Just woke to some terrible news via The Reggae Thread.
The founding father of Toasting/Dee-Jay style Reggae without whom there would have been no Hip Hop/Rap
Daddy U Roy has passed away
He revolutionised sound system and dance Hall Reggae when he literally invented the art of Toasting. Before U Roy DJ’s would announce records, but U Roy developed a kind of Jive talking style introducing records with rhymes like “live the life you love and love the life you live…” “love is lovely war is kinda ugly…”
He went to Treasure Isle Studio - famous for most of the hits of the late sixties Rocksteady Period - in the early Seventies and started recording himself “Toasting” over those late Sixties Rocksteady tunes, completely transforming them and ushering in a new sub genre, the Dee-Jay later known as Dance Hall style.
Many of those first tunes were gathered on the essential Version Galore album.
This soon led to the tradition developed by King Tubby of JA 45 singles having a “version” on the B Side which was an instrumental or dub of the vocal A side for Dee-Jays to stretch out and Toast lyrics rather than just simple rhymes. U Roy led the way in the art on Sound Systems Stur Gav & King Tubby"s Home Town HiFi. Paving the way for others like I Roy, Big Youth, Dillinger, Trinity, Dennis Alcapone you name them… and the whole phenomenon of Dub.
Kool Herc took this JA art form to New York and Hip Hop was born…
The contribution to JA music and its worldwide impact by U Roy & King Tubby cant be underestimated, truly a legend
RIP U Roy
