Barrington Levy
A teenage voice cutting through Roots Radics bass like a horn. Barrington Levy helped define early dancehall singing before carrying that raw cry into decades of reggae, jungle and hip-hop collaborations.
Barrington Levy entered Kingston studios as a teenager at the end of the 1970s. Producer Henry “Junjo” Lawes and the Roots Radics gave him the lean, heavy tracks heard on “Shine Eye Gal,” “Collie Weed,” “Looking My Love” and the albums Englishman and Bounty Hunter. His sharp, elastic delivery helped make the singer as central to early dancehall as the deejay. “Here I Come,” “Too Experienced” and “Murderer” kept the voice current through later eras, while UK jungle and hip-hop artists repeatedly sampled or invited him onto tracks. The crossovers matter because they follow the sound-system route already inside his records; they are not a late attempt to bolt another genre onto a roots singer.