero, Earl, 66
Wonder, Stevie, 4 Zion Initiation, 8
Woodbridge, Christine, 227 Zukie, Tappa, 55, 67, 125, 126, 231
Woodstock, 84 Zurich, 162, 185

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about the author
Michael Veal is an associate professor of music at Yale University. He received his

M.A. and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He is the author of
Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon (Temple University Press,
2000), a sociocontextual biography of the late Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-
Kuti that uses the life of one of the most influential African musicians of the post–
World War II era to explore themes of African postcoloniality, musical and cultural
interchange between cultures of Africa and the African diaspora, and the political
uses of music in Africa.

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What are some of the topics discussed in the book?

What are some of the topics discussed in the book?

Dub

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songs in jamaican reggae

wesleyan university press

© 2007 by Michael E. Veal

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This book has been published with the assistance of the

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Veal, Michael E., 1963–

Space is a prime symbol of the aspirations of a people, permeating architecture, music,

List of Illustrations / viii

Appendix: Recommended Listening / 261

Figures 1–24 follow page 172.

Figure 25. Lee Perry’s Black Ark studio, 2002 / 195

[T]his is the kingdom of post-civilization, the disintegrated, post-

The Post–World War II Transformation of the

Although it also came to sell significantly abroad, another direction in

contexto de reproduccion: enormes conciertos vS dancehalls y colectivos de entretenimiento llamados soundsystms

Who no waan come cyaan stay

The song’s mystical message was reinforced by the production style,

The Ganja Factor

Romanticized by reggae and a sacrament in the island’s Rastafarian religious sect,

As a result of this situation, some have suggested that the connection

Electronic Music in Jamaica

However unique it may be in the soundscape of black popular music,

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 27

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 29

Other accounts attribute the change to a “darker” social mood reflecting

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 31

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 33

What might be thought of as Jamaica’s period of musical modernity was

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 35

Electronic Music in Jamaica

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 37

The innovations described above were by no means limited to the realm of

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 39

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 41

The Jamaican Sound System

Electronic Music in Jamaica / 43

“Every Spoil Is A Style”

In America, if Michael Jackson makes a record, the master tape is sit-

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 45

Producers, Studios, and the Reconfiguration

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 47

The Early Years of Studio Recording in Jamaica

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 49

Studio One and Treasure Isle

Some musicians cited differences in the musical approaches of Studio

Dub Plates and Rhythm Versions

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 51

This was a seminal moment. Producers’ strategy of partially or com-

Clive Chin remembers that at Randy’s, these versions were deliberately

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 53

The Rise of the DJ

“Every Spoil Is a Style” / 55