Hello, we're still on that island with a huge place in the global music catalogue, Jamaica. A production hothouse and they say the Weed makes you slow and lazy-go figure. Without the ganja driven reggae music Jamaica would have remained a Caribbean backwater and dare i say would never have given us Bolt, the fastest man in the world.
Can't get enough of that dub music ? Well here's some more
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1944, Michael James Williams (Prince Far I ) actually started his career in the sound systems, DJing that didn't pay the bills, however, and the young man also worked as a security guard at Joe Gibbs' studio. Eventually, he was then employed by Coxsone Dodd as a bouncer for the producer's own Studio One sound system. There the bouncer got to take the mic standing in, the end result was the "Queen of the Minstrel" released under the moniker King Cry Cry,
The career progressed slowly and as the titles to his early singles show, he had yet to find his true voice. Even after producer Enos McLeod recommended changing his name to Prince Far I -- the Voice of Thunder, under which name he was credited on the "Let Jah Arise" single, the performer had yet to set the island alight. He did, however, chalk up another minor hit with the Coxsone Dodd-produced "Natty Farmyard," It wasn't until 1976 that Prince Far I recorded his debut album, Psalms for I. Produced by Lloydie Slim, it comprised ten tracks in all -- the Lord's Prayer and nine psalms, across which the artist first previewed the sermon-esque deliveries that would become his trademark. Producer Joe Gibbs finally supplied the missing ingredient in 1977 for the seminal single "Heavy Manners." Utilizing the rhythm from Naggo Morris' "Su Su Pon Rasta," the producer spun a deeply dubby sound, the bass line as heavy as a rhinoceros and just as dangerous. Over this fierce, dread backing, Prince Far I sarcastically addressed the trenchant of laws enacted by the government to stem the tide of violence that had covered the island. On his new album, Under Heavy Manners, Prince Far I delivered Rastafarian diatribes and scathing political comments, supported by The Roots Radics that laid down the thunderous rhythms, from which Gibbs created the doom-laden, dread-laced atmosphere. It got him a cult following in europe and a deal with the Virgin label's subsidiary Front Line. The first fruits of this new union appeared in 1978 with the Message From the King album. Self-produced, the record was nearly the equal to its predecessor.
Prince Far I launched his own label, Cry Tough in 1978, as a home for his own work and for other artists with a similar philosophy. Utilizing the superlative Roots Radics (who appear as the Arabs), Cry Tough unleashed a stream of ferocious singles.Meanwhile back in Britain, Adrian Sherwood, established his own Hit Run label, domestically releasing Cry Tuff singles. In 1979, Health and Strength should have been released, but wasn't because the master tapes disappeared from Front Line's London office, the album remained lost until 1998. In that year, a former employee came across an old cassette he had dubbed previous to the tapes vanishing. Prince Far I obviously was not very happy with Front Line and having now fulfilled his contract with them, he moved on.. To Trojan but from then on he would work alongside Adrian Sherwood. with the Creation Rebel and Singers and Players, he recorded a number of singles between 1979 and 1981, as well as the album Prince Far I & Singers and Players, which was released on Sherwood's new label On-U. (The Roots Radics, aka the Arabs, aka Dub Syndicate.also recorded for On U)
The following year's Voice of Thunder , with "Ten Commandments" of particular note is released aswell as the third and fourth volumes of Cry Tuff Dub Encounter featuring further scintillating voyages into the heaviest of dub's doom. In 1982, Prince Far I collaborated with the British band Sons of Arqa for the "Wadada Magic" single. Later that same year, the group and artist paired again during the Jamaican's British tour, this time on-stage in Manchester for a stunning show captured on The Musical Revue album. Prince Far I returned to Jamaica and released his final album in the new year, Musical History. The plans for future recordings with the Sons of Arqa never came about as on September 15, 1983, Prince Far I's lfe came to an abrupt end when he was killed during a robbery at his home. In 1991, Adrian Sherwood sampled some of the artist's old vocals for the Dub Syndicate's album, Stoned Immaculate. The band even took him on tour in 1996 and again, through the magic of sampling, Prince Far I lived on providing the thunderous vocals to the group's musical set.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
The gravel-voiced DJ Prince Far I recorded a number of albums for Virgin's Front Line imprint in the late 1970s, and though bad blood later developed between the artist and the label (as Prince Far I would explain in bitter detail on "Virgin," a 10" single recorded for On-U Sound in 1981), those Front Line recordings remain some of his best. When the first set of Front Line reissues hit the U.S. marketplace in the early 1990s, the Prince Far I material was represented by two collections, one of which (Black Man Land) included the entirety of his Livity album and seven of the ten tracks from Message From the King. Now that Message From the King is available separately, fans who snapped up the 1990 compilation will wonder whether those three cuts are sufficient to justify purchase of the original album. For fans, the answer is probably yes -- "Wisdom," "Concrete Column," and "Dry Bone" are as good as everything else on the program, which is to say very good indeed. For the merely curious, either of the previous compilations will do.
Prince Far I and The Arabs – Message From The King (flac 222mb)
01 Message From The King 3:32
02 The Dream 3:15
03 Commandment Of Drugs 4:11
04 Moses, Moses 3:34
05 Blackman Land 3:29
06 Concrete Column 3:01
07 Dry Bone 3:02
08 Foggy Road 4:15
09 Wisdom 3:00
10 Armageddon 3:47
***** ***** *****
This is not a normal Prince Far I album, I warn you. On this record, Prince Far I's band plays amazing dub versions of his songs. The only thing Prince Far I himself does on this record, is announce the songs at the start of 'em. He does that marvelously, off course. His raw jungle voice is only needed at the start of each song to create the same effect that some singers need the whole song for to create. What we have is a 1979 dub album with some of the heaviest, most mesmerizing dub bass you'll ever encounter. Bassist Errol 'Flaba' Holt is the star here, and the tight rhythms and sparse accompaniment leave the field nice and clear for his deep, muscular, and mind-warping bass lines. Flaba locks into steady, hypnotic, repetitive bass motifs that he tweaks ever so slightly so as to keep them engaging without ever breaking the trance. Flaba's bass is relentless and insistent, like a river carving through rock. The musicians would go on to form the core of the Roots Radics in the early '80s.
Prince Far I And The Arabs – Dub To Africa (flac 235mb)
01 Bass Ace 3:51
02 Dub To Africa 3:19
03 Good Music Brother 3:35
04 Glory To God 3:41
05 Hello, Love Brother 5:31
06 Cry Tuff & The Originals 3:22
07 Give Love 3:19
08 Big Fight Dub 4:13
09 Internal Dub 4:07
10 Out Of The Abyss 4:02
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
U-Roy (born Ewart Beckford, 21 September 1942, Jones Town, Jamaica), also known as The Originator. His musical career began in 1961 when he began deejaying at various sound systems. This included a stint operating Sir Coxsone Dodd's Number Two set, while King Stitt "The Ugly One" ran the main set. U-Roy eventually worked with King Tubby at Duke Reid's Sound System in the late 1960s. Around this period, King Tubby had started to experiment with his studio equipment in an attempt to create new effects and sounds, which would eventually lead to a new style of Reggae called dub music. With U-Roy as his most prominent deejay, King Tubby's new sound became extraordinarily popular and U-Roy a local celebrity.
Calling himself, "your ace from outer space", U-Roy revolutionized the musical style of reggae in 1969. Even though U-Roy was not the first microphone artist, he was the first to gain recognition through recording this style. U-Roy popularized and gained a wider audience for "toasting"; rapping over "versions" of popular songs remixed by King Tubby. Considered one of Jamaica's first Deejay stars, "U-Roy raised the art of toasting to new heights.
U-Roy's success continued throughout the 1970s, perhaps most famously with the album Dread in a Babylon, produced by "Prince" Tony Robinson and propelled by the album's skank smash hit "Runaway Girl". By the early 1980s he had become one of Jamaica's biggest stars, also garnering significant acclaim in the United Kingdom.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Even without the music, this album would still leap off the racks; its photo of U Roy exhaling a mushroom cloud of marijuana smoke from his ever-available pipe ranks among the all-time greatest covers, regardless of genre. However, U Roy doesn't have any trouble coming across as a distinctive presence; his scattershot repertoire of barks, chants, and screams is as critical or more important as the deft, unobtrusive backing woven behind him. U Roy imposes his own willful style, regardless of setting. This album ranks among the '70s dub masterpieces, even if the odd lyrical clinker keeps it from perfection; "Runaway Girl"'s glistening skank can't paper over its sexism (which suggests the girl in question "may be nice/but you're not that smart"). Even so, sometimes an artist only needs charisma to get across, and U Roy handily wins on that score.
U Roy – Dread In A Babylon (flac 199mb)
01 Runaway Girl 3:45
02 Chalice In The Palace 3:28
03 I Can't Love Another 3:22
04 Dreadlocks Dread 2:45
05 The Great Psalms 2:48
06 Natty Don't Fear 2:28
07 African Message 2:41
08 Silver Bird 3:10
09 Listen To The Teacher 2:38
10 Trench Town Rock 2:48
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Elsewhere
Prince Far I - Silver & Gold 1973-1979 ( 05 * 98mb)
Prince Far I - Under Heavy Manners ( 126mb)
U Roy – Version Of Wisdom (flac 309mb)
U Roy – Version Of Wisdom ( ogg 120mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Can't get enough of that dub music ? Well here's some more
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1944, Michael James Williams (Prince Far I ) actually started his career in the sound systems, DJing that didn't pay the bills, however, and the young man also worked as a security guard at Joe Gibbs' studio. Eventually, he was then employed by Coxsone Dodd as a bouncer for the producer's own Studio One sound system. There the bouncer got to take the mic standing in, the end result was the "Queen of the Minstrel" released under the moniker King Cry Cry,
The career progressed slowly and as the titles to his early singles show, he had yet to find his true voice. Even after producer Enos McLeod recommended changing his name to Prince Far I -- the Voice of Thunder, under which name he was credited on the "Let Jah Arise" single, the performer had yet to set the island alight. He did, however, chalk up another minor hit with the Coxsone Dodd-produced "Natty Farmyard," It wasn't until 1976 that Prince Far I recorded his debut album, Psalms for I. Produced by Lloydie Slim, it comprised ten tracks in all -- the Lord's Prayer and nine psalms, across which the artist first previewed the sermon-esque deliveries that would become his trademark. Producer Joe Gibbs finally supplied the missing ingredient in 1977 for the seminal single "Heavy Manners." Utilizing the rhythm from Naggo Morris' "Su Su Pon Rasta," the producer spun a deeply dubby sound, the bass line as heavy as a rhinoceros and just as dangerous. Over this fierce, dread backing, Prince Far I sarcastically addressed the trenchant of laws enacted by the government to stem the tide of violence that had covered the island. On his new album, Under Heavy Manners, Prince Far I delivered Rastafarian diatribes and scathing political comments, supported by The Roots Radics that laid down the thunderous rhythms, from which Gibbs created the doom-laden, dread-laced atmosphere. It got him a cult following in europe and a deal with the Virgin label's subsidiary Front Line. The first fruits of this new union appeared in 1978 with the Message From the King album. Self-produced, the record was nearly the equal to its predecessor.
Prince Far I launched his own label, Cry Tough in 1978, as a home for his own work and for other artists with a similar philosophy. Utilizing the superlative Roots Radics (who appear as the Arabs), Cry Tough unleashed a stream of ferocious singles.Meanwhile back in Britain, Adrian Sherwood, established his own Hit Run label, domestically releasing Cry Tuff singles. In 1979, Health and Strength should have been released, but wasn't because the master tapes disappeared from Front Line's London office, the album remained lost until 1998. In that year, a former employee came across an old cassette he had dubbed previous to the tapes vanishing. Prince Far I obviously was not very happy with Front Line and having now fulfilled his contract with them, he moved on.. To Trojan but from then on he would work alongside Adrian Sherwood. with the Creation Rebel and Singers and Players, he recorded a number of singles between 1979 and 1981, as well as the album Prince Far I & Singers and Players, which was released on Sherwood's new label On-U. (The Roots Radics, aka the Arabs, aka Dub Syndicate.also recorded for On U)
The following year's Voice of Thunder , with "Ten Commandments" of particular note is released aswell as the third and fourth volumes of Cry Tuff Dub Encounter featuring further scintillating voyages into the heaviest of dub's doom. In 1982, Prince Far I collaborated with the British band Sons of Arqa for the "Wadada Magic" single. Later that same year, the group and artist paired again during the Jamaican's British tour, this time on-stage in Manchester for a stunning show captured on The Musical Revue album. Prince Far I returned to Jamaica and released his final album in the new year, Musical History. The plans for future recordings with the Sons of Arqa never came about as on September 15, 1983, Prince Far I's lfe came to an abrupt end when he was killed during a robbery at his home. In 1991, Adrian Sherwood sampled some of the artist's old vocals for the Dub Syndicate's album, Stoned Immaculate. The band even took him on tour in 1996 and again, through the magic of sampling, Prince Far I lived on providing the thunderous vocals to the group's musical set.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
The gravel-voiced DJ Prince Far I recorded a number of albums for Virgin's Front Line imprint in the late 1970s, and though bad blood later developed between the artist and the label (as Prince Far I would explain in bitter detail on "Virgin," a 10" single recorded for On-U Sound in 1981), those Front Line recordings remain some of his best. When the first set of Front Line reissues hit the U.S. marketplace in the early 1990s, the Prince Far I material was represented by two collections, one of which (Black Man Land) included the entirety of his Livity album and seven of the ten tracks from Message From the King. Now that Message From the King is available separately, fans who snapped up the 1990 compilation will wonder whether those three cuts are sufficient to justify purchase of the original album. For fans, the answer is probably yes -- "Wisdom," "Concrete Column," and "Dry Bone" are as good as everything else on the program, which is to say very good indeed. For the merely curious, either of the previous compilations will do.
Prince Far I and The Arabs – Message From The King (flac 222mb)
01 Message From The King 3:32
02 The Dream 3:15
03 Commandment Of Drugs 4:11
04 Moses, Moses 3:34
05 Blackman Land 3:29
06 Concrete Column 3:01
07 Dry Bone 3:02
08 Foggy Road 4:15
09 Wisdom 3:00
10 Armageddon 3:47
***** ***** *****
This is not a normal Prince Far I album, I warn you. On this record, Prince Far I's band plays amazing dub versions of his songs. The only thing Prince Far I himself does on this record, is announce the songs at the start of 'em. He does that marvelously, off course. His raw jungle voice is only needed at the start of each song to create the same effect that some singers need the whole song for to create. What we have is a 1979 dub album with some of the heaviest, most mesmerizing dub bass you'll ever encounter. Bassist Errol 'Flaba' Holt is the star here, and the tight rhythms and sparse accompaniment leave the field nice and clear for his deep, muscular, and mind-warping bass lines. Flaba locks into steady, hypnotic, repetitive bass motifs that he tweaks ever so slightly so as to keep them engaging without ever breaking the trance. Flaba's bass is relentless and insistent, like a river carving through rock. The musicians would go on to form the core of the Roots Radics in the early '80s.
Prince Far I And The Arabs – Dub To Africa (flac 235mb)
01 Bass Ace 3:51
02 Dub To Africa 3:19
03 Good Music Brother 3:35
04 Glory To God 3:41
05 Hello, Love Brother 5:31
06 Cry Tuff & The Originals 3:22
07 Give Love 3:19
08 Big Fight Dub 4:13
09 Internal Dub 4:07
10 Out Of The Abyss 4:02
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
U-Roy (born Ewart Beckford, 21 September 1942, Jones Town, Jamaica), also known as The Originator. His musical career began in 1961 when he began deejaying at various sound systems. This included a stint operating Sir Coxsone Dodd's Number Two set, while King Stitt "The Ugly One" ran the main set. U-Roy eventually worked with King Tubby at Duke Reid's Sound System in the late 1960s. Around this period, King Tubby had started to experiment with his studio equipment in an attempt to create new effects and sounds, which would eventually lead to a new style of Reggae called dub music. With U-Roy as his most prominent deejay, King Tubby's new sound became extraordinarily popular and U-Roy a local celebrity.
Calling himself, "your ace from outer space", U-Roy revolutionized the musical style of reggae in 1969. Even though U-Roy was not the first microphone artist, he was the first to gain recognition through recording this style. U-Roy popularized and gained a wider audience for "toasting"; rapping over "versions" of popular songs remixed by King Tubby. Considered one of Jamaica's first Deejay stars, "U-Roy raised the art of toasting to new heights.
U-Roy's success continued throughout the 1970s, perhaps most famously with the album Dread in a Babylon, produced by "Prince" Tony Robinson and propelled by the album's skank smash hit "Runaway Girl". By the early 1980s he had become one of Jamaica's biggest stars, also garnering significant acclaim in the United Kingdom.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Even without the music, this album would still leap off the racks; its photo of U Roy exhaling a mushroom cloud of marijuana smoke from his ever-available pipe ranks among the all-time greatest covers, regardless of genre. However, U Roy doesn't have any trouble coming across as a distinctive presence; his scattershot repertoire of barks, chants, and screams is as critical or more important as the deft, unobtrusive backing woven behind him. U Roy imposes his own willful style, regardless of setting. This album ranks among the '70s dub masterpieces, even if the odd lyrical clinker keeps it from perfection; "Runaway Girl"'s glistening skank can't paper over its sexism (which suggests the girl in question "may be nice/but you're not that smart"). Even so, sometimes an artist only needs charisma to get across, and U Roy handily wins on that score.
U Roy – Dread In A Babylon (flac 199mb)
01 Runaway Girl 3:45
02 Chalice In The Palace 3:28
03 I Can't Love Another 3:22
04 Dreadlocks Dread 2:45
05 The Great Psalms 2:48
06 Natty Don't Fear 2:28
07 African Message 2:41
08 Silver Bird 3:10
09 Listen To The Teacher 2:38
10 Trench Town Rock 2:48
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Elsewhere
Prince Far I - Silver & Gold 1973-1979 ( 05 * 98mb)
Prince Far I - Under Heavy Manners ( 126mb)
U Roy – Version Of Wisdom (flac 309mb)
U Roy – Version Of Wisdom ( ogg 120mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
11 comments:
Thanks very much!
Hi there! Thanks for all the great music! Could you please reup Prince Far i "Dub to Africa"?
Thanks!
Can do Anon .Prince Far i "Dub to Africa" has just been re-upped N'Joy
re-re-up? (all, if possible) Pretty please...those are dub milestones.
you may as well ignore my comment above.
I called 849998213622C8D608BD68BD26ECE6D71C7EE753 and received 4.2GB happiness.
Excellent Blog you have here!
Reup please Rho?
The U-Roy link is dead Rho. Many thanks for the uploads mate.
Dearest Rho, would it be possible to re-upload both the Prince Far I albums "Dub To Africa" & "Under Heavy Manners" one day soon?
Much thanks, as always, for your in-depth & far ranging posts.
Dearest Rho, much thanks for the wonderful "Dub to Africa" re-upload - very much appreciated!
Would it be possible to do the same for the wondrous "Under Heavy Manners" work?
Much thanks yet again.
Dearest Rho, much thanks for the wonderful "Dub to Africa" re-upload - very much appreciated!
Would it be possible to do the same for the wondrous "Under Heavy Manners" work?
Much thanks yet again.
Hi Rho,
Can you please re_up U Roy – Dread In A Babylon
Kind regards
ZT
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