Black Man’s Pride is the striking new Studio One collection of deep righteous reggae, featuring Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, The Gladiators, Sugar Minott, The Heptones, Freddie McGregor, Cedric Brooks & more.
While the righteousness of blackness is at the heart of the Rastafarian
faith, this collection
illustrates how black pride remained a central theme, if not the defining
essence, at the very core of all the music created at Studio One Records under
the direction of Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd.
In order to understand the centrality of black identity in the music created at Studio One, we need look no further than Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd who created the first black-owned record company in Jamaica.
In similar fashion Alton Ellis’s defining ‘Black Man’s Pride’
brings up emotions that are at the
heart of many of these uplifting songs. Alton Ellis’ birthplace was the Trench
Town ghetto of
Kingston, also the birthplace of The Wailers, Ken Boothe and many other Studio
One luminaries.
Clement Dodd established a musical empire firmly rooted by the core musicians
working at
Studio One, many of whom came out of the Alpha School for Wayward Boys,
essentially an
orphanage run by Roman Catholic nuns, whose luminaries include Don Drummond,
Johnny
Moore, Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, Cedric Brooks, Vin Gordon, Tommy McCook
& more.
Many of the songs featured here come from the transitory phase in reggae at the
start of the 1970s, after the exhilaration of Ska and following the cooling down
of Rocksteady. While reggae awaited the arrival of roots, Studio
One’s vocalists were already producing some of the moodiest music imaginable!
Here are 18 heavyweight tunes, both classic cuts and super-rare tunes!
This new album is released as a heavyweight gatefold double-LP edition (+ download code), CD digital and with full text.